Boy Abunda to student leaders: Nation-building starts with you

Top Philippine celebrities Boy Abunda, Bianca Gonzalez (Pinoy Big Brother host) and Raki Vega (ABS-CBN Born Diva grand champion) were recently conferred as Honorary Members of both the Tingog Carolinian Party and the Tingog Kabataan Organization of the University of San Carlos. Invited by National Youth Commission’s commissioner-at-large and Carolinian Michael “Mike” Lopez, they were chosen for having preserved their integrity and credibility in their chosen professions as well as for being a voice of hope and shining example to the youth.

The conferment was one of the highlights of the jam-packed Tingog Campus Leadership Forum held at the Rigney Hall of USC-Talamban Campus last Friday. The forum, which bore the theme “Responding to the Call: Towards 20 Years of Unwavering Servant Leadership,”  was a prelude to Tingog Carolinian’s 20th anniversary as a student political party come January 2008.

The conferment rites were led by Tingog Party chair Melody Sy, with the signing witnessed by distinguished Tingog Alumni NYC Commissioner Mike Acebedo Lopez, Glenda Mae Uy Gaisano, Elaine Marie Go - Lo, and Engr. Richard Cua Ho.

The group also launched a youth-empowering movement called Hope Warriors, an idea pitched in by Anvil Awardee and Tingog alumna Sol Delantar of Ayala Foundation. The movement aims to instill hope in the hearts of more Filipinos in these “trying times, by looking at one’s heart and by what each of us can contribute by being the best we can be in anything we do.”

“Nation-building should not be a big word,” said Boy Abunda in his speech. “It can be a personal endeavor. Pag nagwalis ka or nag-aaral ka, do your best. That is your contribution.”

This is not the first time that Tingog Carolinian has sought out and scored the support of celebrity role models. Just recently, the group arranged the high-profile visit to USC of actor-endorser-environmental advocate Piolo Pascual, who has offered to headline a Cebu concert for free next year to benefit local youth projects to be spearheaded by Comm. Lopez.

All these events, according to Lopez, are part of the goals and direction of Tingog Carolinian’s alumni, members and honorary members, to chart a course that “does not limit ourselves into being a mere campus political party but a path that ensures embracing what we truly are and have long since been: an organization, a barkada, a family.”

The author is Tingog Carolinian’s chair for membership.