hey, i want to see how i write when i’m drunk.

do i forget the comma, or do my conjugations suck? or do i forget my subject verb agreement? or is my spelling wrong?

i honestly don’t give a shit — i just want an honest opinion of how i degenerate when i’m drunk — or how i show snippets of my humanity and fragility when i’ve had too much alcohol. but seriously, i do not fuc*ing care — because no one cares — no one really gives a sh*t — and no one is sincere. haha

mwahlavyah!

as i write and will ramble about my mundane life experiences for the past few days in the next few paragraphs, my parents are on their way to korea — and they will be staying there for a week or so.

and with this, i should be ecstatic; i should be looking forward to more intensive tanduay sessions with a bunch of people whose instincts are dictated by, and whose sole purpose of existence for the time being is, this perverted need: alcohol. my friends who are also battered by the uncertainty of the future; by the inconsistencies of fate; and by the deception of temporary bliss.

i should be — but fact is, i am not.

for once in my life, i want to be invisible — to be in a room where no one notices me, or they choose to ignore me — and for once in my life, i long to be somewhere where i am not expected to be enviously happy nor pathetically optimistic, brimming with feigned bliss and affection, a superficial and lethargically-conjured poster boy for makulay ang buhay sa sinabawang gulay.

i want to be miserable, and i want people not to care — or at least be happy for me and my misery. i want to be in a crowd which looks at me and senses that i am in a bad place, an awful place, but they are not compelled, nor do they force themselves, to reach out and say, with a deceptively ingenuine heart buried deep under the willed, pathetic show of concern and gesture: i know what you are going through — you will be okay.

fact is, you do not know what i am going through — and i will not be okay anytime soon, not now, not tomorrow, not ever.

deep and turbulent currents of doubt and despair brew inside my mind — and for once, i want to wallow in MY misery, and i want people to understand that like their individual shit, i too, am hard to understand.

In the Eyes of a Child

by Alvin Clyde O. Gregorio

‘Innocent Voices’ is a poignant story of innocence, carnage, and idealism in war-torn El Salvador during the 1990’s, just as the country was gripped by a military dictatorship, backed by the United States of America.

It chronicles the travails of an eleven-year old child, Chava, as he desperately lives up to the expectations of his mother and younger siblings of being, quite ironically, the man of the house – this, after the original man of the house, her husband and their father, had abandoned them, in hopes of seeking greener pastures abroad.

With its unapologetic treatment of the storyline, and with hints of humor to couch the thick mist of dread underlying the film’s tone in its entirety, the movie is both unsettling and engaging, serious yet candid, sordid but captivating, and revolting however redemptive.

The movie’s central irony, and one which mystifies and lures the viewer into watching the film even if it’s theme verges on incomprehensible carnage and butchery, is the juxtaposition of unadulterated innocence with the recklessness of man’s anger and spite – and it is this juxtaposition which tugs at the heartstrings, the wretchedness of war made more atrocious by the glaring disparity of a child’s worldview vis-à-vis the general foment of hatred that had so consumed his countrymen –

For all that he needed was a solace, a place where he can strike a balance between claiming his childhood and asserting his raw and newfound authority as the man of the house; an affirmation that his existence meant something, anything.

As I was watching the movie progress, I was perplexed and revolted by the conflation of circumstances that stripped Chava of his innocence, seething with rage over the adeptly-orchestrated deception of Western-constructed freedom, the superficiality of the American notion of liberty, the temporariness of bliss, the incomprehensibility of war, the unjustifiable encroachment of poison in the minds of men, the vulnerability of the young, and the helplessness of the innocent amid the incivility of a world that is so deeply-entrenched in hate, remorse.

For in the aftermath of any war, its justifiability or superfluousness notwithstanding, and when the rubble of violence and despair has settled, how are you to address the questions of a child? How do you get him to understand that war is both inevitable and humane?

No war is ever justified – not to the architects of war, nor to the innocent lives that are, in an instant, thrust into the crossfire.

For in the mind of a child, the rhetoric of eventual freedom and military victory is a hazy concept, an alteration to the natural order of things, a rupture to the societal and social fabric – for in the heart of a child, he can only see the devil masked in a military uniform, consumed with the dark and sole intent of perpetuating evil –

And sometimes, it is essential that we find wisdom in viewing the world from the lens of innocence – to counter the ubiquitousness of evil, and temper the unbridled proliferation of mayhem and madness.

