TWO YEARS ago, the huge deficit from the Honesty Store put Atenean honesty into question.

In 2010, two days after the Department for Student Leadership (DSLD) launched Umbrellas-On-The-Go on November 9, 16 umbrellas were already missing.

Umbrellas-On-The-Go is a program that allows students to borrow umbrellas to be used in designated areas around campus.

Every area has its assigned umbrella color: green for SEC walk to Gonzaga cafeteria, red for Bellarmine Hall to Xavier Hall, and yellow for John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM) Student Enterprise Center (JSEC) to Matteo Ricci Study Hall.

The Honesty Store was a project initiated by the Ens. Phillip Andrew A. Pestaño Foundation, and hosted by the Ateneo Student Leaders Assembly (ASLA).
Cabinets were filled with snack items and left in different areas around campus. The cabinet also contained a cashbox, where students could pay if they wanted to do so.

Empowerment

DSLD Officer Goodyield Chu said that the program was not only opened because of the students’ need for umbrellas but also to empower the students by giving them simple responsibilities.

“[The school] has so many walkways that do not have shade and we saw the potential for it to be an avenue for [students] to realize that they can be leaders themselves by simply returning the umbrellas properly,” said Chu.

Since the program is a part of DSLD’s Dare It Forward (DIF) campaign, Chu said that addressing the practical need for umbrellas helps students realize that they are leaders through everyday situations, which is what DIF is all about.

However, junior Jason Capuyan said that despite the help it offers, the program’s sustainability relies on the honesty of the students to return the umbrella, and that it is something that cannot be controlled.

Second time around

Chu recounted the problems of the Honesty Store and said that the former project was “not able to meet its goals and had to be discontinued.”
Junior Irwin Angelo Amago,meanwhile, said that he was disappointed to find out about the missing umbrellas.

“It’s rather appalling that Ateneans would disregard simple responsibilities that quickly. Like many other unnerving news from before…[this is a] concrete reminder of how we often neglect our societal responsibilities even in the smallest scales,” he said.

Honesty in other areas

In the cafeteria, however, Ateneo Multi-Purpose Cooperative General Manager Leoncio Miralao said that his staff reported no losses of cafeteria tumblers.
“When you come up with a deposit, the deposit covers what you’re taking out. So in fact that’s part of the calculation. In effect, you’re saying you can go ahead and take it out because you paid for it. But if you return it, you get refunded,” he said.

Cafeteria Property Custodian Dennis Bautista said that the stationing of guards at the exit doors greatly helped in managing cafeteria utensils.

Rating the honesty of Ateneans in general, Bautista gave an almost perfect score of 95%. “Sometimes, when someone leaves his belongings [in the cafeteria], Ateneans would surrender it to the cafeteria office,” he said in Filipino.

Meanwhile, Cafeteria Head Cashier Narisa Alipio gave a lower rating of 80% to Ateneans. She talked about instances when students would get food items without paying, especially if the cashier wasn’t looking. When students would be approached, Alipio said they would admit forgetting to pay. “I still don’t know if their actions were intentional,” she said in Filipino.

Miralao clarified that he did not wish to make a generalization of Ateneans. “I think in any group, in any community, in any organization…there would be some problems [like dishonesty]. [There are] some people who may not be at the same standard as the norm,” he said.

Possible solutions

Chu said that Ateneans might just need more time to understand the Umbrellas-On-The-Go program.

“I think our department has to promote the project and its values to the community better,” he said.

He added that they needed to remind students that the students themselves are the solution to the honesty problem.

With reports from Klarisse P. Felix