The power in you
Finally, I get to wear a toga. I was in a rush to start working that, on my third year in College at the, then, Maryknoll College Foundation, I skipped school and applied for a newscasting job at the “crony” station RPN Channel 9. I immersed myself totally in my work. And I had a recurring nightmare. It was all about a deadline I never met and I would be in a class where the teacher would tell me, “Sorry, you never enrolled and you will never graduate.” The nightmare just kept coming back. I was so terrorized by it that, well into a stable career in ABS-CBN News, I enrolled for all the units left for me to graduate my AB Communication Arts course when I hit my 30th birthday.
Studying, reading and writing again after having been to the “real world” created a richer, deeper appreciation for learning. I graduated with honors and proudly announced it to officemates. A co-reporter, Kata Inocencio, without looking up from what she was reading said, “You’re 30 — if you didn’t graduate with honors you should be banished from here.” And finally since graduation, the nightmares have completely stopped.
But there was no march nor a graduation ceremony for me. I was too busy. Maybe I was a tad embarrassed to walk with those 10 years junior to me. No toga.
A former classmate called recently and was unable to contain her excitement, “Korina, you were chosen to be our commencement speaker at the College Graduation rites!” I honestly wasn’t thinking right having almost declined because I was on assignment that day. Honestly, for a minute or two, all I could think of was, “Hey, but I’ll finally get to wear my toga,” and I said, “Linda, yes, okay I”ll be there.”
Here is the speech I delivered at the commencement exercises at
The power in you
Wow. Here you are in your toga, about to come up on stage and receive your diploma. After, what — 15 or 16 years in school? Graduation. It might be hard to imagine. But, to us who’ve been away for quite a while now, walking through these very same corridors and seeing familiar personalities from college days, graduation does seem like just yesterday. And I do remember leaving school without really knowing what it all meant or, as a new kid on the working block, what I stood for nor where I was headed. Twenty or so years later I’m wondering if it has changed much — this feeling of uncertainty, anxiety, reluctance or even fear that a new graduate goes through. I think not. There is formidable basis for such feelings — especially in a country where stability is as evasive as economic and political uncertainty seems inescapable.
But then, placing all my of my own experiences in context, I see you — young and ready and hopeful and willing. I see power.
I’m guessing you don’t feel it — you are probably too meek to acknowledge it. You don’t see it — because your definition of power has yet to evolve. You don’t know it yet — and this is the beauty of discovery — as you will make what you will of it when you find it — because this power is yours.
You have the power inherent in youth. Especially at a time when the word impossible becomes more and more obsolete. As a reporter on TV 20 years ago, what took 10 hours for us to write and copy furnish and edit for broadcast, today we accomplish in less than 60 minutes. What would take a trip to the National Library and research for hours is today the equivalent of the touch of a finger and, say, a waiting time in front of your computer terminal of all of five minutes. Millions of dollars can be made in a minute with a laptop on a beach. We hardly have to seek information — it’s out to get us. And you know, what they say is true: The most precious thing on this planet is not money or gold or power — it’s information. And with these at our disposal, what do you use it for? Have you ever even thought about it? Would you use, as a most basic example, your cellphone — something unheard of 20 years ago by the way — to text brigade the need for a rare blood type donor for a dying patient? Or would you rather text brigade the latest gossip on a popular target? It is today a world where energy and speed and strength of body and mind is as much a weapon against everything bad — as it is key to all things good. Just as a gun is meant to preserve law and order, it is also used to propagate crime.
The power is yours — take it. Take it and use it. But remember to slowly but surely define this power which you possess by the values with which your parents, your family, this institution and God have painstakingly molded you into. Remember today when you realize yourself that time flies and life is short. You are on borrowed time. How will you use it? Life. A career. Money. Accomplishment. A family. These are big words — big words that belie what is actually a simple formula. Yes, life can be overwhelming — and it will be. Especially when you set out on your own. For those who are fortunate enough to have options in life it is often easier to stick to and act according to what one knows to be wrong from right. But I do believe that the quality of one’s character is genuinely measured in times of adversity rather than in situations of convenience. The challenges you will inevitably face will swirl around you like a hurricane while life, as you know it, may morph into some unrecognizable world somewhere between the black hole and the twilight zone.
It’s not going to be easy. But there are some things that stay constant — and will not go away. Since my own college days and two decades hence, I discovered that even at the worst possible times — when evil looks you in the eye, seduces you, tempts you, confuses you or tries its darnest to rip you apart — the definitions of right and wrong remain.
Our human inclination to try to stand out among the rest make it all complicated. Actually, the formula is simple. Let’s all have the list permanent in our heads. Let’s keep asking those questions: Is it right? Is it fair or just? Is it the truth? Is it for my own promotion at the expense of what is good for the majority? Your brand of power will be molded and charged like a battery by how you answer such questions. And it will define you as the catalyst you will become. And this definition will determine whether you will leave this world a better place — than when you started to move in it. The way you define your power will determine what kind of leader you will be.
Make no mistake about it. Yes, you are all leaders now. You are or may be leaders as mothers in your own home and to your captured audience — your children; you are leaders as social workers to the needy; as spokespersons of the marginalized or as Representatives in Congress; as doctors in a team out to restore health or save a life; as educators passing on what YOU ARE to the next generation; as advertising executives determining subliminal messages to the masses; as corporate bosses who have in your hands the lives and careers of all those working under you; as senators, Cabinet secretaries even as President someday.
For there is no difference in power wielded in the home as it should for a nation. It all comes from once source — your heart and soul — both of which you determine the quality. Power is defined mostly by how we apply it and the restraint with which it is dispensed.
So, here’s to power — dispensed with wisdom and hope that here among you is the genius who will find the cure to cancer; that among you will be those to reverse the malfunction in our ecosystem from man’s excesses; that this group will convert politics in this country into unadulterated public service; that you will place the Philippines back on the maps that matter and on the good lists; that you will find the antidote to greed; that you will erase the lines that divide us and the word marginalized will cease to exist; that you will eradicate poverty, wipe out crime and stop pollution; that you will be very rich — but will give more than what you will receive;
That you will be all that you should — because you are a graduate of this special batch, this chosen generation; because you were born, put through school and have graduated for a purpose. And I congratulate you, not because you are done, but because you are to begin the most important and exciting part of your very short lives, that is, making the difference and you have the power to do this.
(E-mail the author at korina_abs@yahoo.com)
