Previously, in our exposition on UA&P’s Credo, we discussed how education is grounded in the human person as a lifelong, personal process. From this follows the second point in the Credo, which holds that “ the primary purpose of education is the integral formation of the human person, the fullest development of everything that is human in the individual.”1 But what exactly does it mean to fully develop “everything that is human in the individual”? And why is this the primary purpose of education?

To answer this question, we should return to the classical definition of man as the union of body and soul. This is also the most well-used explanation for whole-person education, as it recognizes the different dimensions that make up an individual. To form the body and soul means to take care of the physical as well as the spiritual, moral, and intellectual well-being of the whole person.

Returning to the definition of the human person discussed in the previous installment of this series, we understand the person as an individual, relational and rational substance. In this brief definition, we already encompass man’s body and soul.

To begin with, the principle of individuation is matter signed by quantity which, in the case of man, is his body.2 His corporality and materiality also encompass his ‘animal’ nature, even when these things belong properly to his soul as a whole.3 Furthermore, man’s rationality involves those elements of the soul which deal with the knowledge of truths. Finally, man’s relationality deals with his ability to tend himself toward goods and other persons, and in doing so, to determine himself.4

When it comes to the formation of the body, aspects such as sports, physical health, and nutrition naturally come into consideration. The ancient maxim Mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body) holds true for our University.

The formation of the spirit, however, brings forth greater complexity. The soul consists of multiple potential parts (powers of the soul), which are grouped into the vegetative powers, the sensitive powers, the appetitive powers, and the intellectual powers.5 Included in this consideration is also the faculty of free will.6 In fact, what is viewed as the formation of the body actually also belongs to the formation of the vegetative and, to some extent, the sensitive and locomotive powers of the soul.

Now, how is man developed in his powers? Through virtue, since “virtue denotes a certain perfection of a power.”7 Hence the development of the whole person means nothing other than the development of all his powers, i.e., all that is human in him, through virtue.

The question of developing all that is human in man brings us to ask: does this mean also developing his vices and sins, insofar as they belong to the human condition? Not at all. On the contrary, the development of all that is human in man entails the rejection of vice and sin, because evil is the privation of good, and is therefore contrary to perfection and development.8 Vice and sin however, entails privation.9 Therefore they are both contrary to perfection and development.

Hence, whole-person education must involve not only the development of man’s intellectual powers, but also of his appetitive powers and free will. Furthermore, given the presence of original sin, grace is needed which is perfective of the very essence of the soul.10 For this reason, the University also provides services directly related to the dispensing of sacramental grace and the growth in life in Christ.

Finally, insofar as man’s relationality is concerned, the University provides the opportunity for its students to learn how to relate to their fellow-students, faculty members, staff, so on and so forth. It also helps them develop, in a special way, the virtue of prudence, especially in political matters, by way of the University Student Government (USG). It is therefore not surprising that it considers the USG as “a laboratory for civic education where students who demonstrate an exemplary capacity for leadership and a willingness to serve their fellow students acquire actual experience in the exercise of civic responsibility.”11

Why is the development of the whole person so essential to the notion of education as integrally understood? This is because of the fact that there is an inherent connection among the virtues. The moral virtues especially enjoy this connection, under the guidance of prudence and the harmonizing action of charity.12 The intellectual virtues, on the other hand, are less connected due to the diversity of their objects; nevertheless, they all deal with universal causes and are also connected to the moral virtues by prudence, which is both an intellectual and moral virtue.13

For indeed, the intellect precedes the will: one cannot love what one does not know.14 For this reason, the pursuit of learning must be directed, ultimately, to love: And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing (1 Cor 13,12).

Ultimately, whole-person education entails helping students to become good people. It is very tempting, especially in the face of a world that seems no longer to believe in what we know to be true, to content ourselves with giving points of data to students. To a certain extent, this is the best that we can do given the fact that we cannot force the will.

But, at the very least, we should present the truths contained in the CAS curriculum as goods to be pursued. We must show them in the full force of their splendor, and help our students to come to the knowledge that these things, in and of themselves, are good things that directly contribute to our pursuit of a good and happy life.

I say in and of themselves, because more often than not students do seek to know these things as a means of obtaining happiness, but only insofar as they are things one “needs to do” in order to get a degree and a good job, which they view as necessary for the pursuit of happiness. But what students need to understand, and teachers need to make understandable, is that these things are goods in and of themselves that, when pursued, will make us good and happy people.

And indeed, UA&P exists in order to form good people and nothing less. We would fail as an institution if none of our students are ultimately able to “attain the sublime end for which he was created,” for “there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man’s last end,”15 that is to say, his eternal beatitude and salvation. And because “God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of His Only Begotten Son, who alone is ‘the way, the truth and the life,’ there can be no ideally perfect education which is not Christian education.”16

We, the undersigned Philippine law professors, call upon President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to exercise decisive leadership in defending Philippine sovereignty against continuing Chinese hostility. The defense of the Republic is not merely a matter of foreign policy. It is a constitutional duty.

First, we urge the President to give his unequivocal support to Secretary of National Defense Gilberto C. Teodoro Jr. in confronting Chinese coercion and strengthening our national defense. The Secretary must have the full confidence and backing of the President in protecting our sovereign rights and the safety of Filipino personnel. No official charged with defending the Republic should be left to face foreign intimidation without the resolute support of his own government.

Second, we call upon the President to establish meaningful consequences for continued Chinese hostility. Diplomatic protests cannot be our only response when unlawful conduct persists. The government should announce that continued aggression and coercion will trigger proportionate and lawful countermeasures, including the recall of our diplomatic corps from China and the declaration of the Chinese Ambassador persona non grata when circumstances and international law warrant.

We further demand the rigorous enforcement of Philippine laws on immigration, labor standards, customs, anti-smuggling, taxation, and product standards. Foreign nationals and businesses operating in our jurisdiction must comply with our laws. National security cannot be subordinated to commercial convenience nor can economic interests excuse unlawful conduct. The same standards must apply to everyone, regardless of nationality or influence.

Third, we urge the investigation and prosecution of Filipinos who commit crimes in the service of a foreign power. Authorities must investigate credible evidence of espionage, sedition, unlawful disclosure of national-defense information, and other offenses involving the advancement of Chinese propaganda or disinformation, particularly where these undermine military morale, compromise defense operations, or prejudice Philippine national security.

Commonwealth Act No. 616 and the applicable provisions of the Revised Penal Code must be enforced where the evidence establishes the elements of the offenses concerned. Deliberate participation in criminal schemes serving foreign interests must not be dismissed as ordinary political disagreement.

We recognize that freedom of expression is constitutionally protected. Criticism of government policy, however misguided, is not by itself a crime. But neither should constitutional liberty be invoked as a shield for espionage or other criminal acts. The answer is the faithful enforcement of the law, with due process and the evidentiary requirements of criminal prosecution fully observed.

The Philippines cannot demand courage from its soldiers and sailors while tolerating the weakening of national resolve through foreign coercion and unlawful interference. Our history, from the struggle against Spanish rule to the sacrifices of Filipino troops at the Battle of Yultong and the Golan Heights, demonstrates that Filipinos are capable of defending their country and fulfilling their obligations to the international community.

The question is whether our political leadership will match that courage with firmness and resolve.

We therefore call upon President Marcos to support the Department of National Defense, impose lawful consequences for continuing Chinese hostility, and ensure that Philippine law is enforced against those who commit crimes against the Republic, whatever their affiliations or motivations.

