The following is the valedictory speech delivered by Vanessa T. Siy Van (BS HS ‘18 and AB EC ‘18), summa cum laude and valedictorian of the Ateneo de Manila University Class of 2018, during the Loyola Schools Commencement Exercises on May 25 and 26, 2018.

Mr. Ernesto Tanmantiong, Chair of the Board of Trustees; Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin of the Society of Jesus, University President; Fr. Bienvenido F. Nebres of the Society of Jesus, Rector of the Jesuit Residence; Dr. Maria Luz C. Vilches, Vice President for the Loyola Schools; Vice Presidents and Deans of the University; beloved administrators, faculty, and staff; dear parents, guests, friends, and benefactors; and my fellow graduates, good afternoon.

Congratulations, Batch 2018! We did it. Over our time here in college, we officially have met every last impossible deadline: All our readings and papers, multiple exams and orals in a day, and of course, those frantic runs from Bellarmine to CTC. When we live deadline-to-deadline, college life seemed rather unpleasant. So, wow, college is over! But if we slow down and look back on the last four years, we remember the awe-inspiring lectures, life-changing org engagements, and the steadfast friends who are now embarking on different life paths. Wow, college is over. 

As we leave the Ateneo, we enter a complex and changing world with contradictions and paradoxes. All the while we are told to hold on to our values and stand firm with our mission. That sounds like fun. Despite the ambivalent feelings we have over graduating, though, there is one that should be clear. When we think about these memorable experiences, we celebrate. And at the heart of our joy is gratitude. Gratitude for the efforts of others we did not ask for or always deserve. Gratitude for selfless service we did not fully appreciate or can ever fully give back. But putting a face to the givers in our lives is a pretty good start. So to our parents, administrators, faculty, and staff, we offer our sincerest thanks. Without you, today and all the days leading up would not have been possible. Let’s give them a hand.

Okay, step one, accomplished. Now there’s just step two, which is everything else.

An Awareness of Change

I remember when I told our Health Sci Program Director, Doc Sio, that I wanted to take a second major in Economics. He just looked at me and said, “You know something about you, Van? You don’t like change. You want the whole world wrapped up in neat, predictable theories and models.” I felt slightly offended. And I did what I think most of us would have done. “So I don’t like change, ah? I’ll show you how much I can dislike change.”

So I will tell you now that for two years, I refused to change. And that will be completely false. With the multitude of reflection papers we have written, I am sure we have realised that who we are now is not who we were when we entered the Covered Courts and sat in the mono-block chairs for OrSem Tuklas. Outwardly, this so-called end to our college experience is so similar to its beginning. Nothing has changed, and everything has changed.

That is the paradox of change. We do everything we can to avoid it. We become satisfied with doing the same thing, even if it isn’t the right thing. We preserve rituals and cling to unfulfilling relationships without taking stock of how they affect and constrain us. But consistency leads to complacency. As we rationalise superficial routines, we compromise what is within us: Our core values, the values that should anchor us against the ever-flowing, ever-fast current of change.

In unassuming ways, we make seemingly benign decisions that reflect our fear of change. How often do we take the time to discern before we make decisions? The world does not make it easy. It constantly demands our attention on things that seem urgent but are not really important. Think status updates and invitations to “connect.” Let us look at our careers. How many of us had decided to be doctors, lawyers, architects, or business people only because our parents have the same career, or we already know what it entails? How many of us are taking math or design only because that was who we were in high school? We follow familiar patterns because they feel safe. But from small decisions to big ones, this is tantamount to living on autopilot.

It is not easy to overcome the complacency that comes with familiarity. I started college unwilling to take risks. It was a slow, at times painful, process of opening myself up to the most spontaneous and unpredictable variable, other people. Sometimes, that meant being unsure of how they would react to me. Other times, it meant depending on them. All those times, it was worth it, because I was able to go beyond the limits I had prescribed myself, encounter others, and create genuine connections.

When we don’t become open to change, we become rigid and more likely to break under pressure. And there is a lot of pressure out there. We experience powerlessness in the face of seemingly immutable social structures and values. We turn on the news at night and see: extrajudicial killings, martial law in Marawi, and the quo warranto petition against the chief justice. In so many ways, we feel trapped in a system that does not work for so many people, where injustice is bought in bulk and apathy is the currency.

Paradoxically, it feels as though things are always changing and changing fast. Technological advances alter the way we consume information and our very definition of truth. When we hear people say the world is changing, they usually mean for the worse. That’s why nostalgia sells. Everywhere we look there is another reboot for Spider-Man, Batman, and even the Power Rangers. You just know at one point we’ll get a Barney and Sesame Street reboot, but totally gritty and dark.

But this is not our destiny. Not the gritty reboots; those will definitely happen. I am talking about how we are not powerless. Though the world is complex, we cannot let it passively change us. Problems are entrenched in huge systems that span political, cultural, social, and economic institutions. Let us meet that challenge with trans- and interdisciplinarity. We are dynamic agents, willing to collaborate with different sectors.