No Neutral Ground

by Alvin Clyde O. Gregorio

Neoliberalism, Harvey-style

Perhaps, David Harvey’s great contribution to political science, in his book, A Brief History in Neoliberalism, is his contention that in this world, there are no trivial concepts, nor do neutral spaces exist.

Apparently for him, all state decisions – may they be radical changes, or shifts which eventuate into mere incremental political erosions – are for a purpose; and that sometimes, fortunately or unfortunately, the perceived ends of opportunistic countries are sugarcoated with (the) universally-appealing notions of democracy, individual justice, and freedom.

Therefore, to the unthinking, undiscerning political observer, the world is pictured as a haven for freedom, a utopia where the state’s behavior is regulated by the collective yearnings of the citizenry; its general thrust geared towards attaining the most ideal state – citizen-centered, and insulated from exterior, ulterior motives.

But Harvey exposes this dismissive fatalism and questions: Are there really neutral concepts?

Harvey goes the extra mile and in fact asserts that these widely accepted values – freedom, democracy, justice – are relative concepts, such that several countries, especially those who nurture hegemonic ideals and are out to subjugate the rest of the world, skew the innate ambiguity of these values, and forward their own interpretation of these celebrated attributes to secure their place in the world order – to concretize their hold on international politics and sustain their unhampered perpetuation in the global set-up, under all circumstances and beyond any condition.

He moreover adds that the threat of subjugation, either in its directly perceivable form or through its altered and/or newly-constructed variety, is sometimes heralded as eventual emancipation that every self-respecting government ought to nurture, in its quest for reinforcing sound governance.

But Harvey stretches this analysis further, and he inevitably asks: But whose freedom is the state fighting for?

Freedom, after all, is a dubious concept – however, owing to its liberal undertones, and the democratic implications for utilizing this oft-abused concept, people have the natural tendency to mistake freedom for farce substitutes to its real and genuine thrust. And this manipulative encroachment can best be seen in the US aggression against Iraq after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The United States of America, invoking its supposed moral ascendancy in the aftermath of that unfortunate incident, waved the flag of freedom and rallied the people behind its rhetoric of establishing a free world – and it is this assumed leadership which justified their sudden invasion of Iraq, promising freedom to the Iraqi people and vowing to break the shackles of despotism that, they claimed, was characteristic of Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror in that desolate Middle Eastern country.

However, let’s see how this supposed ‘freedom’ was eventually articulated, and examine if indeed, the world’s only superpower was, and still is, within bounds in the course of its unilateral and arbitrary administration of international justice.

It is ironic and glaringly suspicious to note that presently, Iraq is gradually transforming into a Western-constructed democracy – Western-constructed mind you, because we see that right after the Americans were successful in neutralizing the resistance efforts of Hussein, it proceeded to partitioning the country into several lethargic compartments, opening up its rich oil markets to foreign exploitation, because, Bush claims, this is where individual freedom of Iraqis lie: in the liberation of the market and the insulation of the same from direct state maneuverings.

Bear in mind that once Iraq exhibited the minutest semblance of order since the start of the invasion, Bush’s war architects almost instantaneously proposed that they secure the oil rigs and consolidate their hold over the major oil sites in Iraq – and observers then speculated that this move was strategically meant to quell the insuppressible packets of protestations that erupted back in the US, and to silence those who constantly asked: Who is to pay for all the expenses incurred in the war?

Right at the onset, we see two glaring incongruencies within the framework of the Bush plan, relative to their supposed moral high ground, their supposed justification for assuming the role of global police.

First is the establishment of the link between market and individual freedom, no matter how far-fetched and overstretched the link may initially impress, and thus the fiscalization of individual emancipation; and second, is the institutionalization of foreign exploitation over these domestic industries, by virtue of deceptive and to a certain extent, coercive, market trade-offs and the subjugation of local self-determinative initiatives to the whims of the invading, arrogant Western power.

Harvey pounces on this blatant perversion of freedom, and inevitably makes us think: If freedom, a ubiquitously-accepted ideal, can be thwarted for selfish motives, what value then, is safe from being co-opted by these opportunistic elements?

Apparently for Harvey, and to a large extent I agree with him, there is none.

Moreover, his book unearths several myths and exposes a number of orchestrated lies about the sincerity of democracy, as peddled by American strategists. He specifically and extensively discusses the foreign policy of the US and demarcates, quite successfully, the fine line separating the established rationale of American foreign policy – which is hinged on expediency really, realistic and practical spoils, and self-serving motives – and its superficial exterior, a carefully-constructed façade which trumpets its unwavering commitment to maintaining international democracy and worldwide solidarity.