Sovereignty is not negotiable. The rule of law is not optional. And the defense of the Republic must never be subordinated to fear of foreign displeasure.

Signed: Philippine Law Professors

Dean Jemy Gatdula — UA&P Law
Nico B. Valderrama — UA&P Law
Rufino L. Policarpio III — UA&P Law
Amado Formoso Maralit — UA&P Law
Jedrek C. Ng — UA&P Law
Lester Nazarene V. Ople — UA&P Law
Judy Anne Yuki Yulo — UA&P Law
Roger Terence P. Camua — UA&P Law
Bellatrix O. Legaspi-Francisco — UA&P Law
Cristina A. Montes — UA&P Law
Joseph Peter J. Calleja — UA&P Law
Colleen I. Calleja — UA&P Law
Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino — Dean, Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Msgr. Gary S Formoso, JCD — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Prof. Edmund S. Tayao — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Dr. Juan Ruffo D. Chong — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Dr. Antonio La Viña — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Prof. Benedict G. Kato — Faculty of Civil Law, University of Sto. Tomas
Fr. Danilo R. Flores, JUD — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Fr. Lhem J. Naval — Pagadian Capitol College - College of Law
Dr. Jaime B. Achacoso — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Fr. Jerome U. Rosalinda, JCD — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
AD Pantua — MSU Law
Dean Genevieve Marie Dolores B. Paulino — Cor Jesu College Law School
Dean Pablito Sanidad
Dr. George Carmona — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Fr. Jun Arvie Bello — Graduate School of Law, San Beda University
Dean Ma. Soledad Deriquito-Mawis
Assistant Dean Jelyne Guadalupe — Cor Jesu College
Maruli Ali Garcia Sanchez — Cor Jesu College Law School
Manuel A. Rodriguez II — FEU Institute of Law
Dean Rabindranath Saludsod Polito — Misamis University College of Law
Alvin Claridades — PUP College of Law

With the national government embroiled in appaling controversies—from the expanding flood control scandal implicating top lawmakers and cabinet members to the Vice President’s public impeachment trial over vast, undeclared wealth—it is easy to succumb to cynicism about our country’s political future. As millions of Filipinos struggle against poverty, those entrusted with power are instead accused of lining their pockets and engineering large-scale corruption.

What often gets overlooked, however, are the quiet successes blooming across our local governments. While sensationalized scandals dominate the headlines, innovative programs at the municipal, city, and provincial levels are actively improving daily life.

Across the country, local leaders are silently and effectively driving real progress in livelihood creation, decent housing, environmental care, disaster resilience, public education, health services, and community safety.

Fortunately, a non-governmental organization, Galing Pook, is leading the way in providing valuable assistance to local government units. “Galing Pook is a leading resource institution that recognizes, capacitates, and promotes innovation, sustainability, citizen empowerment, and excellence in local governance. Galing Pook provides support, tools, and resources to local government units (LGUs) to enable them to build adaptive solutions to challenges in their communities. Through Galing Pook programs, local chief executives and their teams are able to upgrade their knowledge and exchange best practices that can foster development in their own localities.”

Launched in 1993, the Galing Pook Awards is a pioneering program that recognizes innovative practices in local governance across the Philippines. Winners are chosen through a rigorous national screening process based on six key criteria:

1. Positive results and impact

2. People’s participation and empowerment

3. Innovation and adaptation

4. Resilience

5. Sustainability

6. Service delivery efficiency and transferability

Beyond the recognition, winning programs serve as benchmarks for good governance. They offer actionable strategies for common local issues, prove the power of community-LGU collaboration, and encourage other LGUs to replicate successful reforms. Since its inception, the program has awarded 377 initiatives across 244 LGUs.

Among the notable past awardees are:

• Network of Alliances for Coastal Wetlands Conservation (Negros Occidental, 2021): Established 10 local conservation areas to protect coastal ecosystems, restore biodiversity, and build climate resilience through community-led management.

• Fish from the Mountains: Bayawan Inland Aquaculture (Bayawan City, Negros Oriental, 2023): Launched in 2013 to train farmers as “aquapreneurs.” By 2023, the participatory program established 338 mountain backyard fishponds, benefiting 294 farmers and boosting local food production.

• Catching Rain (San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, 2017): Addressed the landlocked municipality’s water scarcity by adapting an indigenous rainwater impounding technique. By 2017, the system irrigated over 483 hectares of farmland and supported nearly 1,000 farmers during the dry season.

• Happy Home: Integrated and Holistic Rebel Reintegration Program (Davao Oriental, 2023): Launched in 2013, this holistic initiative has reintegrated 519 former rebels through counseling, education, livelihood training, and spiritual guidance delivered by a multidisciplinary team.

• Quality Education for Sarangani Today / QUEST (Sarangani Province, 2012): Created a community support system of parents and youth volunteers to improve basic education access. The initiative opened or upgraded dozens of schools and constructed 10 class-dorms in remote Indigenous Peoples (IP) communities, making Sarangani a national model for public-private partnerships in education.

The next Galing Pook Awards ceremony will be held on Oct. 21, 2026, at Malacañang Palace, honoring a new cohort of LGUs driving genuine progress in their localities.

If we interpret the political adage “all politics is local” in this context, we can find much hope in government.

This article originally appeared on 17 October 2026 in Dr Alviar’s Manila Bulletin column, “Inciting Insights.”

The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Publication and the University.

On October 20, Her Excellency Ambassador Yuliia Fediv opened the roadshow with a forum titled “Ukraine’s Fight for Identity, Peace, and Global Democracy”. She discussed how Ukraine’s history and traditions have shaped a national identity that they aim to preserve.

Throughout the week, Hanns Seidel Hall was converted into a showcase of Ukrainian artifacts and history with the theme, “In my Beloved Ukraine: A Journey Through Culture and Identity”. The exhibit featured photographs and stories of how the Ukrainian spirit has continually prevailed among its people from the nation’s founding to the present day.

On October 23, a screening of the film Culture vs War detailed the stories of how Ukrainian artists and key figures navigate a time of war and struggle.

The culture week concluded on October 26 with a forum featuring Ms. Oksana Pokalchuk of Truth Hounds, an organization that documents human rights violations and war crimes. She detailed the challenges that Ukraine faces in finding justice and reparation through international organizations, and later highlighted the importance of academia in finding new solutions: “We need your new points of view, new vision, new ideas [...] Study well and be brave enough to bring your bright ideas to the international level”.

Mr. Oleksandr Lysak, First Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine to the Philippines, delivered the closing remarks and thanked the audience for embracing Ukraine’s culture and story. “Our country has a living culture with human creativity and hopes for the future. These are among the things Ukraine [is] defending alongside our independence and our right to decide how we live”. He then expressed his hope that all of the activities have sparked ideas and conversations that can make next year’s celebration of culture week even stronger.

The roadshow and its events gave UA&P students the opportunity to learn about Ukraine’s community and culture, one that continues fighting for peace and justice on a global stage.

In the various discourses going on within today’s UA&P community, sometimes recourse is made to the fundamental principles of the University and the enduring value of its liberal arts curriculum. When a person, for instance, engages in behavior we believe to be reprehensible, we often say that “so-and-so did not pay attention to his CAS subjects.” But what does it actually mean to uphold UA&P’s principles?

When we first entered the University, we professed the University Credo, which consisted of a long list of propositions that illustrated UA&P’s world vision. Just as the Apostles Creed (or the Nicene Creed) virtually contains all that the Church believes, the University Credo virtually contains all that UA&P stands for.