Maraming di-tiyak sa mga magaganap. Tungkulin natin ang maghanda: Ang pagyamanin at pag-ibayuhin ang ating kagalingan at talento. Pakiramdaman at unawain natin ang tawag ng panahon, upang maging tama at akma ang ating tugon. Bagaman di magiging lubos ang paghahanda, kakailanganing tumalon at magtaya.

An Openness to Failure

While we undergo this journey of personal change, we are put to the test. The values that make us unique are measured against general standards that can never capture our totality. We are all guilty of looking for milestones to feel as though we are progressing. And we can only introduce ourselves in a few words while we struggle to be more than our neat, self-explanatory titles. [SOM/SOSE] Like Justine Malabanan, brilliant student and summa cum laude; Gabrielle Gabaton, COA sector-based cluster head and end-stage renal failure survivor; Jonathan Rodriguez, TnT Tours Head for OrSem Likha; and Magin Ferrer, president of the Ateneo Chemistry Society. [SOSS/SOH] Like Lance Gamboa, summa cum laude with double minors; Liam Lu, editor of The GUIDON’s Beyond Loyola section; Gabrielle Mesina, a brilliant director recognised by the Loyola Schools Art Awards; and Helena Baraquel, Ateneo Musicians’ Pool’s executive vice president for internal affairs. All of these titles are true, but they aren’t all that they are. These students always ask you how you’re doing. They have stood in solidarity protesting injustice. They have experienced that special giddiness after pulling an all-nighter and having 8AM class the next day. These are not things we can put on a résumé. In fact, sometimes these things don’t feel productive. There doesn’t appear to be a quantifiable performance indicator for being human, does there?

We cannot neatly package what matters most. There is overwhelming noise telling us, “This is what it means to be successful,” “to be happy,” “to live a good life.” The paradox of chasing these formulae is that we don’t define the very fulfillment we are scrambling to attain. We crave clarity so badly, but we end up oversimplifying ourselves instead. And in this worldview, failure is never an option. We glorify having no regrets, so we never let ourselves learn. Over the years we build up the pedestals we stand on. Every game won, every honour received, every story published, lifts us higher and higher from the ground that now, come graduation, the ground seems really far away. We look down and say, “A fall from this height will surely kill me; there is no way I can let myself fail.”

In college, I got the first F of my life. For years I had an image of myself built up from my fairly consistent track-record. I had expectations for myself, but it was a pressure that I wasn’t even aware existed because it was built itself so gradually. After the failure hit, I realized the fear of failure felt far worse than failure itself. I was disappointed and sad, but I also started to examine where I went wrong and all I felt was a burning desire to quote-end-quote, “redeem” myself.

When we cannot accept that failure is a possibility, one integral to personal growth, we settle. We become satisfied with fulfilling standards instead of surpassing them. This leads to having mediocre jobs, draining relationships, and uninspired missions. The fear of failure is not a sign of humility; rather, it is an act of pride. We Ateneans hate the word “entitlement,” but there is an entitlement in telling ourselves that we cannot and do not deserve to fail. What makes us better or more special than the “other people” who at times will fall down? Without an openness to failure, we do not take risks, we do not aim higher, and we do not become resilient.

That is why, as a society, we become blind to our mistakes. We tell ourselves we are at the most advanced place we have ever been. We call it progress that we are getting things done faster. But are we becoming better? We are afraid to fail, but we are not perfect, so instead we fail but we are afraid to admit that we do.

This obsession with making sure there is not a single smear of failure in our lives speaks of an attempt we are all making. Whether we are aware or not, with each milestone and achievement, we are all constructing a legacy. We lean on impactful, catchy labels like “philanthropist,” “genius,” and “visionary,” to grasp for an identity. That’s not wrong. What is detrimental is continually ignoring the parts of ourselves that do not adhere to the pedestal we want to construct. Then the fall looks more daunting. At times, we need to tear down these pedestals and take a step back. Only then can we reassess, and rebuild ourselves in the right way.

We construct an image of other people as well. For all of us, data collection is probably prosaic. But I think for most of us, that changes the moment we encounter our respondents. When, beyond the survey form, we find out they live alone because their children work late shifts; that they are afraid of getting hypnotised over the phone; that they are lonely and want to know what is going on these days. Faced with this encounter, we want to go above what is asked of us, to listen, to be present. Legacies, then, are overrated. Through our mundane encounters with people, we develop our characters, recalibrate our actions, and evaluate our worldviews.

Kilalanin natin ang ating kapwa, ‘di lamang alamin ang mga bagay tungkol sa kanila. Sa araw-araw nating pakikisalamuha, doon lamang tunay nating madarama ang kanilang paghihirap, mauunawaan ang kanilang kagalakan, at masasabayan ang kanilang pangarap.

