‘Dream big – now’

(Commencement speech at UP Los Baños, Laguna on April 27, 2013)

I am proud to speak before you just within minutes before you get hold of your respective diplomas, proof of your hard work and the fruit of your parents’, guardians’ and teachers’ sacrifices and support. Congratulations to all of you!

I just learned that one of your batchmates, Alyssa Asilo, in spite of having been diagnosed with leukemia last year, tenaciously persisted in completing her course in the College of Veterinary Medicine at UP Los Baños. She was posthumously given her medal and diploma with honors that she richly deserved this morning.

I can find no better example of the sheer determination of a student to pursue her dream to graduate, despite the odds, hardship and outcome, than that shown by Alyssa.

Today, you graduate from an institution that cultivates dreams — yours and those of thousands who came before you and of thousands of others who will come after you — and enables those dreams to become reality.

But UP Los Baños is not your dream-weaving factory from fantasyland where all dreams come true in a snap. At UP,  you are taught that it pays to study well not only for you to get good grades, but also to open your eyes to the discovery and rediscovery of knowledge. Simply put, this campus, manned by the best teachers and mentors, set in a fresh mountain environment, prepared you well to be important players in the real world.

As you leave UP, you will not be without fear.  For we all know that life’s journey is full of uncertainties. And you are not exempt from life’s challenges just because of your passage from being “Iskolar ng Bayan” to “college graduate.”

But do not be disheartened. Think about what I am about to say, and believe.

As author Marianne Williamson aptly said: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.”

So, you should dream big and have confidence in yourselves, but at the same time stay in touch with the realities around you.

Gain experience and absorb knowledge as much as you can. It is not a joke that indeed, experience is the best teacher.

Also remember that joining the ranks of the employed is not your only opportunity to make your own mark in this world.  You can also be an entrepreneur.  Think of a product or service you can offer differently. Innovate and create a niche in business.

Most of the successful Chinese families I know encourage their children to start a business, big or small, apart from gaining employment. More than planning to be employees, they plan to be employers, thus contributing more to the national economy.

Iba na rin kasi ang panahon ngayon.

Thomas Friedman, an opinion columnist of the New York Times, wrote, “My generation had it easy. We got to ‘find’ a job. But, more than ever, our kids will have to ‘invent’ a job, adding that given the pace of change today, even those who find jobs will have to re-invent, re-engineer and re-imagine that job much more than their parents if they want to advance in it. 

This is an age when things are seemingly unstructured, not like before when there were rules for everything. But you are lucky to have the world practically at your fingertips. Young people today need not try too hard to know of cultures or economies of countries at the opposite side of the globe. 

You have Facebook, Twitter, short messaging systems or text messaging. You have Instagram to share your precious moments in pictures. You have apps that help you cut down or even eradicate library time and physical group studies. You have Google to give you well-researched data in a flash. You just need to know how and where to look.

So dream big, but do not be afraid of hard work. I believe I did the same thing not so long ago and by the grace of God, I now have  this opportunity to share with you my story today.

Early on, I had always wanted to be a lawyer. My family and friends thought the same because as a child, I loved to argue and never ran out of questions. To make a long story short, I went to the best law school in the country — the UP College of Law, of course.

Later on, I got a fellowship from the best law school in the United States — that’s Yale Law School.

After my fellowship, I sent my applications to two of the biggest and most prestigious law firms in the Philippines at that time — the Sycip, Salazar, Luna, Manalo and Feliciano Law Firm and the Ponce Enrile, Siguion Reyna, Montecillo and Belo Law Firm.

At Sycip, I was offered an initial salary of P1,000, which was considered substantial for starting lawyers in the 1960’s.  I recall then that the dollar was worth only P2.  On top of that, I was to have a small office space of my own.  I was supposed to fill a vacancy in the section on Patents and their most senior partner even took the time to interview me.