Hence, in order for us to discover the full meaning of UA&P’s principles, we must look toward the Credo. In what I hope to be a series of articles, I will provide a few points of consideration with respect to each point of the Credo. But in this essay, we will focus on the first: “We believe that education is a lifelong process, and its focal point is and should always be the individual person.”1

Education, by definition, is the process by which a person imparts skills, knowledge, and values into another person. It comes from the Latin edocere, which means to inform or instruct. So, in the broad sense, to educate means to inform another person. To inform, on the other hand, primarily means to shape, to add form to something. The colloquial use of the term information to refer to the absorption of data comes from the classical notion that the object of understanding (the intelligible) is what informs the intellect. The intellect takes upon the form of the thing it comprehends.2

But information in this sense is only a part of the full meaning of the term, which we will expound upon in the next article. Information can also refer to the information of one’s moral character, one’s physical character, so on and so forth. Hence, to educate means to inform the person, both considered in his manifold aspects and as a whole, living being. “Education is recognised as the process by which the human person develops the true form of his being as man. The result of this process is known as culture.”3

Now, education consists of many influences: family, peers, schools, churches, and other institutions which serve to shape and form man’s character. We have become so used to viewing education primarily in terms of the educational system (i.e., DepEd, CHED) that we have forgotten how broad the scope of education truly is. To reduce our understanding of education to schools alone constitutes a significant impoverishment. As the saying goes, “You are who you surround yourself with.” And above all, God is our ultimate educator: Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge; for I have believed thy commandments (Ps 119,66). The God-Man, Jesus Christ, is also called “teacher” in the Gospels: You call me Master, and Lord; and you say well, for so I am (Jo 13,13–14).

For this reason, education can truly be said to be a lifelong process. To begin with, we are not called to be alone (Gen 2,18). We will always be drawn toward sharing life with others, and this entails engaging in a constant process of learning, both being shaped by culture and shaping it in return.4 Furthermore, God is someone who is directly and personally involved in our lives. Through the events and circumstances of our lives and the infusion of supernatural grace He teaches us important lessons on how to live a more human life and, ultimately, to be saved and reach eternal beatitude. We cannot escape education, just as we cannot escape life itself. To live is to learn, and to learn is to live.

For this reason, the focal point of education must always be the individual person. “Man who, in the visible world, is the only ontic subject of culture, is also its only object and its term.”5 Even when human communities can be said to act as one, “the man-person remains the manifest subject of the acting and being . . . The term ‘community,’ like ‘society’ or ‘social group,’ indicates an order derived from the first one [the personal].”6 And in the words of Pius XII: “Only man, the human person, and not society in any form is endowed with reason and a morally free will.”7

Now, what is the human person? According to Saint Boethius’ definition, the person is the “individual substance of a rational nature.”8 On account of his individuality, the human person is unrepeatable: I can be no one but myself, and no one else can be me.9 This also brings in man’s capacity to relate to God, Truth itself: for man, indeed, is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1,27).10 But when we speak of personhood in relation to the Blessed Trinity, as Saint Thomas Aquinas does, we also see that person indicates relation.11 From this we derive another truth: “The human person is the event or being of relativity.”12

Hence, when we speak of education being centered around the individual person, we mean that we are dealing with an individual, relational, and rational substance. We are dealing with a unique reality that also enjoys a special relationship with God and other human persons, by which he develops a sense of his own subjectivity and uniqueness.13 To lose sight of this personal dimension is to reduce people to a mass, to points of data which can be treated according to uniform metrics and standards. Unfortunately, this is already the case for many.

But why should education deal with the formation of the human person as the human person? It is precisely because of the object of education, which is to form man in culture. And what is the purpose of culture? It is to bring man to the fulfilment of his being, for it is “that through which man as man, becomes more man, ‘is’ more, has more access to ‘being’.”14 And ultimately, it exists to bring man, throughout the course of his life, into contact with the good, the true, and the beautiful—ultimately, the mystery of God himself.15

Ultimately, only man as man can share in the life of God, in fraternity with the God-Man Jesus Christ who is the Word made flesh (Jo 1,14). Only man can properly be said to become happy. And the happiness of man, as we will demonstrate in a future article, demands that he be informed in every aspect of his personality so that he may further realize his calling toward the transcendent.

Our first reaction is often to blame time, thinking there just wasn’t enough. But if we had a 25th hour, what would we really do with it? Would we finally read, think, exercise, call someone we miss, spend time with our children, take a walk, or just be still? Or would our unfinished tasks fill up that extra hour too?

Maybe time isn’t always the real issue. Some days feel too short because we try to do too much. We want meaningful work and relationships. We want to be good citizens, present parents, loyal friends, and great colleagues. We want to exercise, read, travel, volunteer, learn new things, keep up with the news, answer messages, go to events, support causes, and start new projects. We want to improve ourselves. Some of us even hope to change the world—and preferably before lunch.

There’s something admirable about wanting so much from life. Many of the things that demand our attention are truly good. But maybe that’s the problem. How do we choose when almost everything seems worthwhile?

When every note wants to be played

Let’s look to music for an answer. Imagine sitting at a piano and playing every beautiful note you know all at once. The result isn’t more beauty—it’s chaos. A melody works because the notes are in order. Some come now, others later. Some are long, some are short. One instrument plays while another waits. Themes return, the tempo changes. And then there are the rests, those little symbols in the score. In music class, we learn that silence isn’t just the absence of sound. Silence is part of the music.

A composer doesn’t try to fit as many notes as possible into four minutes. Instead, they decide which notes belong, where they fit, and what to leave silent so other sounds can be heard. Maybe life needs the same approach. Our choices aren’t always between good and bad. Often, we’re choosing between good and good, which is much harder. Saying “no” to good things is difficult. We often think of “no” as negative—it can feel like closing doors, letting people down, or missing out. So, we say “yes” to committees, projects, helping out, invitations, and new responsibilities because the cause matters, someone needs us, or it might lead somewhere. Sometimes we say “yes” because we’re afraid another chance won’t come, or because everyone else seems to juggle so much.

Over time, our calendars start to show how much we try not to let anyone down. Many of these commitments are worthwhile on their own, but even good things can push each other out. We might focus so much on helping the world that we forget the person across the dinner table. We can get so busy planning for the future that we miss the present. We might work for great causes but treat our own bodies like machines that need to keep going. We say “yes” to everyone and end up unavailable to those we care about most. Order forces us to ask: Just because something is good, does it belong in my life right now?

Before order, Chaos

The ancient Greeks gave us a helpful image. In Hesiod’s Theogony, everything begins with Chaos. Today, we think of chaos as disorder—a messy kitchen, a cluttered desk, or a family rushing out the door. But for the Greeks, chaos meant a wide gap or an open space, not just messiness. It was what hadn’t yet taken shape. In many ways, this fits modern life. Work matters, family matters, friendship matters, health matters, service matters, rest matters, the world matters—and even that urgent email seems to matter a lot.

These days, everything seems to demand our attention at once. Everything wants a response right now. When everything becomes urgent, we lose something important: Kairos (Gk.), the right moment for things to happen. Order helps us say: This first, that later. This deserves an hour, that only five minutes. Some things need our full attention; others need none. The world will always take as much as we give. But the world never says, “Thank you, you’ve done enough.” There’s always another cause, another email, another person who needs help, another opportunity, another problem, another skill to learn, or another project to start.

