| Jul. 29th, 2005 09:05 am basahin niyo to! ang cute! Eduardo G. Fajardo Admu hs64 ! col68 ?
Commencement Address
De La Salle University Manila
June 18, 2005
> >Dedicated to My Mother, My Hero
> >Natividad Galang-Fajardo
> >( 1910 - 2004 )
> >
> >
> >Not too many people know that this is the third
> >time I have tried to be a LaSallian. Back in 1964,
> I
> >was desperate to get into college on scholarship
> >because I knew that my mother, who was raising all
> >nine of us by herself, could not afford anything
> else.
> >My only options were to get a scholarship or to
> work
> >by the day and study at night as all my older
> brothers
> >and sisters had done before me.
> >
> >One day, somebody told me De La Salle University
> >had scholarships for poor students. So, I walked
> from
> >our home in Tondo, near the railroad tracks of
> Tutuban
> >Station, through Abad Santos Avenue, along Bambang
> St.
> >through Magdalena, then Avenida Rizal, through
> Plaza
> >Sta. Cruz, over the bridge spanning the Pasig
> River,
> >through City Hall, along Taft Avenue, through Isaac
> >Peral, through PGH, and finally LaSalle Taft.
> >
> >There, I was told I needed to pay a P 3.00
> >examination fee. Since I did not have the money
> (which
> >explains why I had to walk in the first place), I
> >walked back to Tondo, reversed myself through Taft,
> >Isaac Peral, etc., until I got back home. My mother
> >confirmed my fears but she referred me to my
> married
> >older sister, Ate Sylvia, who managed to save the
> >money for me after three weeks.
> >
> >I walked back again to De La Salle where they told
> >me that they would schedule me for an exam a month
> >down the road. In the meantime, I heard about
> another
> >school, went there, took the exam and,
> miraculously,
> >won a full four-year scholarship. After the
> >celebrations, I remembered the P 3.00 so I went
> back
> >to La Salle, again on foot, to reclaim it. There, I
> >was told it was non-refundable. So, I walked the
> >streets again but, somehow, the trip felt longer
> than
> >ever before.
> >
> >Today, I am honored to receive a doctorate,
> >honoris cau sa, from La Salle for my work for the
> last
> >two decades with scholars. Pardon my pride but I
> think
> >I deserve this degree: I walked to La Salle and
> back 3
> >times and I paid P3.00 for this, 41 years in
> advance!
> >)
> >
> >Seriously, I would like to thank De La Salle for
> >granting me a doctorate degree in the humanities,
> >honoris causa, and for giving me the privilege of
> >addressing this gathering today.
> >
> >May I have the honor of being among the first
> >to congratulate the De La Salle University Class of
> >2005 for a job well done. You have earned the right
> >to call yourselves with pride "LaSallians", a name
> >that evokes the excellence of your academic
> traditions
> >and holds the promise of your future as leaders of
> our
> >country and educators of the poor. May I now ask
> all
> >the parents and loved ones of the graduates to
> please
> >rise and remain standing.
> >Graduates, let us give your parents and your loved
> >ones a big hand in gratitude for their love and
> >support throughout your years of study in
> >La Salle. They are your heroes, the first ones in
> your
> >life. Thank you.
> >(Parents and loved ones, you may now sit down.
> Thank
> >you.)
> >
> >May I also acknowledge the presence among you
> >today of a special group of teachers. Will the 30
> >joint scholars of the Natividad Galang Fajardo
> >Foundation and De La Salle University please rise
> and
> >remain standing. They are teachers from 17 public
> >schools and the Philippine Normal University who
> will
> >receive their Master of Arts degree in Education
> with
> >you today, 5 with Distinction and 2 with High
> >Distinction. They will go back to teaching jobs in
> >public schools with lower salaries and longer work
> >hours than in most of the private sector jobs but,
> I
> >assure you, they are committed to, even passionate
> >about, teaching the deserving poor. Indeed, these
> >thirty "Bravehearts", are true heroes of our
> country.
> >Let us also give them a big hand. Thank you.
> >(Scholars, you may now sit down. Thank you.)
> >
> >My biggest hero is my mother, Natividad
> >Galang-Fajardo, "Ima" as we called her in our
> native
> >Pampango. Her family was her life. In 1955, she had
> a
> >double-crisis. My father had a massive heart attack
> >and was bed-ridden and jobless with big medical
> bills
> >to pay for the next 12 years.