To drive home this point, Harvey ticks off the shared experiences of several countries which were led to this path, and he moreover asserts that these conditional similarities did not just happen out of mere sporadic coincidences, because fact was, and presumably still is, they were thoroughly planned out even before they materialized.

This provides for a perfect segue to my attempt at localizing the neoliberal experience in our country; an alternative historical analysis of how, during the Martial Law years, we were embroiled in the neoliberal encroachment that was spreading like wildfire across the world, unhampered and unregulated.

Neoliberalism, Pinoy-style

Ferdinand Marcos, during the dark ages of his military rule, was a ruthless dictator. Together with his wife in their so-called conjugal dictatorship, they bled the national coffers dry with their lavish and flamboyant lifestyle, their shared penchant for plunder and kleptocratic practices beyond comprehension, and their unregulated political power and clout which, to an obvious extent, they used to exact revenge over the opposing forces to their Bagong Lipunan.

More than these perceived excesses of state power, it was during his ‘reign of terror’ that several dissenters to his arbitrary impositions were gagged and silenced in dark and cold solitary rooms, their human rights trampled upon because they chose to defy the dominating powers, because they opted to resist the devil who was lurking underneath the veil of a strongman, a draconian leader who justified his every abuse with the promise of instilling discipline to a society that was, according to Martial Law-peddlers, in shambles.

However, in the course of reconstructing Philippine society in accordance with the newly-propagated values of his Bagong Lipunan , Marcos made the bold move of suspending individual freedom in the hopes of, quite ironically, upholding social and societal freedom. This, naturally and metaphorically, opened the floodgates of hell and solidified his position as a strongman who was neither checked nor regulated in his executive discretions. And as can be predicted, this ushered in an era of oppression and suppression unparalleled in history, widespread corruption and institutionalized nepotism, and the normalization of abuse in the collective sensibilities of the Filipino people.

Predictably, this resulted to social foment among the ranks of Filipinos who were, in an instant, roused from apathy – they questioned the legitimacy of the military regime and demanded that the democratic mechanisms for checks and balances be reinstated to mitigate the propensity of the dictator for sustaining his atrocious rule – and, in the midst of desperation and desperate times, they collectively cried out: Where was the international beacon of democracy, the US, when it was most needed?

It is quite ironic to point out that while the Filipino populace was seething with rage over Marcos’ fascist rule, he was widely celebrated in the United States as an indispensable agent for democracy in Asia; as his constituents were mired in deep squalor, consumed with anguish, and barely maintaining their fragile sanity, he was hailed as the champion for freedom, by President Ronald Reagan no less.

He, after all, enjoyed steady American support throughout most of his tenure – and to some commentators, this may have been the reason why his dominion over the country was sustained and assured for nearly three decades. The American penchant for deodorizing inhumane regimes provided for legitimacy to his dwindling charisma as a leader –

But it does not commence here, for the crucial question thus becomes: why the unflinching support for someone who clearly bastardized democracy?

Bear in mind that during Marcos’ rule, the battle between communism and democracy was still raging – and considering the desperation of America to secure its victory in third-world democracies, it turned a blind eye each time Marcos committed a crime against his people, for in weighing the trade-off that ensued after these instances of unhindered executive excesses were complacently allowed to happen, this obviously translated into Marcos’ unconditional support to, and unquestioning subservience towards, the American democratic propaganda.

As they coddled Marcos and prodded him on to keep up with his flamboyant ways, there came a point when the institutionalized misprioritisation of the national budget, compounded by the apparent lack of a viable government direction to jumpstart the local economy, compelled Marcos to borrow heavily from supranational entities just to augment the deficits that he incurred, and to sustain his and his family’s extensive philandering of hard-earned taxpayers’ money.

Moreover, owing to his blind submission to the whims and caprices of the United States of America, it was during his time that the influx of foreign, mostly American, investors were encouraged – spelling doom and death to local industries that were still in their infancy years, unable to battle it out in a playing field that was virtually leveled out to accommodate foreign intrusion and interference.

In an instant, we invariably pose the question: What has become of the core value of freedom?

Conclusion

The Philippine neoliberal experience, its intricacies and inherent contradictions notwithstanding, has revealed to us first-hand how the expedient foreign policy of the world’s sole superpower, the United States of America, places more premium on what can be gained than what can be attained.