For those who truly want to make a difference, this can become a trap. We start to think that if something matters, we have to do something about it ourselves. But no one can respond to every need. Our attention, energy, and years are limited. Accepting this might feel like giving up at first, but it may actually be a sign of maturity. Changing the world doesn’t mean carrying all its problems. Sometimes it means choosing the small part that’s ours to carry and doing it remarkably well.

The tyranny of the immediate

The challenge is that life’s most important things are often quiet. Health doesn’t send us reminders. Friendship doesn’t label emails as “URGENT.” A child who wants to talk might pick the least convenient time. A book waits patiently on the table. Sleep never chases us down demanding attention. Meanwhile, the urgent things are loud—messages, deadlines, news alerts, requests, and other people’s priorities.

Urgent things grab our attention, while important things often wait quietly. It’s easy to spend a whole day reacting instead of choosing what matters. We have great tools for managing time, but it’s much harder to protect our attention. Calendars tell us where to be, apps remind us what to do, and technology helps us move faster. But no tool can decide what truly deserves our time. That’s up to us.

What does your calendar say you love?

Let’s try an uncomfortable experiment. Forget for a moment what you say matters to you. Look at a typical week. Where does your attention actually go? Not your intentions, your attention. We might say family comes first but only give them what’s left after everything else. We might say health matters but keep cutting into our sleep. We might say friendship matters but keep postponing that coffee for months. We might say we value reflection but fill every quiet moment with a screen. We might say we want peace but start the day by letting the world in before we even get out of bed. This doesn’t make us hypocrites. Sometimes, we really don’t have enough time. A parent caring for kids, someone working several jobs, a person looking after an elderly relative, or anyone facing financial struggles can’t fix everything with a better schedule.

Life isn’t equally spacious for everyone. Sometimes, when we say “I don’t have time,” we really mean “I haven’t made space for this.” Maybe that’s where order starts. Order isn’t the same as control. It’s not about having a perfectly color-coded calendar or managing every detail. Life doesn’t always go as planned—people get sick, trains are late, plans fall through, grief shows up unannounced, a friend needs us, or a child wants to tell a long story just as we’re leaving. Love doesn’t care about schedules. Someone who’s obsessed with order might see an unexpected hour spent comforting someone as a wasted afternoon. But someone with a deeper sense of order knows the plan sometimes needs to be interrupted for something more important. Order isn’t just about neatness. It’s about knowing what matters most. Sometimes, the best order is letting the plan change.

The rests are part of the music

One of music’s most overlooked lessons isn’t about the notes we play, but the silences we allow between them. We often think of rest as just what happens when nothing productive is going on. But in music, a rest is written into the score. It has a set length and a purpose. If you remove every rest from a piece, you don’t make the music richer—you destroy its shape. Yet we often remove the rests from our lives. We fill the commute with a podcast, lunch with email, waiting in line with messages, the walk with a phone call, and five unexpected minutes with scrolling. Even rest can turn into another performance: steps counted, books finished, places visited, experiences documented. We’ve become very good at filling space. But fullness isn’t the same as richness. A meal with someone isn’t wasted time. A Sunday afternoon doesn’t have to produce anything. A walk can go nowhere. A hobby doesn’t have to become a side business.

Not everything we love needs improvement, monetization, measurement, or sharing. Some things can have their place in our lives.

Finding the melody

Have you ever thought of an ordered life as not a smaller life? It’s actually a life where we can hear the melody. The problem with playing every note isn’t just exhaustion. After a while, we can’t tell what the music is about. The same thing can happen to us. We get involved in so many things, respond to so many people, commit to so many worthy projects, and handle so many small demands that the most important things become hard to notice. What few things should shape this season of your life? Not forever—just now. It could mean raising young children, caring for an aging parent, building something, studying, healing, creating, serving, or learning.

Or maybe it’s simply about becoming present again after years of living at full speed. Order doesn’t require every season to include everything. That might be its greatest gift. We will be notes we don’t play, invitations we turn down, projects others take on, books we never read, places we never visit, and problems we can’t solve ourselves. Accepting this isn’t living less. It might be what lets us truly live what we’ve chosen. A composer doesn’t mourn every note left out of the piece. The notes left out are what let the melody exist. Maybe the value of order is something like that.

A meaningful life isn’t made by squeezing in as many worthwhile things as possible. It’s made by giving the right things their proper place. This first. That later. This deserves my attention. That can wait. Here, sound. Here, silence. For what is the point of playing every note if, in the end, we have lost the very music we were meant to make?

It sounds easy enough to pronounce. With enough roaring declamation, the words shall come crashing down like divine inspiration. But that is not the pronunciation I look for; I mean something else entirely. I mean the quiet yet radical act of someone saying these words after gazing into the void of hopelessness, and yet, in spite of that, decides to utter them. I mean the words said with utmost conviction; an incendiary tone that solicits a profound emphasis on what it means to live anyway.

In my initial thoughts of The Mind Against the Storm, I explained this feeling.

“The sublime is that aesthetic experience derived from encountering phenomena so immense that they induce terror at first, only to ultimately awaken the person to a higher state of living and moral strength.”

How peculiar is it that we can derive something so positive from feeling something negative at first? Yet, within the sublime lie those four fabled words. In the same way that one can endure a fate so mundane, one can still feel something sublime.

Consider the everyday horror: sitting still in a traffic jam during a tropical downpour, powerless against the indifferent metropolis and its beating neon heart. Yet, in spite of this standstill, something loftier arises: a genuine conversation and a moment of laughter shared with the passenger beside them. Therein lies the triumphant joy in running counterflow against the ebb of traffic; to refuse bitterness is to revolt through moral reflection. For the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, this capacity is precisely what allows humans to overcome nature.

In the same way, though the irresistibility of nature’s might makes us, considered as natural beings, recognize our physical impotence, it reveals in us at the same time an ability to judge ourselves independent of nature, and reveals in us a superiority over nature […]. This keeps the humanity in our person from being degraded, even though a human being would have to succumb to that dominance of nature. Hence, if in judging nature aesthetically we call it sublime, we do so not because nature arouses fear, but because it calls forth our strength.1

There is a distinct, lofty pleasure in realizing one’s spiritual strength in spite of everything. Even more sublime is the feeling when one arrives at this from the horrors of something so mundane. We often associate the sublime with grandeur and immensity—raging oceans, towering thunderstorms, or the cold expanse of outer space. Indeed, astronauts have illustrated this experience through what is known as the overview effect.2 Beholding the Earth against the void of space renders the astronaut small, powerless, and fragile, yet it renders vivid and whole humanity’s shared condition on this pale blue dot.

Cassini’s Pale Blue Dot, photo from NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, 2013, July 23 — Source

As NASA astronaut Victor Glover noted upon returning to Earth:

“You come back to sea level, and then you have a choice,” he explained. “Are you going to try to live your life a little differently? Are you going to really choose to be a member of this community of Earth?”3

Notice, though, where the epiphany completes itself: not in orbit, but at sea level.

Realization is only half of the sublime; true sublimity requires a return. The overview effect offers a momentary glimpse into vastness. After that glimpse, the astronaut returns to Earth. If he stays floating in that cosmic abyss, he is confining himself to pure terror, defeat, and nihilism. We are therefore called to see beauty in the knowledge of what lies beyond mankind, and, faced with the limits of human understanding, decide to live anyway. In spite of the unknowable, one finds the sublime in knowing that this same triumphant resolve can be shared with others. Thus, mankind is a united speck. We are alone in this universe, yes, but we are alone together. Awakening each other to higher states of living, we are the sublime.

