VPJejomar C. Binay Speech in Alumnus Award

Speech of Vice President Jejomar C. Binay when he received the 2011 UPAA Most Distinguished Alumnus Award during the UP General Alumni-Faculty Homecoming & Reunion, Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman, Quezon City, 25 June 2011, 5 p.m.

Posted: Saturday, June 25, 2011

(Acknowledgments)

Coming to U.P. At this time is not just a visit. It is a homecoming.

Matapos ang maraming taon, bumabalik po ako sa U.P. na puno ng galak, at konting kaba sa dibdib.

Nagagalak ako dahil sa inyong paghirang sa akin bilang Most Distinguished Alumnus. At kinakabahan dahil baka nagkamali kayo sa pagpili, at bukas makalawa ay bawiin ninyo ang award na ito. (Iisipin ko pa kung isosoli ko sa inyo)

Sa totoo po lamang, noong ako ay nag-aaral pa dito sa u.p., ni minsan ay hindi ko inisip na darating ang panahon na makakamtan ko ang pagturing ng ating mahal na alma mater bilang Most Distinguished Alumnus. At alam ko na marami rin sa aking mga kaibigan, kaiskwela at ka-brod sa fraternity ang ni minsan ay hindi inisip na si Jojo Binay ay pararangalan bilang Most Distinguished Alumnus. Kung sa bagay, marami rin po ang nagulat nang ako’y manalo bilang Pangalawang Pangulo noong nakaraang halalan. Dahil sa aking pagiging Pangalawang Pangulo, ang inyong lingkod, sa ngayon, ang pinakamataas na nahalal sa mga nangagsipagtapos sa ating pamantasan.

My friends, given my humble academic performance in the University, this award fills me with awe and wonder and disbelief.

Despite doing well in grade school and graduating from that laboratory school known as the U.P. Preparatory High School, my early years as a political science major in U.P. were academically lackluster, improving a bit as I went through the College of Law as a working student. Although I must emphasize that my grades improved when I enrolled in post-graduate courses.

It was not easy. But what sustained and propelled me to complete my education was my determination to raise myself from my squalid surroundings. What sustained and nourished me through my years of undergraduate studies was the generosity of my uncles, my friends and fraternity brothers. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who generously shared with me not only their time, friendship and brotherhood, but also their “baon.” Noon po kasi, pumapasok ako sa U.P. na piso lang ang baon ko. Ang pamasahe ay sitenta sentimos. Ang kanin at ulam, kuwarenta sentimos. Ang kulang na diyes sentimos ay pinupunuan na lamang ng aking mga kasama. Kaya sa lahat ng mga nagpuno sa kulang kong baon, maraming salamat sa inyo.

Masasabi ko po na hindi lamang edukasyon ang ibinigay sa akin ng U.P. Binigyan niya ako ng pagkakataon na maiahon ang aking sarili mula sa hirap. Binigyan niya ako ng lakas ng loob at tiwala sa sarili. At ibinahagi sa akin ng U.P. Ang prinsipyong hanggang ngayon ay nakaukit sa aking puso – pagmamahal at paglilingkod sa bayan kong sinilangan.

My years at U.P. taught me to fight for what is right and for the values and principles that I live for, despite the trials and troubles that are inevitable, without regard for the cost or consequence.

Here I learned that in a country where the overwhelming majority are poor, our first and last duty is always to the poor, especially if we ourselves are poor or were once poor.

Here I learned that the poor must be empowered, but real empowerment begins only when they begin to participate fully in the exercise of political power.

But the greatest gift of my U.P. education is the unquenchable thirst to learn; the humility to embrace the notion that one never learns enough; the passion to ask questions and to seek the answers in the hallowed halls of the academe and test the validity of these answers in the trenches of the real world.

Indeed, even as I left the University and became a lawyer, street parliamentarian, local official and now the second highest leader of the land, learning has been my guide. I have been able to seamlessly weave on-the-job learning experiences with periods of formal learning. I have been fortunate to attend post-graduate courses here and abroad. There is no doubt in my mind that the learnings from these episodes have brought me to where I am today. Indeed the saying that education is the greatest social equalizer is so true.

This is the same gift that I have tried to share in my years as the mayor of Makati. As my education not only opened up opportunities for me but also equipped me with the tools to face the challenges in my life, I have made it my mission to ensure that those whom I am able to touch as a public servant are given the same privilege. The well-known, comprehensive public education system in Makati is a testament to that commitment.
All this I owe the University of the Philippines, and more.

The University made it possible for me to swim in campus politics as my “second amniotic fluid,” to borrow the language of the Latin American intellectual Carlos Fuentes. It allowed me to put to the test certain theories in grassroots politics which would serve me in good stead when I campaigned for mayor of Makati and ran decades later for Vice President.

In my successful bid as a university councilor in the U.P. Student Council, I had to contend with a very strong opposition, who had everything I did not have---the money, the reputation and apparently the good looks. I was indisputably the dark horse. (Literally and figuratively)

Ngunit ako ay nagpursigi, at puspusang nangampanya hanggang sa U.P. Los Baños, na hindi binigyang halaga ng aking mga katunggali dahil nangampanya lamang sila sa Maynila at sa Diliman. Dahil ako lamang ang nangampanya sa Los Baños, nag-landslide ako doon sa Forestry at Agriculture. At the end of the day, Los Baños cast the deciding vote.

That was a perfect forerunner of what happened in the 2010 Vice-Presidential race. I concentrated my work on the ground, mobilizing every connection I had with every conceivable group. And the rest is history. This was one time when the University provided not only the theory but also the praxis.

Without that, I don’t believe I would be standing here today as your Vice President. U.P. proved to be the great leveller for the poor boy from Makati.