Because by invoking a legitimacy that is couched on moral soundness and an appeal to what is universally noble and ideal, it can get away with its exploits.

But let us break free from complacency and see the world according to its real characterization – because in essence, there are no neutral concepts – only temporary deceptions, juxtaposed with permanent interests.

i have this particularly annoying teacher this semester who has a penchant for glorifying himself in terms of teaching style and method, and proudly asserts that we ought to differentiate him from the rest of the pack because, he says, he not only imparts knowledge, but he imbues these learnings with the school’s thrust — which is the incorporation of the ‘gospel’ in classroom discussions.

with his distinct and thick waray accent, he starts the class each time with the same spiel: ‘ibahin nyo ako, ibahin nyo ako, meron akong record‘ — then he proceeds to checking the attendance — in 30 frigging minutes mind you — because he likes to interject, every so often, and brandish his so-called ‘distinct’ teaching style.

at first, i was intrigued and amused, and i entertained the idea that perhaps, he was different — that he was unlike the unthinking, incompetent kind.

but soon enough, i found out that indeed, he was different from the rest — fact is, he is worse.

for two weeks, we had to dissect the vision-mission of the university, discuss it in detail for four meetings, each having an hour and thirty minutes for every session — and it was just so, so boring — not to mention irrelevant and a total waste of time.

don’t get me wrong, i agree with the rationale of incorporating the school’s general thrust in the course of individualised learning, but having to skim through the entire document, and meticulously dissecting each phrase and sentence?

that’s verging on obsessive-compulsiveness on the part of the teacher on the one hand, or it could mean he was just too damn lazy to jumpstart the semester with pertinent and relevant lessons, on the other. tsk tsk.

to my recollection, there never was a single classroom discussion where he shared the latest nor the most apt technique in deconstructing and reanalyzing complicated stories. he merely blabbers for hours on end about how the generation now has forgotten the values of the time past, or how we, his students, ought to respect him for three reasons: his being our titser, his being matanda, and his being propesyunal.

naturally, in my head, i have already conjured of a hundred ways of reconstructing einstein’s relativity theory, or plot out the assumed location of emilia earheart in the bermuda triangle.

but it gets worse — because this time, he wants us to shell out twenty pesos and buy any item from the tabo (a superficial endeavor for fostering genuine appreciation to our own wika, if you were to ask me), and eat the entire thing in front of him.

first level of rebuttal: since when were teachers (college teachers, mind you) empowered to dictate how our school allowance will be spent? sure, twenty pesos is twenty pesos, but we need to look beyond the monetary aspect and uncover the arbitariness of the imposition — does he really have the right to demand that his students buy puto and cuchinta and nibble them down in front of him?

second level of rebuttal: how does this exercise facilitate and foster a genuine appreciation for the national language? this, in itself, is a pathetic excuse for genuine education, and it is this juvenile approach, plus a mindset which prods him on because he thinks of himself as a demigod in the classroom, which is the reason why genuine learning is stifled, and students are shortchanged in terms of getting what they rightfully deserve.

‘ibahin nyo ako, ibahin nyo ako.’

sir, iba ka nga.

perhaps, when things seem too good to be true, and when the stars deceptively conspire to make you believe that you have so much brilliance in you, there is something that lurks within the periphery: a rupture that is inconspicuously veiled underneath the promise of sudden prominence.

last august 4, 2008, i celebrated my yearlong marriage to debating — and it was both mind-blowing and exhilarating, celebratory but mournful, and beautiful yet incomplete.

i understood the decision of the judges; that we were only second best in that round — but deep within the recesses of my heart, i feel the trappings of a man that has been, in an instant, broken.

but i don’t argue against this natural impluse, for my justification is simple: how can one temper the proddings of despair from a solitary heart?

it needs to be ruptured, brutally if need be, because it is this unguarded and uninhibited admission that will lead to genuine recuperation.

it was a bittersweet moment — a disconcerting experience that has broken me to the complexities of the human emotions, and the uncertainty of the stars.

i am happy and sad; gratified yet unsatisfied;

complete, however broken.