Hence nature is here called sublime merely because it elevates our imagination, making it exhibit those cases where the mind can come to feel its own sublimity, which lies in its vocation and elevates it even above nature.4

That is why the astronaut ought to return; he must bring the sublime home. It does not belong in space, but rather to us—fellow mankind.

Thus, the sublime becomes joyfully manifest when one who is battered and exhausted by the week stops to look at a breathtaking sunset, bleeding through the grey clouds, and chooses to live another day. After that initial dread, he remembers those four fabled words and makes a choice; while being human entails being easily broken and battered, this does not break their resolve. The resolve we find here is one of irrefutable joy and a rapture of indomitable spirit—of triumph over fragility.

Crepuscular Rays over the City, photograph by Zach Reyes, 2026, October 19.

Fragility becomes more than a defect of human existence; it is the exact condition for the sublime. A human sublime is found in choice, in revolt, and in spite. In spite of personal grief or systemic injustice, one can always choose kindness over bitterness. It is because of this that humanity lives in spite; we stare at the abyss and carve our own home out of it. Humanity also lives through spite; we choose the triumph of living anyway in spite of its shadowy counterparts.

To live by the sublime is thus to realize that light and shadow are inseparable. Every light casts a shadow, so that light calls itself a “light” at all. The point is to recognize the fundamental balance between the two opposites, and understand that without the conventional “good” and “bad,” there would be no sublime. One does not similarly need to orbit the Earth to find something worth living for. One needs only the courage to face the horror in the mundane and everyday chaos, the injustice of the world, the irreverent neon pulse of traffic, and declare with an utmost conviction and incendiary tone those four fabled words—and in a surge of quiet defiance, tack on five more:

“In spite of everything, I found something to live for.”

References

Grimm, Linda E. “The Overview Effect: Astronaut Perspectives from 25 Years in Low Earth Orbit.” NASA. Last modified November 23, 2025. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/the-overview-effect-astronaut-perspectives-from-25-years-in-low-earth-orbit/.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. 1790. Reprint, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987

The Li Seng Giap Auditorium was quickly filled with students eager to see and hear from the content creators. The panel took turns sharing their experiences and insights on the intentional business decisions that go behind content creation.

Steven He explained the importance of aligning content with a specific message, target audience, and social media platform to produce videos that meet the creator’s own goals and those of potential brand partners. Furthermore, he stressed the importance of building a team of skilled individuals to maintain content quality and character while progressing from short-form reels to sit-down long-form videos.

Dan Yotoko, an Integrated Marketing graduate, emphasized that the road to success begins with simply starting. He encouraged small creators to first find a niche, focus on a community that they resonate with, then build a following from there. Ultimately, having the courage to hit post is the first step to success. He pointed out, “How many [TikTok] drafts do you have right now? 360? That’s 360 chances to go viral”.

On challenging brand partnerships, Kelly Cruz, a graduate of the Media and Entertainment Management program, shared how she once received a vague content brief from a client, but managed to turn it into an opportunity to express herself freely. “It made me make use of what I have. It made me sketch from nothing to something beautiful”. It was important to her that she exhibited authenticity even while working with different sets of brands.

Towards the end of the program, students were also given the chance to ask questions and gain insights from the panel of creators. Afterwards, Steven He explored the university campus and visited the ongoing Junior College Business Fair. There, he took pictures and videos while interacting with the various student-led booths, giving students a firsthand experience of content creation.

Overall, Steven He’s visit and the accompanying forum offered aspiring creators and brand managers insights from industry professionals on creating meaningful content and unlocking successful partnerships, all while remaining authentic and purposeful in their endeavors.

First and foremost, all glory goes to the Lord, Who has loved me unconditionally and sustained me endlessly throughout my twenty-two years of existence. And it is to my God-sent mother that I dedicate this award. My mom’s a single parent, and I’m very proud to say that. She’s stood as my mother and father, sister and friend, constant guide and biggest fan all my life. I remember my elementary school days…the days when we had loads of printing assignments as homework…and my mom, having been in the office since the day before, would go home at around 4 or 5 in the morning to bring home my homework for the day and then immediately go back to work just to keep making ends meet. She told me how often she would cry at the idea of me failing to pass my homework and that she once fell asleep outside our house in the wee hours of the morning out of exhaustion just so I could always have something to pass for school.

When it became tougher for her to continue sending me to a good school, she made countless sacrifices…the one that struck me the most was when she pawned so many of her most valuable pieces of jewelry, some of which she never got back…just to pay my tuition and keep me in school. By the grace of God, my mom and I now live more comfortable lives…but that never meant raising a son on her own became easy. She now faces the usual problems of any aging parent, and in fact, she’s always asked me, even when I was way younger: “Anak, were you ever mad at me for being a single mother?” And I always gave her the same answer: No. Because I grew up with twice the love and was taught to be twice as strong and twice as excellent by the very person who is herself love, strength, and excellence personified.

She’s always thought of herself as an imperfect mom…but no parent is perfect…but I know that she is the only mom I need and the only one who can make me stand here before all of you tonight. So, to my Mom…My, konti na lang… At ako na ang magiging bahala sa’yo… ako na din ang makakapag-alaga sa’yo. I thank God for a mother like you, and I also thank Him for entrusting me to be your “Juan” and only son. Here's to all the single parents out there!

As the saying goes, “I am a mosaic of everyone I’ve ever loved.” Some pieces may be dark…for the hard times and the tough lessons I’ve learned along the way. Some may be tiny…for the brief encounters I’ve shared with those whose impact still matters today. But tonight is for the biggest and brightest ones in this mosaic called me, whose individual pieces…or stars…make up its shared and enduring brilliance.

To Gabby, whose light has never dimmed, whose voice has never faltered, and whose resilience has shown me that, through every adversity, we can keep building.

To Ysa, who, to me, is like the moon. Loneliness has always only been temporary because when I look for you, I know you’re always there.

To Chi, the star whose warmth has embraced me in all my shades and amidst all my cracks. Thank you for showing me that leading isn’t always about an iron fist but a lending hand and a tight hug.

To Jansen, one of the first pieces to ever make it here. I knew you were meant for great things when I first witnessed how you commanded a room. Now look at you, serving the entire place with a smile.

To Jianna, who is painted with faith and gratitude. Thank you for dreaming with me and for me. Piece by piece, we’re now living in the prayers we’ve always dreamed of.

To Ghia, one of the strongest foundations on which this mosaic stands. You’ve taught me, among countless things, how to lead with thick skin on top of a soft heart.

To Kath, whose colors breathe life into the times this mosaic wears out. When things seem dull and grey, you show me images of new possibilities that make me keep going.

To Anne, who is my light at the end of any tunnel. Today I stand tall because of how strong you are and how you’re never afraid to show it.

To Juls, the most delicate star in this sea of strength. Through your care and company, you've helped me maintain this mosaic and make it more beautiful for myself and for others.

To Erika, whose star I know will shine brighter than mine and whose heart I know will beat stronger than mine. I can’t wait to see the beautiful images you create for yourself.

To Praise, who, through every car ride, has taken me across the stars and shown me how to be grateful for each and every one…near and far, old and new.

To Belle, who first shone for me and took care of me before I could finally take care of everyone in my village. Thank you for paving the way for me.

To Carlo, who's been by my side as we build the mosaics of others, helping them find the right pieces and carve their own paths.

To MM and Bea, who are the very reasons why this mosaic stands in the first place. From being the loudest ones in the room since third grade…to leading our own rooms today. I can’t wait for when our lights will cross paths once again.