> >
> >If that was not enough, she had 9 children, the
> >youngest being only 1 year old at the time. Things
> >were so bad that her relatives offered to adopt
> some
> >of us but she would have none of that. My mother
> drew
> >on her faith and focused her energies on keeping
> her
> >family together. She cooked "champorado"
> >by the tub and sold it in a "kariton" beside the
> >Quiapo church daily before the crack of dawn. She
> >fried "lumpia" and "turon" by the hundreds which we
> >then peddled all over Sta. Cruz district in the
> >afternoon. She bought piglets in January, fattened
> >them with our neighbors' table scraps and sold the
> >pigs in May for our school expenses. As poor as we
> >were, she always had a coin or two for Mass, a
> >mandatory weekly event for all of us when we had to
> >wear our best clothes.
> >
> >What sustained her was a vivid vision of a
> >better life through education. Thanks to the free
> >public school system, all nine of us reached high
> >school. Thanks to scholarships, three of us
> finished
> >college. She inspired all of us to believe in
> >ourselves and to excel in anything we were doing
> >which happened to be academics for me. In her 93
> >years with us, she never complained, never asked
> for
> >anything for herself and always encouraged us to
> take
> >care of others around us.
> >
> >Growing up poor in Tondo, you develop a sense of
> >stages in your life and your role in each. In the
> >first stage, people take care of you. You have met
> two
> >such heroes so far, your parents and your mentors,
> who
> >taught you lovingkindness and compassion, critical
> >thinking and a sense of mission. In the second, you
> >learn to empower yourself by learning a trade.
> >
> >Here, you take care of yourself as you become your
> >own hero. You look for either a scholarship to
> college
> >or, failing that, you get a job quickly and study
> at
> >night. In the third stage, you take care of others.
> >You look after your younger siblings' education,
> you
> >take care of your own family, you support your
> parents
> >in their old age and you care of anybody else who
> >comes along the best way you can. The stages
> overlap,
> >the years fly by so fast and life repeats itself as
> >you become a "hero" to others.
> >
> >Today, you have become full-fledged members of
> >society, in the second stage of your life. From
> this
> >day forward, you will take care of yourselves and
> >learn a decent trade. You will learn to excel in
> >whatever it is that drives you with a passion for
> that
> >is the only way you will achieve any thing
> important
> >in this world.
> >
> >Consider yourselves lucky, very lucky, that you
> >are LaSallians. Your parents have the means to get
> you
> >to the best school where you can get the best
> >education along with the best minds and talents in
> the
> >country. But, even now, you must be aware that,
> soon
> >enough, you will have to take care of others around
> >you. Because you have been gifted with so much, you
> >will be res ponsible for a lot more.
> >
> >Let me now show you who you are responsible for.
> >
> >I am told that, in 2004, there were 7.7 million
> >Filipinos working abroad, roughly 9.3% of our total
> >population. If you add the undocumented ones, the
> >percentage figure can easily rise to 10% of our
> total
> >population.
> >
> >One out of every ten Filipinos is working outside
> >the country! If each such Overseas Filipino Worker
> >("OFW") has even only two dependents, that means
> >nearly one out of every three Filipinos today
> depends
> >on OFW remittances <?param Verdana>for their
> >livelihood. For you to get a better appreciation of
> >this diaspora, 2,378 Filipinos left every single
> day
> >of 2003 to work abroad.
> >
> >This exodus is the single biggest mass movement
> >of workers in our century. It has and will continue
> to
> >have major economic, social, political, and moral
> >ramifications on the future character of our
> country
> >and our people.
> >
> >For some time now, OFWs have been carrying us on
> >their shoulders. To begin with, our economy is
> totally
> >dependent on OFW jobs to keep unemployment down and
> to
> >maint ain economic growth at a steady pace. The
> >earnings of OFWs are probably the only thing
> keeping
> >our economy afloat at this time. $ 8.55 Billion of
> >annual remittances go a long way towards supporting
> >families back home and shoring up the government's
> >dollar reserves to help service maturities from our
> $
> >56 billion of foreign loans.
> >
> >The major growth sectors in our country today are
> >principal beneficiaries of substantial expenditures
> by
> >OFW dependents in housing, clothing, food and
> >education. Clearly, OFWs are modern-day heroes of
> our
> >country.
> >
> >Like all else, there is a price to pay for all
> >these. The Filipino family system is at risk.