*written onboard the ferry to bacolod, just as the strong waves against the helpless vessel were fanning the sadness that was brewing inside.

we live in a dog-eat-dog world — a savage land deceptively hidden beneath the exterior of a pleasant world. but sometimes, owing to the superficiality of this consensually-constructed facade, the surface gets ruptured, as glimpses of the truth betray the discomforting truth that we live in a land where neither civility nor respect for human dignity abound — for what we merely have is a semblance of order, an attempt at tempering man’s incivility by willed and orchestrated optimism.

this morning, i received a text message from paul, a forwarded message from an NGO worker who was scouring for moral and financial support to the most recent victim of child abuse in our province — a four year old girl who was, after being raped by a still unidentified man, thrown off a cliff and was left to die.

she however, managed to survive, and after wandering for six days in the forest with neither food nor water to sustain her, she was seen by locals who took her to the hospital to have her treated. reunited with her parents, she is presently in the negros oriental provincial hospital where she is being diagnosed for post-abuse trauma, that is, after she had undergone rectal vaginal repair in the fourth degree.

worse, her wounds, because they were untreated, had maggots and she would be needing a special kind of medicine which will prevent the infection from spreading to other parts of her body.

in an instant, text messages were sent and resent, asking sympathetic hearts for any kind of donation or support that they may extend to the young girl who was, in an instant, robbed of her innocence and was viciously abused. a budding life that was ripped just as it had started to open up to the world.

to anyone willing, let us help her. let us make her feel that amid the proliferation of evil in this world, there are those who still care; there are still those who have hearts that throb; deeds that are selfless; and kindred souls who will continue to resist evil and reinstate goodness in a desolate world that is ours.

most people who do not know me that intimately often get surprised when they see me drunk — when I hold a bottle of liquor with my one hand, a cigarette on the other, and a silly smile is painted on my face.

they wonder, and in amazement at that, why I don’t spend the rest of my time in the library to scour the circulation section for contemporary sociological criticisms to structural functionalism. or hang out perhaps with the rest of the geeks, as we would chatter endlessly about the star wars epic, and bask in our exclusivist but shared affinity to foucault or some other renowned thinker.

my personal take on this constructed dichotomization of identity is simple: i refuse to submit to convention. society, after all, is the reason why people think this way – it’s either you’re witty and a loser, or an airhead but a tanduay marathon varsity.

giving in to societal standards, for me, is similar to allowing yourself to be carried away by the multitudes of people who impose upon you, no matter how subtle it seems, your own identity. and some of us, owing to our constant exposure to these accepted standards and the ubiquitousness of these established prototypes for categorizing people, do not question why society is constructed the way it is.

we inevitably surrender our individual perception to accommodate the imposing and intrusive interference of societal persuasions – thereby impairing our own capacity for free-thinking and personal judgment in the process.

i’m just trying to rationalize really, so help me here. lol

admittedly I am a geek, but my tendencies are, thank goodness, tempered by my other exploits.

because if a self-confessed geek would stay secluded in his dark and cold basement room and read up on geeky stuff, shun daylight because it exposes his face and makes him an easy prey for ridicule, and adeptly masters the art of being anti social, then that would so cliché.

society, with all its upheavals and in its steady progression, has inevitably configured the necessary conditions to facilitate the emergence of a new breed of people: the modern geeks. Hahaha! J

my words have escaped me, and i can do nothing but wait for them to come back. i’ve tried once, before, to feign my writing even when my mind was consumed with nothingness. it has been a drought for the past week or so, and i just hope that sometime soon, i will once again come up with a decent piece here.

perhaps, it is because my procrastination has gnawed at my faculties, and i am left with an unthinking mind, and an unfeeling heart.

these times are most confusing, and unsettling — because these are the moments when i question who i really am. am i or am i not?

tsk.

boredom sure does wonders.

i don’t normally forward emails that i get, nor repost them for everyone else’s reading consumption, but i have to this time.

as i was checking my email for interesting forwarded messages, i came across this email sent by a good friend from UP.

and, i must admit, nostalgia quickly seeped in as i was again reminded of my UP days — as i tiptoed around the responsibilities that were, in an instant, given to me, as i explored the vastness of the world and of ideas, and as i made sure that while i was thrust into an unfamiliar but nonetheless captivating terrain, i still guarded my life principles, my convictions, and my worldview with utmost care.

it’s nostalgic bliss — something that i needed after all that i’ve been through these past few days. i hope you find it as interesting as i did

There are no children here

This week, I went to a meeting at the UP School of Economics and I came
away with renewed belief in the value of the UP experience.