And to the ones who’ve stood by and led alongside me the longest–Praise, Pat, Maui, Sean, Ange, Khiara, Chelsea, Jake, Coco, JC, Izza, Bene, Lolo Luke, Eara, Tyrone, Nicole, Josh, Fifi, Steph, Bea, Alex, Joey, Miggy, Kato, Yana, Miles, Amanda, Seth, Marg, and Janna–and those who came before me–Miguel, Maia, Abella, Isaac, Mickey, Rose, Ate Trisha, and Quincy–and to Ms. Concha, Ms. Marie, Ms. Au, Ms. Arianne, Ms. Karla, Ms. Patty, and Ms. Reg…thank you. I am because you all are.

And finally, to those whose stars will eventually outshine and outlast many of ours, our next generation of student leaders…three things for you: First, you may feel like the youngest, weakest, most clueless, or least deserving in the room…but the fact is…you’re in the room. You’ve earned your place here, so own it, take up space, and remember that you’re in the room because someone trusted you, opened the door for you, and let you stay.

New rooms mean new people, new experiences, and new fears…so do it scared. Do everything scared. Pitch that idea. Ask that question. Because when you never ask, the answer will always be no. So, take that leap of faith. Sometimes, you’ll rise; sometimes, you’ll fall…but in every situation you’ll be in, know that…

The only way is up. Failure is never rejection but redirection. And in every redirection, you will collect a new piece that might just be the next highlight of the mosaic that you’re building.

So, to UA&P’s next superstars, Kath, Jam, Erika, Agatha, Alexa, Soph, Gaby, Dyn, Markus, Trize, Emma, Max, Fonzie, Dom, Mari, Wayde, Maya, Ineah, Bianca, Arex, Lia, Kale, Carlos, Prince, Flores, Cassy, Elysse, Harleen, Kriseff, Chloe, Andre, Gabbie, Jose, and most especially, Cady, Ecai, Matthew, and Cheska, the room is yours. I can’t wait to see you all own it.

The past four years have been nothing short of brilliant, and it’s four years I’d do over and over again. Thank you, UA&P, for showing me what it means to Be The Change; to do everything with freedom, fairness, cleanliness, honesty, order, and peace; that there will always be a Peer in me; and that true excellence starts when you Do More Than Belong.

As someone who does nothing but read every day in graduate school, I’ve stumbled upon a quote that sums up my UA&P story. Jerry Rosiek and D. Jean Clandinin, writing about the vital role of teachers, said that “Our task is not only one of showing them [students] what is, but also to help them imagine otherwise.” From seeing the world for what it is to knowing that I have the power to shape it to what it ought to be is one of the biggest lessons this university has taught me. From only seeing others for who they are, I’m forever grateful for all the opportunities to help them realize who they could be. And from seeing myself as a clueless, insignificant freshie from a small high school and a simple family…I now stand here in front of you…as a student leader, full scholar, Kuya and friend, proud son of a single mother…someone who's still figuring things out…and your newest winner of the Unitas Award for Excellence.

Thank you! At magandang…magandang…magandang…magandang gabi sa inyong lahat

The program formally began with opening remarks delivered by Dr. Sophia Marco, who drew attention to this milestone in Dumol’s career. A website portal was designed as a gateway to his life’s work, including his essays, plays, lectures, publications, and ongoing projects. It offers students, educators, researchers, and avid history and literature enthusiasts another avenue to engage more deeply with his ideas and contributions. Its contents include synopses of the fifteen plays he has written, representative essays on the national narrative and identity of the Filipino, and literary and philosophical essays on Dante and Beauty.

Following the initial walkthrough of the newly unveiled website, Dr. Svetlana Antropova, a researcher in Philippine cultural heritage at the Universidad Villanueva, delivered a short lecture on the pedagogical value of one of Dumol’s critically acclaimed plays, Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio. There, Antropova stressed the power of theatre in educating the youth. For her, Dumol’s play demonstrated precisely the individual capacity to move from passive reception to active interpretation and creation. She noted: “There is no single solution [in theatre]. And precisely because there is no single solution, the student must interpret. This is where creativity becomes inseparable from critical thinking.”

She further pointed out that the play’s discursive approach to communicating its themes on injustice and poverty facilitates learning to its highest degree.

“A student can learn a definition of marginalization. But Ang Paglilitis gives marginalization a human face. A student can discuss poverty as a social problem. But in this play, poverty becomes inseparable from dignity, love, humiliation, survival, and power. Theatre turns abstraction into experience.”

Dr. Joachim Emilio Antonio then followed with his lecture On Student Theatre Art. Drawing upon student-led productions of Dumol’s Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio, Antonio remarked how these reproductions cultivate a sense of community between the student and academic institution. For him, the purpose of student theatre serves not as mere self-expression, but rather as an opportunity to see art as integral to the formation of one’s character.

“In the end, any theatrical production in the context of an academic institution should have the learning and growth of its students in mind. The importance of aesthetics is primarily to educate the students’ taste and craftsmanship. Fame and acclaim of the production will be a byproduct, not a goal.”

After the lecture, an interpretative reading of one of Dumol’s literary monologues, titled Pulê, was performed by 4th-year Humanities student Mr. Francis Tabago. The dramatic monologue followed Apolinario Mabini’s voice through his failed negotiations with American forces, his exile to Guam, and his tortured interrogation of the Philippine revolution’s meaning.

Audiences were then allowed to interact with a closing panel including Dumol himself, Antropova, Antonio, and Tabago. Dumol shared his insights regarding the unique role of writing literature within today’s context, stressing that: “Plays and essays are not vanity projects if the writers are serious about them. […] You won’t be able to write if you do not live your life first. That’s the problem of today: we’re really forgetting our writers.”

After the panel segment, CAS Dean Dr. Philip Peckson gave his closing remarks. He reminded students and faculty alike of literature’s invisible yet invaluable role in forming growth and human character, and what steps the college is taking to continue the legacy of this role, starting with the plays and essays of Paul Dumol.

“Serapio is part of the canon in Philippine literature, but you can’t buy a book with the works of Paul Dumol. […] What I think we are doing here today is to try to catch the wind. I am referring, of course, to tradition. […] And what we are doing is casting ourselves into that stream, so that the youngest of this audience may remember.”

In a widely publicized global snub of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept. 24, 2026, several delegations walked out of the 81st UN General Assembly—and the Philippines was among them.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) defended the action, stating: “The Philippines joined the walkout in global solidarity for peace in the Middle East and the call for all parties to desist from unilateral actions that erode the conditions of peace.” The DFA further noted deep concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel’s E1 settlement plan, and rising settler violence in the West Bank.

While these diplomatic concerns are valid, was a public walkout really warranted? Joining such a spectacle before the Prime Minister delivered his address was a blatant sign of disrespect toward Israel’s government and its citizens. Disagreements can easily be conveyed through traditional, quiet diplomatic channels. Instead, this dramatic exit sent an unnecessary hostile signal—one Israel is unlikely to forget. Tellingly, an Israeli diplomat was seen taking note of the empty seats left behind.

A look at the nations that remained in the chamber shows that even those critical of Israel chose diplomatic restraint. Key European players—including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Norway, and the European Union—stayed in their seats despite their vocal stance on Gaza. A broad coalition of nations including the United States, Germany, China, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Argentina, Ukraine, Greece, Poland, Austria, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Kenya, and key Arab states like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also remained. The Philippines would have been far tactful to align with this moderate approach.