> Almost
> >one-third of our population is growing up without
> at
> >least one parent: the absence of a mother or a
> father
> >against the backdrop of available cash has strained
> >our traditional family structure and values: we see
> >broken marriages, second families, prostitution,
> >out-of-school youth, drug addiction, among others,
> on
> >the rise in the OFW sector.
> >
> >It is no bed of roses either for the OFWs
> >abroad: the women are the most vu lnerable to human
> >trafficking while the men take on some of the most
> >dangerous jobs. If they escape these, many OFWs are
> >forced to accept entry-level jobs because the
> quality
> >of public school education back home has so
> >deteriorated that they lack the professional skills
> to
> >compete at higher job levels. Thus, every time a
> bomb
> >goes off in Israel or a truck driver is kidnapped
> in
> >Iraq or a maid is beaten up in Singapore, we hold
> our
> >collective breath as a nation, fearing that yet
> >another Filipino has been abused or, worse, that
> >another Filipino is going home in a casket.
> >
> >And still Filipinos continue to brave dangers
> >and endure loneliness away from their families for
> a
> >simple reason: we have collectively failed them. We
> >have failed to create enough decent jobs to save
> them
> >from a life of grinding poverty back home. We have
> >failed to create a fair and just society,
> respectful
> >of the rights of every man, woman and child and
> >protective of our environment.
> >
> >Every generation has a defining challenge. My
> >generation was asked to reclaim democracy from a
> cruel
> >dictatorship and to restore justice. We did get
> >democracy back but we have utterly failed so far to
> >make it responsive to the needs of the people. The
> >challenge for your generation today is to create
> >enough decent jobs for a fast- growing population
> and
> >to promote a better quality of life for all in a
> fair
> >and just society. The personal challenge for you,
> of
> >course, is to stay home, forego the "American
> Dream"
> >of material comforts and cast your lot with our
> >people. Your response to these challenges will
> define
> >you and your generation; it will be the story of
> your
> >life.
> >
> >You need to prepare to move up to the third stage
> >of your life wherein you begin to take care of
> others.
> >This time, "others" will include not just your
> >immediate family, not even just your La Salle
> family.
> >You need to be a special kind of hero: you need to
> be
> >a patriot, someone who loves an entire country,
> >someone who takes it upon himself to be responsible
> >for an entire people.
> >
> >At the first level, patriotism is simply the
> >awareness of and compassion for all of our
> countrymen;
> >it is to be one with all Filipinos. It is a
> >celebration of a common history and values with all
> >people within the same shared space. It is an
> >identification with an entire people, an
> affirmation
> >of being part of a transcendental spirit animating
> all
> >Filipinos so that we feel each other's pain and we
> >rejoice in each other's triumphs.
> >
> >Ateneans and La Sallites should not weep when
> >they lose to each other in basketball games. They
> >should weep, instead, for Christians and Moslems
> who
> >are casualties in and refugees from the continuing
> >conflict in Mindanao. We should raise funds not
> just
> >for the annual Ateneo-La Salle athletic tournaments
> >but for scholarships for the children of our
> neighbors
> >right here in Leveriza who today are separated from
> >the rich of La Salle not by the short distance of a
> >few street meters but by the wall of poverty.
> >
> >For a just society, we should teach our
> >children at an early age that the poor and the
> ethnic
> >minorities were not created by a lesser god but by
> the
> >same God we worship. We should tell them that God
> is
> >in our employees -- our drivers, our gardeners and
> our
> >maids -- who, therefore, deserve the same respect
> and
> >support as we give our own family for the blessings
> >they give us in our daily lives.
> >
> >At the second level, patriotism is creating
> >vehicles of hope for one's countrymen. It ennobles
> the
> >national psyche. A poor man with a job is a happy
> >leader and willing provider for a family. A bright
> >student with a scholarship is a person with a
> future
> >and a stake in our society.
> >
> >LaSallians, do not to leave for work abroad. I
> >can understand why poorly-educated Filipinos have
> to
> >look for jobs abroad but not you. You are in the
> best
> >position to start a business here or to start a
> >professional career of your own with your La Salle
> >education, your family finances and your personal
> >connections. Do not just take a job, create a job!
> >There are many business opportunities here for the
> >bright, the hard-working, the creative and the
> >patient: just ask the Koreans and the mainland
> Chinese
> >businessmen who have been settling here in droves
> in
> >search of a better life. Create jobs so that our
> OFWs
> >have an option to stay home, be with their families
> >and str engthen our institutions and values as a
> >nation.