A Commitment, Love

So now, we are aware of the changes in ourselves and the world. We are open to failure as the beginning of true progress. All that is left is commitment. No big deal, right? Love is a commitment. When we love, we enjoy being a presence in others’ lives and having their presence in ours. Our parents had fulfilling lives and still choose to have us. Our friends have their own dreams and choose to include us in them and grow with us. Our teachers choose to re-design and make relevant their lessons class after class, semester after semester, to students who might be sleeping through the lecture. Our leaders have the skills to do the job on their own and choose to empower us.

Common to all of these is that love is a choice. And because it is a choice, the commitment means more. What motivates us to stay is not need but that we want to be there. We want to give the other person space to grow and change for the better. We have experienced others’ commitment to us throughout our college lives. Fresh in our minds is our immersion. In the three days or more that we spend with our communities, we see them at their most vulnerable.

We are inserted directly into their homes and into their lives. They are aware that after the three days, it might not mean anything to us. But they commit to making us feel welcome and encountering us. Love and mission, then are one and the same. Love is why we decide to keep hoping even when times are hard. Mission is why we persevere against all odds. It’s okay to feel discouraged, helpless, and hurt. But those are feelings. Feelings pass, but our decisions and their consequences endure.

This is where all of the things come together. We can change and inspire change; we pursue what matters even if we might fail. Knowing all of this, sometimes despite knowing all of this, we choose to live a life of love. It sounds as though love is being a superhero: Always giving, always sacrificing. That’s not true. Because, as C.S. Lewis said, love is about being vulnerable. We want to give everything but trust the other person not to ask for something we cannot give. That is the point: We’re not perfect. We will hurt and disappoint one another, and ourselves. But we can choose to keep loving despite that. (Maybe not that same person, or under the same circumstances, but we can still love as a person.)

The same is true for our missions. At times we will fall short of what the mission asks of us. We will feel tired and disappointed and question our commitment. When I started college, I didn’t have a plan, much less a mission. Even after I became aware of multidisciplinarity in health and economics, I could not commit to it immediately. I did not feel I was enough for my mission. It was only through becoming vulnerable, and opening up to professors, alumnae, and friends, that I was able to prepare myself for it. I made mistakes, but gained so much experience as well. So accept vulnerability; you will be pleasantly surprised at how willing people are to help you get where you want to be.

This goes for our community, our country, and even the world. It feels as though everything is falling apart now. But we keep working and keep hoping because of love. We will keep protesting until we are heard. The ouster of Chief Justice Sereno has spurred us to confront how we value our constitution and our liberties. We will keep informing until we have illuminated the truth. The GUIDON continues to cover the environment of fear and violence in Marawi even a year later. We will keep transforming structures and systems until there is justice. Today, there are still lives being lost in the drug war, victims of detached public policy and also a fragmented health system, who are not even named and numbered. We cannot be there for every single person, but we can keep working to reduce vulnerabilities that the poor experience. We can build a Philippines that reaffirms through its arts what human dignity means, that aims to understand the lives and the needs of Filipinos, that establishes integrated and responsible businesses, and that innovates and develops sustainable and empowering solutions to local problems.

All of these are acts of love. All of these are a choice to commit to the mission to which we are all called. Ang pagmamahal ay pagpapahalaga: Pagpapahalaga sa pagpili at pag-alay.

Sacrifice, then, is also overrated. When we sacrifice, we see the losses we incur. We pat ourselves on the back for being selfless. Rather than sacrifice, our mission is all about love. Frederick Buechner once said, our mission is where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep needs. In my immersion, I was called to attend to a nanay who suddenly experienced dizziness and nausea. I took her blood pressure and after hearing her medical history believed she might have had a mild stroke. With her friend, we rushed her to a clinic some-20 minutes away and I was asked to explain her condition to the attending physician. When the community heard what I had done, I spent the day clarifying the purpose of hypertension and maintenance medication to people afraid to take them. I was treated like a doctor by everyone, including my immersion groupmates. Ironically, entering college, I was absolutely certain I did not want to be a doctor. When I got back, everyone was telling me my experience was a sign I should go to med school, but when I reflected on what my heart desired, I knew it was not an M.D. And when I discerned, though the world needed doctors, it also needed people who engaged problems concerning systems that spanned disciplines. Our deep gladness and the world’s deep needs.

The world needs real people, not efficient technicians, not even effective programs—but people who are self-aware and open to change, people who make small things count, people who love and commit to a mission; people who are glad to be doing so, people like you, like us. Our dear Ateneo, we are moved by your love, and we are moved to love. We change because we love and we are changed because we are loved. We are about to leave, but we will always remember. We are a bit sad, but we will always celebrate. We will have doubts, but we will always believe in our mission. So we make our commitments, to be better people, to find our missions, and to do them well. We don’t need more gritty superhero stories; we need people who keep the world turning despite the damage superheroes do. I suppose that’s us; or rather, that is who we should commit to being. Again, congratulations Class of 2018. Thank you and good afternoon!