The potential fallout from this move is serious. It risks irritating not only Israel but also the United States, our primary defense ally.

This posture jeopardizes deep-rooted goodwill built over decades. The bond between our nations dates back to the late 1930s, when President Manuel L. Quezon issued his historic “Open Door” policy, welcoming over 1,200 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution when much of the world turned away. In 1947, the Philippines was the only Asian nation to vote in favor of UN Resolution 181, which supported the establishment of the State of Israel. As gratitude, Israel has long honored these gestures through visa-free travel for Filipinos, strong protections for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), and warm hospitality for Filipino pilgrims visiting the Holy Land.

In recent years, strategic cooperation has expanded significantly:

• Economic and tech partnerships: In May 2026, DTI Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo and Israeli MFA Director General Eden Bar Tal discussed strategic cooperation on critical mineral processing and AI technology under the US-led Pax Silica initiative, leveraging Israeli expertise in mining, water, and environmental tech.

• Diplomatic support: Last June, Israel backed the Philippines’ bid for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

• Agriculture and defense: Israel’s MASHAV agency continues to train Filipinos in drip irrigation and modern dairy farming, while Israel remains a key partner in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Horizon 3 modernization program.

Such cordial relationship is now needlessly exposed to friction. One wonders whether this walkout was explicitly cleared by President Marcos Jr., our chief foreign policy architect who once said that “the Philippines, a friend to all and enemy to none” is the cornerstone of our foreign policy.

The Philippine government had already clearly articulated its support for a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution in Gaza. There was no need for a glaring, performative protest that risks being misconstrued as sympathy for Hamas or an official shift in our foreign policy. Israel pays close attention to who stands by them—and this apparently rash gesture may take years to repair, and a lot of trust rebuilding.

This article originally appeared on 3 October 2026 in Dr Alviar’s Manila Bulletin column, “Inciting Insights.”

The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Publication and the University.

In her opening remarks, Mrs. Elerosa Caparas emphasized that parenting goes beyond providing for children’s material needs; it calls for emotional presence and genuine connection.

Education is ultimately about the formation of the whole person, and the family is the first school of formation. Inspired by St. Josemaría Escrivá’s appreciation for the sanctifying value of ordinary family life, the workshop affirmed the home as the place where children first learn to love, serve, sacrifice, and grow in virtue.

Through real-life situations and the case study “The Blue Glow at Midnight,” participants explored how screens, gaming, and social media affect children and adolescents. The discussion went beyond screen-time limits, highlighting the need for open conversations, appropriate boundaries, and collaborative problem-solving. As children grow into their teenage years, parental guidance and meaningful connection remain essential.

Ultimately, the workshop called families to reclaim what technology cannot replace: genuine human connection. Its closing invitation to be present, not plugged in, and let real life win, captured the heart of the discussion. In an increasingly digital world, parents’ time, attention, mindful presence, and love remain among the most important gifts they can give their children.

The week opened on October 2 with a Thanksgiving Mass at the Sancta Maria Stella Orientis (SMSO) Oratory, offered in gratitude for the founding of Opus Dei. A merienda cena get-together for employees and students followed at the Business Lounge. On October 3, Atty. Yvette Valdez led “Well-Being in a Wired World,” a parenting workshop at the Li Seng Giap Auditorium on the family as a school of virtue. The Community Rosary at Our Lady’s Shrine in the CAS Garden followed on October 5.

The week also had a service component. With the Month of the Holy Rosary under way, the University launched “Donate a Rosary,” inviting community members to hang new or unused rosaries on the Tree of Prayer at the shrine. Each rosary is blessed and given, with a simple guide on how to pray it, to contracted employees, including security and service personnel, and to food concessionaires and their families. The Tree of Prayer also holds written intentions, which will be given to the University Chaplaincy at the end of the month.

The October 7 program drew NSTP freshmen and employees to the Li Seng Giap Auditorium. Dr. Gladys Golo, Vice President for Academic and Faculty Affairs, introduced the afternoon by linking St. Josemaría’s teaching on work and study done with love to the NSTP spirit of service.

The audience then watched about 25 minutes of footage. It began with St. Josemaría’s get-togethers with university students, including a 1974 meeting in Argentina. Clips of Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz, the current Prelate of Opus Dei, on pastoral visits to New York, New Zealand and Argentina followed.

A one-hour panel took up the questions raised in the videos. It featured Fr. Raffy Quinto, a priest and computer science graduate; Sailah Guerra, an IMC alumna who leads the youth formation initiative Project Ignite in Quezon; Carlo Quijano, a Management student; and Syamie Gambe, a Political Economy student and president of Alab. Rounds included a Myth or Fact segment, a “Hot Seat” of everyday dilemmas, and an open forum capped by “Ask Fr. Raffy.” UA&P President Atty. Philip Yeung closed the panel discussion by presenting tokens of thanks to the panelists.

Alab, the student arm of the Chaplaincy, led a Community Rosary on October 8 at the SMSO Oratory, while the Donate a Rosary initiative continued until October 9. When the donation, the blessed rosaries, each with a simple guide on how to pray it, will go to the security guards, service personnel and food concessionaires who keep the campus running, and to their families.

Back then, I laughed at his quick remark. And he laughed even louder. Now, I think I know why using the real one mattered more.

He passed away recently, and I never got the chance to show him again how much I improved. He was mostly quiet. I was fortunate to have had the chance to talk about anything under the sun with him. Whenever I slept over at my cousins’ house, he was the first person I saw awake, even before the sun had gleamed through the window. He would fix up something exquisite near the counter with tablea, milk, and sugar. He would mix it all up with a batirol and serve me his signature refreshment.

It was these little things that are now precious to me.

When his body became ashes in an urn and his smile remained still in a photograph, I couldn’t help but think that he was, in some ways, a gift here on earth to many people. The laughter and presence of different strangers made his funeral a lively event. It’s as if the Holy Spirit gave him another banquet, not that there should have been a lot of silence and cries, but the people that knew him continued his warmth in a few nights. He was gentle on many of our minds and hearts.

I thought gratitude was simple. One can imagine a “thank you” or a bow. It could even be a cute reply to a friend, family member, or crush. But there is more to gratitude than gestures.

I am reminded of Spider-Man: Brand New Day in my own interpretation of the ending (spoilers ahead). Just one quick trigger from the Punisher almost killed Peter with a Sniper rifle bullet, ramming through his body. The reaction of Jon Bernthal was priceless. A cold faced killer such as the Punisher became a big baby, crying over someone who reminded him so much of his son (if he were still alive). When Peter wakes up bruised and tired, the Punisher was there waiting for him (in fact sleeping). After a few exchanges, Peter laughs at the Punisher’s apology for shooting him. Then, they both end up laughing.

It is a small and almost ridiculous moment. Someone shot Spider-Man, nearly killed him, and yet the scene ends with laughter. But perhaps that is precisely what makes the moment meaningful. Laughter becomes a way of saying, “I am still here. You are still here. We can move forward.”

These moments remind me that laughter can be a form of gratitude. Roger Scruton elaborates on laughter, containing “the ability to accept our all-too human inadequacies: by laughing we may attract the community of sentiment.”1 I was never the one who laughed. In fact, I frown a lot. My family would keep telling me to smile more often. In my adulting years, I’ve begun trying to just smirk. Authentically, it’s never natural. When I pondered on Scruton’s quote, especially in relation to the passing of my tito, I considered his laughter something that I should continue with others. I think the real challenge is to find joy despite moments where it’s just hard and frustrating to move on.