At Ponce Enrile, on the other hand,  I do not remember being interviewed at all. I was offered P450 a month with no office of my own. I was just told that I would be provided with a temporary desk at the office’s library.

While many thought it was a no-brainer that I join Sycip, I did otherwise. I joined Ponce Enrile after much reflection.

Why? Because aside from being young, and thinking of myself as brilliant and talented at that time just like you, I was also prepared to work really hard, dealing with the multi-faceted practice of law, instead of dealing with just a very narrow, specialized field of Patent Law.

I thought that Ponce Enrile was the place where I can train and experience broader fields of law. At that time, I thought I needed that more than comfort, luxury and a higher salary. Specialization can come later.

When now Senate President Johnny Ponce Enrile joined the Marcos administration in 1966, there was no associate lawyer in the Ponce Enrile law firm who could actively take over the tax cases and matters he was handling at that time. Since I had mastered the subjects of Taxation and Corporation Laws at Yale, the partners chose me to take over the work that Johnny left behind.

Looking back, I know I made the right choice. Barely a year and a half, I was made Junior Partner.

While my mother may have thought it was my charming personality that helped to get me promoted, the fact is that it was really a mix of very hard work and dreaming big. It helped that I exerted extra efforts to learn.  Although I already had my hands full with the tax cases and other assignments given to me, I still took the initiative to ask from and handle other cases of my co-associates, most of which we won in court.

From P450, my take home salary from Ponce Enrile jumped to P4,000 a month, so much so that I was able to import a $2,000 Mercury Cougar from the United States in 1969. Undeniably, my top of the line car earned me a few more so-called pogi points. But kidding aside, you can just imagine the hard work that had to be done before I could drive my dream car.

Much, much later, I established my own law firm together with a senior partner, Ike Belo, in the Ponce Enrile law firm. Among our clients was a man named Bob Stewart, popularly known before as the Lucky 7 Club’s Uncle Bob. He, too, was a big dreamer, having operated a hole-in-the-wall radio station which he evolved into a radio/TV broadcasting company.

Bob literally brought the business of television to me.  When he needed to sell the shares of his fledgling broadcasting company, he looked up to me as a buyer. To tell you the truth, I initially said no.  But then, I finally decided to give it a shot. 

We were then doing fine producing shows that gained patronage among certain audiences and getting by in terms of viewership ratings and revenues. Back then, GMA 7 was content in playing second fiddle to the industry leader.  

But I when took the helm of the company in October of 2000, I dreamed big, in fact, bigger than anyone else at your Kapuso Network. I dreamed of making GMA 7 No. 1 and rallied my team to work harder than ever before. The rest is history. Together, we have transformed GMA into the multi-media giant that it is today. And we are now No. 1!

In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell introduced the “10,000 hour rule” which suggests that it takes about 10,000 hours of hard work and practice to become an expert at anything. I think he is correct.

As a young lawyer, I invested more hours than most lawyers my age in the study of various fields of law. At GMA Network, we collectively invested a lot of precious manhours to get to where we are now. You can do the same and perhaps much more.

As part of UP Los Baños’s proud tradition of graduating the country’s best scientists, engineers and artists, among others, be reminded that your country needs you to do well—either as a professional or as an entrepreneur.

So that the future engineers and scientists here present will be instrumental in building infrastructure to grow the country’s agriculture and business industry.

So that future policy-makers and public servants  will ensure that farm-to-market roads and bridges are well-constructed and strategically located for food products to reach the consumer fresh and cheap.

So that the future doctors, agriculturists, foresters, artists, media personalities, and educators among you today will push reforms that will enhance the totality of the well-being of each and every Filipino.

Lastly, let me leave you with this gem from French Nobel Prize for Literature winner Jacques Thibault or Anatole France, and I quote, “To accomplish great things, we not only act but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

So, carry on, dear graduates, the world is your playground now. Play well, play hard, play fair and of course, play smart.

Mabuhay kayong lahat. Maraming salamat.