> >
> >LaSallians, donate scholarships to the
> >deserving poor and set to motion infinite circles
> of
> >goodwill. The scholarship Mr. Jose B. Fernandez,
> Jr.
> >gave me to the Ateneo de Manila University in 1964
> has
> >since grown, through the Natividad Galang-Fajardo
> >Foundation, to 329 scholarships, 56 funded
> >professorial chairs (of which 31 are in La Salle),
> >several scholarship funds and one graduate school
> of
> >mathematics education, among many others. Imagine
> the
> >next circle. Right in your own home, provide
> >scholarships to the child ren of your household
> staff.
> >They, too, are your responsibility.
> >
> >Better yet, donate a professorial chair. Adopt a
> >public school teacher, buy her books, help her
> source
> >a computer; make it your personal apostolate to
> >encourage and to support her as she serves God and
> >country in the trenches of public education. A
> typical
> >teacher touches the lives of at least 5,000
> students
> >in a 25-year career. Her inspiration to our young,
> >however, is forever: At 57, I still carry with me
> >today values and lessons about life I learned from
> my
> >teachers at F. Balagtas Elementary School and at
> >Arellano (Public) High School half-a-century ago.
> >
> >At the third and highest level, patriotism is
> >sacrificing one's own time, one's career, and, if
> >necessary, even one's own life for love of country.
> >LaSallians, trace a non-traditional path: pursue a
> >service- oriented career.
> >
> >Teach in state universities yourself, especially
> >in the provinces where there is a scarcity of good
> >Ph.D.'s. Work for the government and be a model of
> an
> >honest, efficient and motivated civil servant for
> the
> >sake of the masses who desperately need social
> >services. Join NGOs to protect the environment,
> uphold
> >human rights, teach population control to the poor,
> or
> >safeguard the environment. In short, donate
> yourself
> >to your country. Be a hero to the rest of us.
> >
> >La Salle parents, please do not tell your
> >graduate to become yet another Wharton MBA selling
> >Citibank private banking products to already rich
> >people in Asia. Allow him, instead, to make a
> >meaningful career here.
> >
> >If he is good in Mathematics and if he loves
> >teaching, why not grant himPh.D. scholarship so
> that
> >he can teach the poor? Forget the pay; by the mere
> >fact that you have a La Sallian son, God has given
> you
> >enough blessings already. Donate your son to the
> poor,
> >as the Father gave us His Only Son. If you wish,
> hedge
> >his bet:: give your own son a huge professorial
> chair
> >so that he can better concentrate on his apostolic
> >work. Encourage him daily. Affirm his decision.
> >
> >For me, all three levels patriotism come so
> >naturally. They are ingrained in the three stages
> of
> >life in Tondo as we start with "heroes" who help us
> >and become "heroes" to others later on. Patriotism
> >begins with my mother's love for her children and
> >expands into her children sharing her love with all
> >Filipinos through our Foundation. "Inang" in
> Tagalog
> >and "Ima" in Pampango represent to me all that is
> >caring, loving, noble, and worth sacrificing
> oneself
> >for.
> >
> >The Philippines, our country, is my "Inang
> >Bayan", my mother's land, my motherland. It is the
> >home of my heroes, my mother and my teachers. Now,
> it
> >is the home of my own family --my wife and my two
> >sons. Everything that I am, I developed here;
> >everything that I have, I earned here. Why should I
> >be selfish? "Bakit ako magmamaramot ? "And so I
> expand
> >my mother's love for me and my love for my mother
> to
> >my love for my own country. Thus, I am responsible
> for
> >all my countrymen. I am a Filipino. I am
> responsible
> >for all Filipinos.
> >
> >And so are you, too, my dear graduates. You are
> >not LaSallians, you are more than that. You are
> >Filipinos. Therefore, love your country as you love
> >your own mother and as your mother loves you.
> >
> >And so , my dear graduates, go forth into the
> >world. Write a good life story. Be a hero. Be a
> >Filipino.
> >
> >My mother be with you. La Salle be with you. Our
> >country be with
> >you.God be with you.
> >
> >Maraming salamat po sa inyong lahat. Pagpalain
> >tayong lahat ng Diyos.
>
>
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sorbetes's journal
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haha
i know something you don't knw
