A kite in the rain

As in most graduations, several members of the University of the Philippines Class of 2012 were teary-eyed at the end of the ceremonies yesterday.

“We’re now poor and jobless,” my niece Maria Jorica said, explaining the tears as she hugged classmates and her parents Richard and Joy.

Jori is not exactly impoverished. And a magna cum laude Journalism graduate of the UP College of Mass Communication (plus this year’s recipient of the GMA Network Excellence Award in Journalism) usually has a good chance of landing a decent job in her chosen career.

For many other members of the country’s Class of 2012, however, Jori’s quip is no joke. As of last year, for example, there were about 300,000 licensed nurses waiting for jobs; thousands more were added this graduation season, still preparing to take their licensure examinations.

UP graduates usually have an edge in job hunting, especially for those with honors, although there can be a lot of them. At UP Mass Comm, Jori is one of 13 magna cum laude graduates, including the commencement speaker, Josephine Oshin Kitane of Broadcasting. The college has 101 cum laudes this year – about half of the entire graduating class.

But even armed with a UP diploma, job hunting may need the kind of persistence rooted in the belief that you can fly a kite in the rain – lilipad ang saranggola sa ulan – to borrow a line from the guest entertainer at yesterday’s graduation rites, Davao folk rock composer G. Gary Granada.

Singer-composers in this country don’t make the kind of fortune that can buy them a house in Forbes Park. Granada, an accomplished performer, told the graduates he was giving each one a CD of his songs for free since no one was buying his music or even downloading his songs from the Internet.

But Granada has a following, and the graduates of UP Mass Comm in Diliman clearly liked him. His contribution to Earth Day yesterday, he quipped as he took off his cap to show his baldness, was to save on shampoo.

Graduation ceremonies can make you feel ancient, no matter how entertaining. I learned a few new terms from the kids yesterday: “GMG; friend zone.”

And it’s always touching to see the idealism, the sense of fun and hopes of the youth. At UP, the methods of expression can be depressingly stale: a lightning rally near the end of yesterday’s ceremonies featured a lot of red, raised clenched fists, and angry cries of makibaka (struggle, persevere). But you admire the youthful energy, and at least the kids were socially aware.

Bemoaning in her speech the difficulties of academic work, Kitane sighed, “Kung nadadaan lang ang thesis sa alindog (If only beauty alone could get you through thesis... but) there are no short cuts to excellence.”

To her batch mates planning to move overseas, she said, “Let us remember our responsibility to our country.”

How many graduates will remember that responsibility, and for how long?

* * *

In other schools, civic responsibility and the pursuit of excellence take a backseat to the day-to-day challenges of survival, starting from grade school.

Despite mandatory free elementary and high school education (and now kindergarten) nationwide, the country has a high dropout rate starting in grade school.

Several school dropouts have pointed out to me that free tuition does not translate into free education. There are still too many other expenses throughout the school year that parents cannot afford, from uniforms and school supplies to regular transport fares, allowances and miscellaneous school fees.

Even graduation requirements can be a burden on poor families. UP abolished the toga requirement many years ago. Today UP students simply reverse the sash over their shoulders upon being formally proclaimed as graduates. That’s one less expense, plus less discomfort in the scorching summer afternoon heat in the open air during university graduation.

In other schools, unfortunately, graduation rites have become a moneymaking racket. I wore a toga only once in my life, at the UP university-wide graduation (my batch was probably among the last to have that requirement). Today in many other schools, even grade one pupils have graduation ceremonies, and they are required to wear a toga and cap. Rental can run into over a thousand pesos, depending on the school.

Probably hearing complaints from parents, politicians have spotted yet another opportunity for self-aggrandizement. In one school in Kalookan recently, sixth grade graduating students had to sit through rites that lasted nearly five hours because a congresswoman, a councilman and several other local politicians who had shouldered the expenses for the togas, caps and graduation food gave lengthy speeches aimed at the parents. The same thing happened in another school in Valenzuela and in several other public schools. Let’s hope all those politicians are using their own money.

Why not just abolish the toga requirement? It’s too warm for the tropics in the first place.

Students whose families find toga rental a burden on their finances need the most fervent best wishes upon graduation.

When they fly their kite in this perpetually stormy country, you wish the kite would soar.