I am sure there are others who share my kind of story. But I probably had to negotiate the farthest distance, having come from the bottom of the ladder to where I am today.

You will therefore forgive me if I am unable to suppress all tint of emotion from my story.

Yet, in a sense, what I owe U.P. May be but a small part of what the whole country owes U.P.

In the darker days of our recent history, when common courage and patriotism seemed to fail, and many institutions seemed to sit in the shadows, it was U.P. whose nationalist fervor sent its students to the streets and the barricades to defend our precious rights and liberties.

They raised their fists and cried “Hey, Hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?” and much later, “Makibaka! Huwag matakot!”

In Churchill’s words, we gave the lion’s roar and showed the lion’s heart, while many looked the other way to avoid the gaze of raw power stamping its boot upon their precious liberties.

The outside world watched breathless as we, young patriots at that time, defied truncheons, water cannons and tear gas in the streets. On those days of disquiet ang nights of rage, we all did our heroes proud.

Those events marked the U.P. student at his and her best. It became so easy for outsiders to stereotype us as activists and nothing else. But we were definitely more than that.

U.P. alumni have shown competent and critical leadership wherever the challenge or opportunity presented itself. Whether it be business, education, arts, sciences, public service or media, you will find a U.P. graduate manning the front, trying to get things done. You will also find us working at the back, crafting policies. This, too, is part of U.P.’s continuing service to the republic.

It is no exaggeration to say that if things run at all, it is partly because some U.P. alumni are there. Unfortunately, it is also true that if some nasty problem refuses to go away, it is partly because---or in spite of the fact that---some U.P. alumni are there.

My friends,

As we enter yet another milestone in our university’s and our country’s history, we must now see to it that at the end of the day, we would have made a bigger contribution to the things that make life better for all, than to the things that make like difficult.

In a real sense, the size and make up of the U.P. student constitute a microcosm of Philippine society. That is why when we challenge our U.P. alumni, as we do tonight, “Harapin ang bagong hamon,” are we not, in fact, speaking to the entire Filipino nation? Are we not, in fact, telling everybody, “Gawin ang tama, paglingkuran ang bayan?”

In all this, the University must remain our guide--- our north star. We must live by the principles and standards we have imbibed within its walls, and prove ourselves worthy of the pride with which it has sent us outside those walls.

The Oblation stands to remind us of our calling. In that image of a man standing in all his naked majesty in front of the academic building, we see what a U.P. education means. It tells us that before your U.P. education covers you with honors and distinctions, it first uncovers for you the truth about man, so that you will first know who and what you are, as Socrates taught, before you learn about other things.

With outstretched arms, the Oblation stands there, where it has always stood for more than seventy years, calling on all fighting maroons to offer their lives in the service of country, and purchase a brighter future for the nation, using everything they have learned from their alma mater. (Or at least win one game in the UAAP)

Each wave of graduates brings to the outside world not just a gift of knowledge from the university. More than that, they carry with them a living part of the University itself.

This does not diminish the quality or quantity of the material at the source. Rather, it multiplies a hundred fold what is given away.

Thus, the University has produced and continues to produce the finest professors, scholars, financial managers, agronomists, agriculturists, and other professionals for the country.

Whatever contrary wind, therefore, may blow outside the campus, U.P. must remain what it was always meant to be. It must stand firm and unshakeable as a rock, as a sovereign republic of truth and reason, where free intellectual inquiry and scientific investigation must flourish without any interference from any external and extraneous source.

It must remain a lifeline not only to our own cultural heritage, but above all to the accumulated wisdom of the ages. It must remain the seedbed of truth and virtue, and the pursuit of excellence in all things.

U.P. reflects the broad cross-section of the entire country. Everything that happens to our body politic should be sufficiently passed upon within its walls, and everything that seizes the imagination of its population should likewise be grasped by the five senses of the country. The best ideas for governing the nation, and for putting the entire country to work should not go unexamined nor undistilled within the university.

What is demanded today as U.P. alumni is a response to the conflict between good and evil. Not only in government but in every sector of our social life.

It is an invitation to all of us to love morally upright and truly meaningful lives. We have no right to reject it. Not the alumni of the University of the Philippines.

But we must pursue it with creativity, vigor and resolve, and use it to lead, if we can ---or at the very least, to be an active part of---the universal search for peace, freedom and morality.

My friends,

It has often been said that there is no direct correlation between success in school and success in life, and I am willing to concede that there is some truth to that, particularly if one means financial success in one's career after school.

But I cannot concede that one's schooling has no effect at all on one's life in the outside world. For it is in our early years -- while we are in school -- that our values, our beliefs, and yes, our character are formed and developed. And for this, we ought to be thankful to our alma mater, the University of the Philippines, where brotherhood, equality regardless of economic or social status, and the need to defend our freedoms, have been inculcated in our heads and in our hearts.

That is the U.P. legacy. That is the legacy we should leave our society and the generations to come.

Our national hero, Jose Rizal, envisions a nation united, where “The good and welfare of our country is our motive. Let us prove to the whole world that when a Filipino wills something he can always do it."

To my fellow awardees, U.P. alumni, and beloved countrymen, we have much to do. And allow me to pose the questions that were asked of every U.P. student, during one of the most trying times in our history:

Kung hindi ako kikilos, sino ang kikilos?
Kung hindi ako kikibo, sino ang kikibo?
Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?

Led by men and women who look beyond the present and themselves, we Filipinos could try and answer those questions, and become what Blessed John Paul II has called, “the light of Asia and the world.”

Mabuhay ang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas.

Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan.

Maraming salamat po at magandang gabi sa inyong lahat.