The privilege of RISK

A few days ago, I posted something about my NRYLI* experience during my final (and 5th) year in college. It was in December 2009. Since I consider that event as one of the most memorable college experiences I had, I also learned a lot of things from it that they keep coming back, now that I am in the process of reclaiming values from my crusading years as a "disgruntled" student who wanted to find his way into the world. So here's another not-so-distant reminiscence...

During my sophomore year and for a reason I do not know, I almost got the chance to attend NRYLI. As a demure student then, without having any involvement to claim except of course being a Social Sciences student, I didn’t expect my name to be included in the initial list of delegates. Not until I learned that Dr. Cuaresma, a faculty in the Social Sciences Department, was given the task of handling the CLSU delegation, and with his notion that the conference was only fit for Social Sciences students, has chosen only students from our course.

Of course I came to appreciate later Dr. Cuaresma’s esteem for our discipline—and there’s even a sense of academic boast in that—but the university administrators that time, has found his suggestion to be rather unpleasant and self-serving.

So, after an informal meeting at the Office of Students Affairs and after student council chairperson Francisco Pablo disapproved our petition asking for additional financial support from the Student Development Fund to accommodate all delegates— I was informed that I got chopped from the original list of participants which Dr. Cuaresma prepared. They cited protocols and regulations and what-have-yous to justify their decision.

I did not actually protest, but inside me, I was vehement. Not until I learn to appreciate healthy competition and delve deeply with the politics in CLSU that my vehemence turned into rage. How come that majority of CLSU students do not avail Development Funds which in fact they paid for and are intended for their development? How come that only those in the so-called student leadership positions can avail much of the SDF which is paid for by every single student of CLSU, except maybe for the scholars?

Of course my former notion did change when I already began to involve myself in student organizations, like when I finally joined the CLSU Collegian (the university student publication) to become a probationary writer, who patiently waited to rise from the ranks, got promoted, and eventually became the Editor-in-Chief and Junior Adviser.

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My notion regarding the inequality in the university did actually change when I was finally given the privilege to attend conferences, leadership trainings, campus journalism seminars, press congresses and other related activities which the CLSU Collegian, and as being a student with a leadership position entitled me to attend.

It was when I found myself being asked with the same questions, and thus faced the burden of finding a sensible answer to them.

Archimedes Gapuz (aka Che-che) my senior roommate at the Dungon dormitory during my freshman year in CLSU, in trying to drive hard his point, argued and decried for many times that only those who are in the position were given the chance to avail the SDF. He said that student leaders even use their ‘authority’ to abuse the fund of the students to sustain their extracurricular “fancies”.

Though indirectly stated, he claimed that there is inequality in there, and he just can’t accept the fact that the money he pays for the SDF is being used by just some ‘students’ in the university.

And though I appreciate his being critical on these matters—yes, he was a Social Sciences student like me by the way—and he may be right in some arguments, but I still say that he was being overstated, and rather resentful in many ways.

I considered it for the first time, though I could also be wrong, that there is actually no inequality in there, just for the plain reason that opportunities in the university do not only come as a ‘right’ reserved for everyone, but is also a ‘privilege’ for those who wanted more than to just sit down with books and lessons and be contended to survive within the four walls of the classroom. Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that education is a right of every person. But that person must be responsible on how he gets that education, or what kind of education he gets while he can.

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I defended that we who are in the student positions avail the SDF merely because it is our privilege, which not only comes to us as being in the ‘position’ but that which comes to us as being individuals, or ‘plain students’ who happens to have that desire to rise above mediocrity, and who wanted to explore with daring the horizon that is laid before each one of us.

It’s funny to think that before, you can’t help but question the system, but when you finally become part of that system that you find yourself in what others may consider a difficult spot, but for you is an awakening to the realities of life. If it needs to compromise your former belief systems to the blaring fact before you, the one that is real and illuminating, then that I think is the essence of being able to understand the meaning of things.

Of course I sounded to have justified the system that I admit was not perfect at all. But in justifying what we stood for during those times, I believe that obtaining privileges such as what ‘involved students’ get in the university is rightfully deserved by them, because as I’ve said, they took the step to become better than others.

I know that at that time there were even better students in the university than us; I know that there were better writers and student leaders and student journalists out there compared to us; I know that there were smarter and more creative individuals than us, but the difference—and the only thing that I say which made us better than the rest is that we ACT. The big difference was that we DO things. The great difference was that when the others were just there criticizing and just merely existing, we STAND to realize things, we WALK to carry our talk, and we CHANGE even if change was only a superficial fact for others.

The absolute difference was that we confronted our fears, we defied our reservations, we rebelled against our own indifference, we challenged our limitations, and we risked silence and simple life so that other people may come to realize that after all, our collective voices matter, that our voices were not only whispers in the dark, but voices that CAN effect change.

What I did when I already graduated from college and became a teacher in the university was to encourage my students to be involved in the university, to think not only as a student but a free individual that can do better than just read and study. Because it’s true, people are given life, and it’s also in their hand how life should be spent.

Again I remember Sir Ponti, my teacher in Philosophy of Man, regarding this. In one of our class sessions where he encouraged his students to ‘drop the bowlines and sail’, he exclaimed to those who have no involvements in the campus: “what a boring existence!” And there was no humiliation in that, just encouragement and a little prodding for the better. That’s why I love Sir Ponti. Boy, that man is legend.

Since then, I have used my teaching position to encourage other students to drop the bowlines and sail. I still do so now in my own, little ways, though I’m already out of the teaching profession. I am committed to do so because I also once dropped the bowlines and sailed and have found it very worth the risk. I still do.

And it's awesome…       

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*NRYLI, or National Rizal Youth Leadership Insitute under the Knights of Rizal (KoR), conducts this prestigious annual national youth leadership congress. It is attended by student leaders and writers from around the country. It is being held in honor of and to propagate the noble teachings of Dr. Jose Rizal)