Slip of the Pen
ptaruc@theguidon.com
A quintessential aspect of the Atenean construct is one’s subscription to the belief that college life ultimately ends with a descent down from the hill.
From its beginning as a student manifesto published in The GUIDON four years prior to the declaration of martial law, the phrase has come to encompass the ambit of the university’s distinct lexicon.
It cannot be denied that “down from the hill” has made quite an impact on the Ateneo community—it has given us an identity.
No matter what college degree we pursue or which student organization we join, we stand in consensus within a single paradigm.
Nevertheless, for such a phrase to dwell in campus discourse for more than four decades, one cannot help but maintain dubious thoughts as to whether or not it has influenced the area of concern where it has been needed the most—Philippine society.
The mere fact that the most unfortunate of our fellow citizens still feed on leftover chicken bones from the trash of fast food restaurants means that there seems to be a dissonance between what we have been saying and what we have actually done.
Yes, the outliers exist. A number of Ateneans have heeded the call to be men and women for others. Nevertheless, given that such a phrase has essentially been a battle cry of the entire Ateneo community for a very long time, shouldn’t the Philippines already be in a radically better state compared to what it was when the phrase first gained currency?
To a certain extent, the university bears responsibility for such a situation. It is the community’s culpa levis in abstracto—slight negligence in the abstract.
We have mistaken the beginning of the story to be its ending, when in fact, there are so many pages left to be read. Perhaps it is time to open a new chapter in the narrative.
The story does not end when we go down from the hill. That is not enough. There are so many things we have yet to do. There is so much life we have yet to live; there is so much love we have yet to give. The nobler, albeit more difficult part of the journey begins when we use our Atenean education to bring others up to the hill.
When we support programs such as scholarships and healthcare, we start to see the marginalized as our equals rather than as those who live down the hill. Although such deeds are already being done, they do not get as much attention as they deserve.
Instead of going down to their level, it is time we start thinking of ways to bring the underprivileged up to ours. If we continue the current mode of discourse, the status quo will never change.
We will forever be one step above them, they will be on the other side of the fence, and we will never get to see them as our equals. Yes, we could go down from the hill to help them out, but we will always have our gated subdivisions to go back to when things get uncomfortable. We will always have our bath tubs and showers to wash away the grime and stench of the streets. They, on the other hand, would still have to dwell in the filth of their reality.
The framers of the manifesto did not seek to end the task of nation building when they published it. They sought to begin a new chapter in the Ateneo’s narrative.
We must continue what they have started. It is time for us to carry the marginalized up to the hill and show them a whole new world, to borrow from Man of La Mancha, the “world as it should be,” rather than “the world as it is.”
