Leadership is a performing art

That enviable kind of sparkling, visionary leadership came quite early in the life of 28-year-old teacher Efren Peñaflorida, who was voted CNN Hero of the year. Peñaflorida obtained the highest number of online votes at 2.75 million. He won over nine other outstanding CNN heroes, but became the most outstanding, winning a purse of US$100,000, which he readily donated to further the pursuit of the goals of his group of young followers, the Dynamic Teen Company (DTC).

By now, we are all aware of this achievement. For a gentleman so young, his vision in founding the DTC came at a time when the statistics on the participation and dropout rates in basic education are dismal; when the lack of teachers and fundamental essentials like classrooms and learning materials has become disgraceful.

Antonio L. Tinio, national chairperson of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), released a statement in relation to this matter: “Peñaflorida’s ‘pushcart classroom’ is one creative and compassionate Filipino’s response to the crisis in education brought about by the Arroyo administration’s failure to provide free public education to the poor. In spite of Malacanang’s claim that it has brought about economic growth, the Filipino youth are being pushed out of schools largely due to poverty. In the nearly one decade of Mrs. Arroyo’s stay in power, there has been a staggering increase in the number of school dropouts. Enrollment figures have been declining since 2003, an unprecedented phenomenon not seen in previous administrations. According to the Department of Education, there are currently 5.2 million out-of-school children. This is Arroyo’s legacy in education.”

While we hail Peñaflorida for his heroic efforts, we must not forget that it is our government first and foremost that is responsible for educating our youth.

Released by Prof. Tinio just yesterday, we cannot agree with his assessment more. This is another one of those shameful situations where the following slogan coined by a 14-year-old boy, who drafted a letter for one of our newspapers, decided not to mail it but instead sent it to me via e-mail: “Absent the government or starkly deficient the government, the private sector steps in.”

The youthful leadership so enviably portrayed by Efren Peñaflorida is like no other. It is sui generis — indeed, an outstanding one-of-a-kind!

Leadership is, after all, as one UP professor put it, a “performing art, which, by the way, is of two kinds — one that performs with the exigency of a public relations platform without actually doing anything, and the other that performs without any such platform, but with a pure heart. It is the latter that accomplishes the goals set inexorably well.”

There have been quite a number of young business leaders with outstanding credentials, but many of them have risen in the business arena mainly because they have been blessed with the mantle of familial succession. They have inherited their leadership positions in the corporate world, leading even business empires inherited from their forebears. Certainly nothing wrong with that, but it becomes praiseworthy a thousandfold — becomes so inspiring for the deprived youth of our country — when the vision and innovative spirit is one’s own.

In the case of the young Peñaflorida, there was no silver spoon, there is no gilded throne; there is just a young man with a pure heart.

He was aware of the failure of the present dispensation to reach the street children of our country, absentee students who had to collect garbage away from school in order to survive, and those who had to stay away from school to fend for themselves and their brothers and sisters because a widowed mother was sick. Peñaflorida’s pushcart education went to them with what now could easily be, not a silver spoon, but the golden opportunity of a basic education that they otherwise would not be able to have under an errant administration.

Efren saw such despicable conditions for the attainment of literacy “for the young kids,” and conceived the “Kariton Klassroom,” which has captured the imagination of and fascinated the world. It was his acute awareness of the tragic plight of basic education in our country and his innovative spirit, but beyond anything else, his purity of heart. What he has achieved for our country is immeasurable, for it certainly goes beyond the monetary reward of $100,000. His youthful leadership has become an inspiration to the youth of his country and its value is un-quantifiable.

What he and his partners have crafted and conceived is indeed a performing art that proceeds from purity of heart. Without purity of heart, without motives that are pure, leadership can be a tragic failure — the kind we are experiencing in our country today.

I know from experience that the crucible of any pure leader’s achievement or success can be some wrenching crisis in his or her environment. It has been said that only challenge produces the opportunity for greatness. I’d like to see Efren Peñaflorida, whom I haven’t met yet, 10 years from today. Given the daunting challenges and crises our country faces like never before, the opportunity for greatness is everywhere.

As Fortune writer John Huey said many years ago, in his notes discussing the crazy corporate maelstrom of the 1990s: “To the survivors, the revolution feels something like this: scary, guilty, painful, liberating, disorienting, exhilarating, empowering, frustrating, fulfilling, confusing, challenging. In other words, it feels very much like chaos.”

As I write the last paragraph of this article, my TV set explodes with the unbelievable news of the bestial massacre in Maguindanao, allegedly inflicted on our beloved country by a Maguindanao warlord and demigod, a very close ally of Gloria Arroyo, who delivered an incredible (mathematically) victory for her in the warlord’s kingdom against the late Fernando Poe Jr.

As I watch and listen in disbelief, finding it impossible to end this article on Efren Peñaflorida, neither is there any time left, for my deadline is just around the corner. All I can think of is the fact that this is the most hideous massacre ever.

Texts from friends and associates keep coming in, and an ambassador-friend sends me a text meant to console: “For whatever it is worth, please know that even if it is most likely the worst crime ever perpetrated in your country — in fact, even in the whole world — there is always divine intervention and justice. I am sorry, Josie, because I know you love your country so.”

Is it true what Alexander Hamilton said? “Our real disease is Democracy.”

I find myself helpless to say anything more.

* * *

Thanks for your e-mails sent to jtlichauco@gmail.com.