Read Beyond the Lines

Ever since, restoring the “Glory that was CHS” has been the battle cry of some professors and instructors in the college. It has almost seemed like a blind dream leading another blind into the land of nowhere. With most students thinking that it is better to confine themselves into their pigeon holes, how could the college ever reclaim the excellence, glamour and respectability it has once possessed? With nothing more but a few individuals trying to rekindle the fire of passion within the college, how could it ever make any difference? But indeed, big fires start with small sparks.

Who would have ever known that the sleeping spirit of CHS will be awakened once more during the last SLU Intramurals? Head up high, soaring with ablazed hearts and with all the love for our real identity as the College of Human Sciences, we have proven to the whole of SLU that we indeed exist and we came back to claim what is rightfully ours, a spot where for the past years, the two top-populated colleges dominated. We toppled them not merely by claiming major prizes because we know for a fact that their share will, at the end, be more numerous than ours. But we conquered the odds to be in a place where neither an athlete nor a cheer-dancer experienced defeat all because we have won the best game after all. It is the game of proving to the whole of SLU that we are a team with one dream.

It is quite annoying that after the event, negative declarations from some who might not even really cared about the welfare of the college have surfaced. We hear foul claims on how the dream-crowd supporting the delegates has been formed. We hear allegations of grade-bribery (what a term!) which is heavily disgusting to hear. It is as if we have tried to bake the best cake for weeks only for someone to feed it to the dogs. We have tried to gain the respect of the university in a day but after some time of walking around the university with pride, we have been pulled down to be a point of mockery.

Would it be wrong for an instructor to be creative and resourceful enough to think that instead of asking the students to do projects that would remain enclosed in the confines of the faculty room, he or she have required something that will be useful for the college instead? Would it be wrong to encourage the CHS students to share their time and talent to ensure that our beloved college will not be left behind licking the crumbs? In times like the Intramurals or the Arts Festival, who would support the CHS delegates other than us, the CHS people? Are we supposed to draw support and cheers from other colleges instead? If we will do that, then, it could have been the most pathetic thing that we could have ever done.

Sometimes, we must look beyond the things that we feel like saying at the span of the moment especially if we do not really know if someone will be hurt in the process. Remember, not all the things that we feel like saying is really appropriate to be said. Just to give everyone of us a hint, it is called responsibility. It is the brother of respect and the sister of authentic wisdom. It brought forth the authentic Human Sciences Spirit and moves us out of self-made illusions. It encourages us to be a team bonded by unity and goes away from whatever may destroy our common dream to always be the best that we can be. And as the pages of history of our college unfold we hold our head up high and together we say: SOAR HIGH, HUMAN SCI!

Louisian Convergence'08

Assassinating the Knight in Me

In times that I feel the surge of melancholy, I try to compare my life to the persons and things around me. I would always have this intoxicating idea that even the life of a stray cat is better than mine. But what makes it more puzzling is the fact that there are also times that I see myself living a life better than anyone else. The fluctuation of how I look at life as it is is apparently reaching the depths of my personality. It is something that embodies a man honed like a knight but in his turn, tries all his best to resist other people’s imposition proving that he is the master of his own existence.
Then I consider the life of a leaf. It sprouts from a stalk of a tree. From there, it is expected to be something like any other all the other leaves of the same tree. Same is true in my life. People around me always want me to be someone that I am really not.
I grew up in a family where expectations storm my everyday existence. I have always believed that my parents expect me to conduct myself properly whether I am in public or not. One may even say that I almost surpassed a military training when I was that even my haircut can be a violation and a form of disrespect.
Alas, I am honed in the way everybody expected me to be: a kind, responsible, intelligent and modest young man. I have assumed the post of a knight trying to make sense of a purpose dictated by the commanders around me. In that fashion had I built a thousand expectations of myself. It feels like I am always spelling my name in small letters because they told me to do so.
It was already in my early college years when I felt that something was indeed lacking. I suddenly reckoned that I was there blindly letting myself to be carried by the script written by another when in fact, I can alwaysdo it for myself.
Right now, I am gathering my strength by holding on to a single expectation of myself: that whatever happens, only the ‘me,’ ‘myself’ and ‘I’ will be responsible to the life I have chosen to live. Sometimes, I would have to leave my armor behind and be vulnerable to any danger brought about by the battle called life. If it is reality, then the only possible future is winning.

We Remain

We have always amazed ourselves with an illusion of greatness for our country. In one way or the other, we find ourselves relying on mere possibilities of future growth and development. Sadly, we have never really cared enough to turn those utopian dreams into actuality. Now more than ever, we find our motherland grasping for survival. In any case, we all remain decked along the shelves intended by the global community for those who are left behind.
We must admit that real progress is not at hand merely because the government is claiming that the schemes for economic survival are working. We need more than just sweet sounding demagogues and empty words leading us to the land of nowhere. We have no real solution to alleviate poverty and stop political repression. Not even the multi-million emergency fund of the office of the president seems to work good enough for a long-term plan. It is just like a situation wherein we are hopelessly trapped in a vicious cycle within a maze and the escape route exists only in our dreams.
The continuous degradation of the way of life of the monthly-paid employees down to those who are jobless is alarming. We see each day passing like a bountiful harvest soaked by the rain before even a cavan was consumed. We remain slaves in a society we claim to be our own. We still find ourselves fettered by the idea of a Cinderella transformation only to find out that we, ourselves, are the wicked culprits.
The claws of apathy are deceiving our nation. We remain entangled in our comfort zones. All the while, many people are merely contented watching from the corners and taverns of our society numbed by the fact that they see themselves as very small components whose actions would not really matter. But as LUDWIG Feuerback will necessarily say, the point is neither to watch nor interpret, it is to change the situation. No matter how small we really are, if we would just have the guts to stand for what we believe in, we could start social transformation.

ABSTRACT (Public Lecture: October 3, 2008)

The primary goal of this paper is to present a common ground wherein multi-religious perspectives would strip away biases against each other due to self-built dogmas. To attain this goal, the notion of Karl Jaspers’ cipher and Transcendence were utilized to form a perspective open to the possibilities of communication between particular religious revelations, their other counterparts and even history. Part of the findings were the inevitable role of human freedom in the process of making the religious experience a ‘truth-for-me’ and the possible appropriation of cultural religious perspectives in the political realm as a ground wherein the formation of individuals takes place. This does not discount the danger wherein one may lose one’s identity in the process of claiming a truth imposed by religion. Hence, the importance of the human freedom and the value of personal experience of the Divine nature when it comes to practicing a religion are once more stressed.