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juliatamayo-mmp2 · 6 years ago

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The Final Beginning

Watch an excerpt of Julia Pauline H. Tamayo’s Valedictory Address below:

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Transcript

Mr. Ernesto Tanmantiong, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin, University President, Fr. Bienvenido F. Nebres, 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; proud parents, guests, friends and benefactors, a pleasant afternoon to all of you. And to my fellow graduates of the Class of 2022, congratulations! We have finally made it!

Finally – a seven-letter word that all of us worked day and night, blood, sweat and tears for. “Finally finished my reading!”, “Finally got that A!”, “Finally done walking from CTC to BEL!”. All our lives we have been driven to get a hold of that finally and every single fiber of honor affixed to it.

The most life-changing finally I have achieved throughout my entire life was when I finally woke up and greeted defeat a good morning.

It was an early Saturday when I met 11-year-old J.I. and twenty-two other kids during Ateneo’s Lights For Hope. I, together with my co-facilitator, fetched all twenty-three of them from their community just along Katipunan Avenue. These children lived in an extremely cramped and underlit alley so easy to miss and so natural to avoid that it seemed like a mere gap between two towering buildings.

Behind the beaming eyes and irresistible laughs that filled Ateneo High’s Covered Courts were the gloomy hearts and heart-rending realities these children had to live through. J.I., one of the children in my group, told me a story about how she and her three other siblings stopped attending school because her parents could only afford sending their eldest child.

Maingat kong iminungkahi sa kaniya na sikapin niyang aralin ang mga inaaral nang kaniyang kapwa. Subalit, ang kaniyang naging tugon lamang ay, “Mahirap pong gawin dahil tinutulungan ko po si Mama na maglaba. ‘Yon po kasi ang trabaho niya.”

At that point, my heart sank straight to the floor. Ultimately, I felt defeated, and I accepted it. All I could offer were momentary reassurances, even worse than temporary fixes.

These kinds of finallies – the kinds that make us feel the most underfulfilled – are far superior than the rest because these activate our personal journeys to self-actualization. Abraham Maslow explicitly defined self-actualization by claiming that ��What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.” (Maslow, 1943)

Our dear Alma Mater has provided multifarious opportunities for us to obtain that transformative and cathartic finally. Thank you, Ateneo for we have ceased becoming oblivious to the cruel truths in this world. We have set sail in discovering our true selves – our motivations, our fears, our passions, and our dreams. For four amazing years, this university has reshaped our identities over and over. For four amazing years, this university has introduced us to the greatest minds of the country. For four amazing years, this university has welcomed us into a community inspired to serve for the greater purpose, influencing us to be the same.

Now that we have become aware of the changes in ourselves and our environment, all there is left to do is to be in love and to stay committed.

Being in love is certainly one of the most ambitious decisions we have to make because not only does it demand pouring every ounce of our being, but more than that, it requires staying passionate and committed. We have all had our fair share of commitment in both giving and receiving. And, we have learned that alongside this obligation is our purpose. Growing up, I had always been bothered about what my true purpose in life was. I have questioned God countless of times, only to find out that the answer has always been within me, again it was love.

That, my friends, is the beauty of love. To stay committed to being in love can only be answered by love itself. Think about this: our friends have big ambitions and thousands of responsibilities of their own yet they still buy our favorite donuts from Cello’s during our bad days; our teachers have continuously developed our lessons, adding pop culture references, to students who just might cut or doze through the whole lecture; our mothers already know that the person we are in a relationship with is not the one yet they still allow us to prove them wrong.

All these acts were born out of a natural willingness roused by love, and from these acts, we become inspired to reciprocate that love. We owe so much to the people around us because without them, we will not become overflowing with grit, passion and zeal.

As soon as we step out of this university, there will come points in time wherein we might get stuck in an infinite loop of uncertainty and failure. We might fall short in loving. We might fail to remember how to stay committed. I am here to tell you that no matter what happens, it will be completely fine because we have been prepared in one of the best training grounds in the nation. For as long as we recall the true essence of being an Atenean, being grounded in magis, we will be able to persist and keep moving forward.

Class of 2022, we have finally made it. We have finally opened our eyes big enough to see and not just look, to criticize and not just judge, to understand and not just acknowledge – ultimately, to love and to stay committed.

Our world has a long way to go, but we do not need superheroes to save the world. What we need are actual people, like you and me, committed to serve for the betterment of the society. What we need are honest leaders, meticulous doctors, bright lawyers, and ingenious businessmen. People who are catalysts of progress so that young kids like J.I. could live a decent and justified life. People capable of stepping out of their comfort zones and making the impossible possible. People who embrace change and at the same time, challenge it. My friends, down the hill, we go. As we take the next step, always remember to dare the possibilities, to make wise decisions, to reach for the stars and to fly high. But, never forget to stay rooted in love and commitment.

As the famous words of Father Pedro Arrupe of the Society of Jesus go, “Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” Thank you and God bless to all of us.

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