Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas
CHANGING WORLD
(Part 1)
I graduated from college (De La Salle University) 62 years ago. Over these more than half a century, I have attended numerous graduation ceremonies, both here and abroad, most of the time as a university professor forming part of the academic entourage. For as long as the additional years that God will still give me to live, I will never forget the unique circumstances of the graduation ceremonies held during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. All the speeches – the university officials, the commencement speaker, and the valedictorian and salutatorian – were either pre-recorded or transmitted live online. I consider myself fortunate to have attended the 25th graduation ceremony of the university where I still teach as a professor emeritus, the University of Asia and the Pacific that started in 1967 as a think tank called the Center for Research and Communication.
For the benefit of the estimated 800,000 graduating students from universities and colleges all over the Philippines, I would like to freely quote from two individuals who imparted words of wisdom and encouragement to the graduating students of 2020 who are facing the most uncertain future as the whole world suffers from the worst economic depression in 150 years. What they said will surely comfort and guide these young people who are facing a very uncertain future.
The first speaker is one of the most promising young political leaders in the country today – Mayor Vico Sotto of Pasig City, where the University of Asia and the Pacific is located. In my work as an economist advising government officials at all levels for the past 50 years, I can truly say that Mayor Sotto has impressed me most in what he has accomplished in delivering services to his constituents in the very short time he has been heading this important component city of Metro Manila. What is equally impressive is his commitment to good governance and the elimination of corruption. That is why his message to our graduates should be heard by all those who are facing the uncertainty and anxieties resulting from the collapsing economies all over the world. Although I was too young to know what they were facing then, I can only compare the fears of the graduating classes of 2020 to the dread about the future of those finishing their university courses during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines during the early 1940s. The words of Mayor Sotto and those of the president of UA&P, Dr. Winston Padojinog, can do much to allay their fears and motivate them to convert the ongoing crisis into an opportunity to serve their country.
Mayor Sotto captured the tragic-comic circumstances in which the graduating youth find themselves as a result of the pandemic. To quote from his speech: “I still remember around ten years ago, during our graduating ceremony from college, I remember how long it was and I remember, well, I don’t remember much to be honest with you. And possibly ten years from now, you’ll remember that you had a very unique graduation via Zoom and Facebook live. You’ll remember that you had a graduation during these very peculiar times, but who spoke and what they said would probably all going to be a blur. Maybe you’d remember that your commencement speaker was wearing shorts. Well, I’m just kidding, but you won’t really know if I was kidding or not.”
He then described the usual questions graduates of all times ask about their uncertain future. The uncertainty in 2020 is, however, multiplied a hundred times: “Going through this graduation and moving on to the next chapter of your life in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, in the middle of this massive quarantine that we’re in can’t be easy. A lot of you have made plans that will simply have to be delayed, and given this current state of uncertainty a lot of them will actually have to be cancelled altogether. It may be a bit unnerving to enter adulthood and your new careers, making these big life decisions at this point and this COVID-19 pandemic has really exposed a lot about ourselves, a lot about our society and the world we live in.”
Being a realist, Mayor Sotto called a spade a spade when he described the difficult environment that the graduates will be facing. He was not one to paint a rosy picture of the world today: “….Oftentimes, (the world we live in) seems like it’s revealed more of the bad. We see the economic inequality, we see our now high unemployment rates, we see how politics has caused deep-seated divisions among us, how corruption is engraved in our bureaucracies. We see how these issues have prevented better response in times of crisis when we all should be working as one. It’s clear our world needs big changes and fast.”
Believing that a crisis should never go to waste, the mayor asked the graduates to transform crisis into opportunity, the opportunity to make a difference: “But I have faith, that as we see what’s wrong in the world that we live in, that as young people, as the next generation of leaders in the Philippines and in the world, you will also be the catalyst of positive change that we so badly need. I know it may sound a bit cliche but the truth is, if society, if our world is going to get better, there’s no one else who’s going to do the job but you.”
It was refreshing for a post-senior citizen like me to listen to a leader who graduated from college just ten years ahead of the audience he is addressing, speaking about the earth-shaking changes that have occurred in such short a period of time. His being older by just a few years than the graduates of 2020 gave a lot of credibility to his words about the need to adapt to the vertiginous change happening in our midst. As the mayor reminded the graduates: “…There’s one big difference between our generation and the generations before, and it’s not that your generation is just naturally better; it’s not that you’re widely more intelligent and talented. The difference is in your potential to effect change. All generations, especially coming out of crisis, have transformed our world to some extent, but your generation has the potential to make changes faster and more efficiently than any other generation has done in the past. Technology is advancing at a exponential pace; this enables us to do more and faster. And no one knows how to use it better than you. For instance, the same organization-building that would have taken the likes of Jose Rizal to accomplish in the 1890s would possibly take only a few weeks with the tools that are available to us today, to you right now at your fingertips.”
Mayor Sotto actually identified the whole sector of the economy in which there are going to be unlimited opportunities for the graduates of 2020 to make their education and talents productive. Whatever specializations they chose while in college, they must all consider how they can take advantage of the tools, devices, and services of the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0 – the digital world. This sector will permeate all other economic sectors, from agriculture to manufacturing to services.
Embedded in these remarks of Mayor Sotto about the digital world is the very important advice that more than previous generations, the graduates of 2020 must consider learning as a lifetime process. One never stops studying. Actually what they acquired during their four or five years of college, more than a stock of knowledge, data, and information, is the ability to continue learning all their lives. The graduates of 2020, more than any previous generation, must make full use of the digital space to continue sharpening their critical thinking skills, their ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing, and the wisdom to relate one human discipline to another without getting bogged down in overspecialization. That is the only way they can avoid being replaced by robots and Artificial Intelligence.
To be continued.