Studying to serve

It takes a lot to bring a tear to my curmudgeonly eyes, but I came close to it a couple of weekends ago at a graduation event in Marikina. Nope, no one I knew was among the 80-odd graduates who went up the stage. They weren’t even really graduating from high school yet, much less college. So what did I find so moving? I think it was the fact that these students came from schools in poor communities in Marikina and Quezon City, and they had just undergone a program to prepare them for college entrance examinations.

Those examinations, of course, mean more than just another test. They’ll be gateways to the future of these children, determining who’ll become an engineer or a doctor, and who’ll have to drive a truck or sell insurance — or maybe sing and dance in Yokohama — for a living.

Standardized exams are supposed to represent a kind of intellectual democracy that rewards the intelligent, but ironically and unfortunately, the way things work in a highly stratified society like ours, they often produce anything but democratic results. Students who’ve been privileged to go to grade schools and high schools with good teachers and facilities — what we Pinoys refer to as “exclusive” schools — will always have a leg up on those who didn’t.

This has been a matter of great concern for us at the University of the Philippines, where the “excellence vs. equity” debate has gone on for quite a while, the central question being, “How are the people’s taxes better spent: on investing heavily in our best minds, no matter where they come from (most likely Metro Manila’s middle and upper class), or on affirmative-action programs that can help less-advantaged Filipinos catch up with the leaders and create a more level playing field?”

It used to be — and I still caught the tailend of this — that some public schools could go head to head with private ones, and produce graduates who may have been short on some social skills but could run rings around you in the chemistry lab. I met a lot of those promdi whizzes at the Philippine Science High School, and their brilliance and modesty put me — coming from a private boys’ school, though none too rich myself — in my proper place.

Today — while outstanding students no doubt exist in even our poorest schools and communities — that’s sadly not the case. The better libraries, teachers, computers, laboratories, and other facilities of private schools do matter, and it shows in tests like the UPCAT, not to mention other exams like the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE).

If I had one advocacy to choose, it would be education for the poor, and this program sponsored by the Ateneo de Manila University’s Pathways to Higher Learning is a fine example of how far a little volunteerism can go in our society to even up people’s chances. What Pathways does is to send volunteer teachers — many of them Pathways alumni themselves — to high schools where they help out students (typically in their junior year) with science, math, and English, the subjects they most need to master to do well in college entrance exams.

The tutoring has made an enormous difference, not only in the hundreds of Pathways students who made it to college after six batches (the batch I observed was the seventh), but also in the attitudes of the kids, who come to feel that, with proper preparation and support, they can study as well as anyone else in our country’s best public and private universities. Five members from the second batch have just graduated with honors from college — at FEU, Ateneo, and Assumption College.

Pathways executive director Solvie Nubla introduced me to young men and women who had finished or were now taking up Computer Engineering, Psychology, and Mathematics in UP, Ateneo, and other institutions; they had returned to pay the program back with their time, as Pathways kuyas and ates leading on the next generation. (I was personally glad to meet the energetic Solvie in person, finally, after corresponding with her online for over a year to help work out the placement of two young and bright but impoverished boys in Bicol, who are now doing very well in their studies at the Ateneo de Naga.)

Pathways had invited me to speak to the graduates, and instead of a prepared speech I brought along a slip of paper with some bullet points to share with my young audience. Here’s what I told them:

1. You can blame poverty only so much for holding you back. Instead of using it as an excuse to do nothing, use it as a reason to do all you can. Don’t waste time grumbling, or feeling embittered.

2. Those of us who are poor simply have to do more to catch up. The only thing we have is our intelligence and resourcefulness, and no one can help us best but ourselves. Find ways of compensating for your shortcomings (in my case, this was through reading and, later, writing).

3. Education is the great equalizer. Don’t waste this chance when you get it. Have fun learning, and learn to have fun, but stay focused. Your richer classmates can afford to bum around, but you can’t.

4. A good school is a great help, but a good mind is even more important. The best school can’t help a lazy mind.

5. Learn how to write and to speak well — it really helps. And read, read, read. Read things beyond your immediate interest and competence. Nothing you read is ever wasted.

6. Be engaged in the issues of your time. Some things are more important than personal prosperity and success. When you succeed, give back. UP’s “iskolar ng bayan” and Ateneo’s “a man for others” suggest the same thing: we study to serve the people, not just ourselves nor our families.

Thanks again to Solvie Nubla and the Pathways people for the chance to hook up with their wards, for whom I have the highest hopes and expectations.

(If you’re interested in knowing more about Pathways and its work, take a look at their website at http://www.pathwaysphilippines.org, or send them an email at info.pathways@gmail.com).

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And speaking of studying and lucky chances, I’d like to invite all Fulbright alumni in the Philippines to attend the general meeting (heck, let’s call it a grand reunion) of the Philippine Fulbright Scholars Association (PFSA) on April 18, Friday, at the Dusit Nikko Hotel in Makati. This year happens to be the 60th anniversary of the Fulbright program in the Philippines — which also happens to be the longest-running national Fulbright program in the world.

For those who don’t know, this program — originally conceived by Arkansas Sen. James William Fulbright — has been one of the United States’ most effective ways of extending its influence around the world, through graduate scholarships extended to students and professionals from all over the world — nearly 300,000 of them to date, including more than 100,000 Americans sent for studies overseas. There should be over 2,000 Filipino alumni of the Fulbright-Hays program (and the related Hubert Humphrey and East-West Center programs) by now, give or take a few who’ve passed on to another kind of fellowship in the sky.

Those alumni include many of the most illustrious names in Philippine education, science, arts and culture, agriculture, law, and public policy — among them, just for starters and in no certain order, Cesar Buenaventura, Lucresia Kasilag, Bienvenido Lumbera, O. D. Corpuz, Jaime Ongpin, Rolando Dizon, Maximo Soliven, Gabriel Singson, Jose Cuisia, Rene Saguisag, Corazon de la Paz, Doreen Fernandez, Antonio Arizabal, Cayetano Paderanga, and the PFSA’s current president, Isagani Cruz (the writer, not the jurist). Younger alumni include filmmaker Nick Deocampo, lawyer Macel Fernandez, and poet Ricky de Ungria, and engineer and educator Rey Vea. (I was a Fulbrighter myself from 1986 to 1991, at Michigan and Wisconsin, and it was an experience that changed my life and how I saw the world. To this day, I still reckon my life in terms of pre- and post-1991, which was when I came home.)

The Fulbright bash is going to be a whole-day affair from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., featuring a cultural exhibit and a program in the morning and a cocktail reception in the evening. A talk will be given by Thomas Farrell, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Academic Affairs of the US State Department, who will be accompanied by Deputy Chief of Mission Paul Jones and Undersecretary for Administration Franklin Ebdalin of our Department of Foreign Affairs. The reunion’s highlight will be the giving of seven Outstanding Fulbrighter awards across different disciplines, with trophies designed by National Artist Napoleon Abueva, himself a Fulbrighter.

If you need more information, please call the Philippine American Educatonal Foundation at 8120945, or email them at fulbright@paef.org.ph.

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Email me at penmanila@yahoo.com, and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net.