Let me begin with an apology for the pretentious title. Who am I to write about hope? What about hope can I possibly share that philosophers like Marcel or our professors and modern heroes, who have been fighting for different causes all their lives, have not already said? Not that much, really. But I can write about one experience— my experience—of what hoping in our country has been like.
When I entered college, I saw the example of many young student leaders and started to consider working in the government in the future because of its capability to positively impact people’s lives. Back then, seeing how I could help solve many of the problems that plague our nation today gave me hope.
But much of this enthusiasm was challenged last year—the year I saw our country elect a leader who promised change by stronghand rule and killing the “worst” of humanity, utter disregard for due process in dealing with potential criminals, the trivializing of human lives—even that of a six-year-old girl—by treating them as necessary collateral damage, a national leader disrespect women and implicitly give consent for others to do the same, social media used as a tool to mislead people, truth so easily jettisoned, and a traitor, thief, dictator, and murderer buried as a hero.
But 2016 was not a year of total darkness. Late last year, thousands of people stood up to the injustice that was the honoring of the former dictator and the legitimization of the atrocities against our nation. I, too, shouted my disdain at the cowardice of the stealthy burial and sang Bayan Ko beside the victims of that era of injustice. For once, I felt like we were winning. I felt that anything could be accomplished if we got together.
But days, weeks, and months pass, and the grit of the everyday brings us back to our own small realities—requirements, deadlines, friends and family who often disagree with our values. Still, everyday we see fake news and paid trolls, a number of killings that now tally more than those who were killed in Martial Law, and young people still ridiculed for being naïve. To see that our efforts at organizing even just within the school sometimes end up in disagreement makes it all frustrating and seemingly hopeless once again. I was ready to give up on our country.
But over the semestral break, I heard the vice president give an inspirational talk. Something I have always wondered was how she had the strength to continue with her work, despite being attacked constantly.
Her speech reminded me of something student leaders like telling each other: go back to your why. It was a call to put our focus away from these disappointments, back to the battles that still have to be fought. So many forms of injustice prevail in our world today. Focus on your goal, and these voices become background noise.
A friend once told me, “May we find it within us to hope.” Like her, I had thought that hope is something found within a person—a mysterious internal element found in heroes like Nelson Mandela. But perhaps hope begins with looking outwards —into the eyes of the people swept aside by society, and telling ourselves, “For these people, I have no choice but to go on and fight.”
Ly Tanganco is a senior student and lead coordinator of the Bagumbayani Initiative—an organization that seeks to promote integrity and positive change in the government by sustainably recruiting young people to join the civil service as a purposeful, viable, and practical career option.
