Remarkable Class of 2023
By Tonyo Cruz
HOTSPOT
A big downpour might have marred and shortened the University of the Philippines Diliman’s commencement exercises last July 30, but nothing can detract from the sheer achievement of the Class of 2023.
A record 2,243 out of UP Diliman’s 3,359 baccalaureate graduates received Latin honors. That’s two-thirds of the entire graduating class.
Three hundred five graduates attained summa cum laude honors, or more than twice the number compared to last year’s 150 in 2022.
Honored as magna cum laude were 1,196 graduates, and 742 graduated cum laude.
The high level of achievement is also obvious in other units of the UP System.
UPLB’s 1,932 graduates include 22 summa cum laude, 343 magna cum laude and 559 cum laude.
UP Manila produced 1,366 graduates. 731 of them obtained Latin honors: 20 summa cum laude, 293 magna cum laude, and 418 cum laude
Among the 779 graduates of UP Visayas were three summa cum laude, 100 magna cum laude and 297 cum laude.
UP Tacloban reports 303 graduates, with 13 magna cum laude and 165 cum laude.
Out of UP Mindanao’s 252 graduates, there’s one summa cum laude, 57 magna cum laude and 99 cum laude.
UP Baguio has 440 graduates, with 271 receiving Latin honors.
These figures come from the UP System website, the respective UP unit websites and Facebook pages, and reports from student publications UPLB Perspective, Manila Collegian.
We could be certain that their families are overjoyed by the academic achievement of their sons and daughters. Not only did they graduate, they did it with distinction. For all their help, they rightfully share in their graduates’ pride.
But since UP is also, by law, our national university, this is also yet another proud moment for taxpayers and people of the Philippines. Our national and collective investment in our scholars has continued to produce a bumper crop of outstanding graduates.
Our thanks and pride extend to graduates of other state colleges and universities, and those run by local government units.
Many of this year’s graduates had their college education interrupted by the pandemic.
But neither the world’s longest Covid-19 quarantine and the lack of direct pandemic assistance to college students could stop those who wished to keep on studying. We also have to credit the dedication and courage of teachers and professors for doing their jobs.
We also cannot forget that the pandemic did not totally shutter UP and many SUCs. UP Manila’s Philippine General Hospital, College of Medicine, and other health science units for instance were at the frontlines of the pandemic response. UP scientists also produced a Covid-19 test kit.
Many SUCs also opened their laboratories to produce alcohol, soap, detergent, masks, and face shields especially when they were scarce and to directly help hospitals and medical frontliners in their respective areas.
The Class of 2023 witnessed, survived and prevailed over the pandemic. Their experience, intertwined with the rest of the nation, would most probably have a lasting effect on their points of view and in their practice of the professions they chose to pursue. They know what needs to be done for farmers, workers, jeepney drivers, health workers, victims of injustice, and others.
In response, the government should seriously consider awarding automatic full scholarships to all Latin honor graduates of UP and other SUCs who wish to pursue further studies. Public school teachers and college instructors and professors should be offered full masteral and doctoral scholarships, as a reward for keeping the educational system running and for producing good graduates amid the pandemic. These scholarships could become initial steps toward formally expanding the free tuition law to include all levels of college education.
But the best possible reward the government could give to our successful and outstanding graduates is a challenge to government itself and to industry: full employment for all college graduates seeking to work and capital assistance for those eyeing to pursue entrepreneurship.
For now, the celebrations continue in the households and friendships of UP graduates. They have done well. Let’s congratulate them by recalling the last line of the UP Hymn: “Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan!”