If you speak to anyone from UP – student, professor, alumnus - you will get
no Latin slogans or apologies about how the school teaches values in spite
of its outward materialism. This is not a student population that thinks
about basketball games or memorizes school songs. This is not a school that
chooses one statement to drill into the minds of its students.

This is not, of course, to say that UP does not care about values. It is
that UP, in its own inimitable way, believes that values cannot be
force-fed. The statue of the naked man that guards the entrance to the
campus in Diliman best represents UP’s approach to all education and the
respect for students that is the center of its educational philosophy. All
who come to this university, regardless of origin, bring themselves naked,
carrying nothing but their thirst; like the proverbial empty teacup, making
an offering of self, waiting to be filled.

*Adults*

For many students from private schools, the first lesson that is learned
here is that this is a school for adult education. There are no children
here, and that is why no parents are allowed either at freshman orientation
or during enlistment.

The spirit of the oblation lies not in a mother or a father offering up his
child to the world, it is that of the newly adult, freely offering of his
self.

I remember quite vividly that moment that drove home how different the UP
education continues to be. It was my daughter’s first semester in
university and she had invited a group of her high school friends to our
house. One of them asked a classmate whether she had gotten her parents
permission form approved for that weekend’s outreach activity. From the UP
population around the table came the mock horrified responses of:
“Permission? ” and “Outreach?”

I thought about it and realized that all of these students were, in fact,
legally adults. I thought it interesting that only the UP students appeared
to appreciate this fact.

Even more interesting was the “outreach” comment. I think back to my own
university years and the last three years that my daughter has been in UP
and am certain there is no lack of civic activity. There are medical
missions, house building projects, tree planting, community work and barrio
work and so on. I realize now that the reaction was not to the activity as
much as it was to the use of the word.

One of the most important differences of the UP campus from all the other
campuses my children considered going to is that this campus has no walls.
Many parents fear this. They are afraid their precious children will not be
protected from the ills of society in a campus that is so open to the rest
of the world.

But UP is open to the world in more ways than just not having the physical
walls.

*Community *

Being in UP means much more than being a student. This campus is enmeshed
in a community. This community is made up not only of the transient
population of students who go home each night. It includes the many, many
students who lay their heads on dorm pillows each night, enduring time away
from families in the firm belief that this campus will bring them closer to
their dreams. This community includes the families of faculty and employees
who live on campus. It also includes the many people who work not for the
University, but nevertheless work on campus. This community includes the
lady who remembers the brand of cigarette you smoke and automatically hands
it to you in the morning. It includes the gentleman who remembers you like
pepper on your egg sandwich or the one who knows you will dip your fish
balls into two of his sauces, who patiently waits for you to eat your three
sticks before being paid. It includes the woman who saw all her children
through college by selling peanuts every day on campus.

To a UP student, the daily heartbeat of the school is never far away from
the realities of the country. The word outreach suggests that civic
activity is something outside of the normal, something you do once in a
while. It must be immensely difficult to think of community as a thing
apart when your campus experience brings you face to face with all of the
world’s realities every day.

*Character*

All of this probably explains that unmistakable sense of self that you will
find from students who come from this campus.

Here is a campus where all have the same opportunities to learn. But,
also, here is a campus that will give all the same opportunities to fail.
There are no guidance counselors who will chase after you because you have
been skipping classes. The attitude this university takes is that you must
take the initiative – for learning, for seeking help, for realizing you need
help.

That is not to say that no help exists. But it is help that is not forced
upon you.

This is a university rich in both introspection and conversation. On this
campus, the student is constantly exposed to people – faculty,
administrators, community members, other students – who care deeply and
passionately about the world. The conversations are almost never purely
cerebral. A single graph can provoke comments about government policy and
its effects on people.

As a result, UP is home to a student population that looks at the world and
cares. It is easy to see pictures of protesting students and dismiss it as
radicalism. But there are few campuses in this country where students go
beyond a passing curiosity about what is happening in the world beyond their
own lives. There are even fewer universities where students not only care
but also actually believe they have a responsibility to make a difference –
not in some hazy future – today.

And that, I believe, is what truly forges character. Character is not
molded by speeches or long classes in ethics or theology. Character grows
from within. It begins by being handed the keys to your own self and being
told you are in charge; you now have power over yourself and your own
actions – and with that power, you take on responsibilities.

Each student in this university goes through his own unique voyage of
discovery. On his voyage, as he decides what he cares about, what he will
fight for and what he will sacrifice, he crafts his own personal values.
That is what education is truly about.