Perhaps this is why I keep thinking about my tito and his surfboard.

The “real” surfboard means nothing if it isn’t used. Even if it is used badly, it still serves a purpose. If it’s left on the corner of the room to collect dust with more items that pile around it, then that is even worse, letting it die in its own space, turning to mere junk.

Perhaps that is the strange thing about gratitude. We often recognize its object only after the moment has already passed. While we are experiencing something, we think it is ordinary because we have not yet experienced its absence. We do not realize that a person has become another home in our rugged and often chaotic lives until one day we notice that a family lunch has become quieter than usual even if he was the quiet one.

That is what I feel when I think about his tablea.

I can probably make hot chocolate myself. I have the tablea that he gave me as a gift during Christmas. I even have the milk and the sugar to complete his recipe. I could even learn how to use a batirol properly online. But I know it would not be the same.

The ingredients were never the whole recipe.

He was.

“Grief must be a reflection of love.”2 This was what Peterson wrote reflecting on his own trials and tribulations of his family and the stories of his patients that influenced his book 12 More Rules for Life. Despite the sadness, some part of me has learned to acknowledge that it’s okay to cry sometimes. The opposite of grief is forgetfulness. I don’t want to forget him. If every instance there’s something that triggers a memory again of seeing him, I would just let it fall again. May I cry inside or smile better on the outside, part of life is carrying these memories with meaning. Take for example one of our bayanis, Marcello H. Del Pillar. While he was situated in Barcelona, he saw the daughter of one of his fellow Filipino propagandists, and this triggered his nostalgia, homesickness for his family. Del Pillar got the chance to return to the Philippines but he died of tuberculosis. He passed away from his homeland. Above the clouds maybe, there lies a home we all seek, one where we would be reunited with something much more transcendent than we have below here in the now.

I find it strange that in our darkest moments we find a glimmer of light that still shines. I imagine my tito surfing somewhere beyond our atmosphere. Using the real surfboard matters now more than before. It must be love persisting despite all the hardships life might throw at us. Memories after all become ingrained in objects that we once took for granted. They remain while we may not even get the chance to say a proper goodbye. Going back to that beachfront, perhaps that memory shall remain gentle on my mind.

I wanted to be an architect. I enjoyed the focus it took to design something useful and the idea that drawings could turn into real places for people. The summer before college, I even had the tools to make blueprints and floor plans. I did not want to be a teacher. As a naturally introverted person, I hardly considered it an option. I enjoyed studying, but I could not picture myself studying to prepare lessons and then spending the day explaining them to a room full of people. I imagined work that would allow me long stretches of quiet concentration. Teaching seemed to require an energy I was not sure I had. Philosophy was not even on my horizon. My undergraduate degree was not in education, and neither the subject nor the profession belonged to the future I had pictured.

But life appears to have its own sense of humor. These days, I spend hours reading philosophy, making outlines and conceptual maps, and considering how to explain an argument clearly. Then I walk into a classroom and teach it. I used to picture myself designing rooms, but I never expected to become so connected to the people inside them.

A room worth returning to

I am still introverted, even though some friends believe otherwise. I like quiet moments, time to think, and conversations where I can really listen rather than talk. Teaching often pulls me in many directions at once—a question here, a discussion that’s drifting, an explanation that needs to be clearer, or a student who suddenly looks confused. Even on good days, I end up tired. I usually need some quiet time afterward, but by the next morning, I look forward to returning.

The joys of teaching are often simple. Sometimes, a student has a story to finish. Or someone brings back a joke from an earlier lesson. A question we left unresolved gives us somewhere to begin. These small continuities make the classroom familiar through the people in it. Teaching philosophy has its own pleasures, too. Students ask why, offer a counterexample, or notice a consequence I passed over. An explanation that looked tidy in my notes becomes something we have to examine together. I sincerely enjoy that exchange. Sometimes their questions send me back to the reading, looking for something I had not thought to consider, and thus make my weekend an exciting quest for justifications and answers, and even more questions.

I once studied to follow my own questions. Now my students give me reasons to keep studying. There are difficulties, too. I sometimes move too quickly or mistake a nod for understanding. Students hesitate before asking for another explanation; I have to remember how much effort can be hidden behind their silence. Who has not watched a discussion move on while still trying to understand the previous point? Remembering that experience helps me look beyond whether I have finished the lesson to whether anyone has assimilated what was just said.

When the care comes back

When I began in academia, I didn’t doubt that teaching would demand my attention. I didn’t expect, however, how often students and mentees would offer theirs in return. They remember me on special occasions or when I have deadlines to meet. They send greetings on Teacher’s Day or my birthday, ask how I am doing, or check in without needing help, simply to see how I am going with my deadlines. Sometimes the conversation begins with their concern for me. I appreciate those gestures because they are freely given. Someone with a full life of their own has paused to remember you. Now don’t tell me that isn’t wonderful.

A greeting cannot tell me everything about the teacher I have been. But it lets me know that something of our time together has remained. I especially enjoy hearing from students after our daily classroom encounters have ended. I learn what they are doing, which plans have changed, and what questions have followed them into another stage of life. Their attention makes me want to give more of mine. I find myself spending longer over feedback, reconsidering an explanation that did not work, or making time for a conversation because I know what it means to be taken seriously. The desire grows quietly. Someone trusts me with a concern or returns to tell me what happened next, and the work becomes more personal. I am preparing for people whose lives I have begun to know.

When someone opens their world

Sometimes, students and mentees share more than just their schoolwork with me. A talk that starts about an assignment can turn into a conversation about a tough decision, a dream, or what comes next. They might feel pulled toward something but aren’t sure if they can go after it. Or they might be trying to meet someone else’s expectations without knowing if it’s right for them. When they open up like this, I picture an unfinished blueprint on a table. Some parts are clear; others have been erased and redrawn. Their own hopes mix with what others want for them, and they’re still figuring out which is which.

It takes trust to let someone see your unfinished plans. But being trusted with those plans doesn’t mean it’s my job to finish them. The person in front of me is growing and changing, and she might discover something new that neither of us expected. Her situation can change, her interests can grow, and something she sets aside today might be worth trying again later. I need to listen and understand before I suggest what to do next.

Sometimes I can share information that helps someone make an informed choice. At other times, I can gently point out an assumption they may want to examine more closely. Often, simply listening gives students or mentees the space to hear their own thoughts, recognize what matters to them, and decide what they want to do next. Taking someone’s dream seriously means more than expressing enthusiasm; it also means talking candidly about the steps, resources, and effort it may take to reach it. Encouragement is most helpful when it is honest about the challenges, limitations, and responsibilities involved, while still respecting the person’s ability to choose their own path.

What we are made for

Teaching has strengthened a belief I want to share with my students: we are made for truth. I see this in the questions they ask about why something works, in their frustration when things don’t add up, and in the satisfaction they feel when they find a solid explanation. Students can tell the difference between something that just sounds convincing and something backed by real reasons, especially when they have time to think it through. Dante gives the human desire to know a memorable expression:

I translate it to: “You were not made to live as beasts, but to pursue virtue and knowledge.”

These words are spoken by Ulysses in Inferno, whose powerful speech leads his friends into a disastrous journey. In context, they are more challenging than just a celebration of ambition. Wanting to know more takes good judgment, and even a strong invitation can lead people the wrong way. That’s important in teaching. I have to be careful with how my explanations, advice, or encouragement influence others. Just being confident doesn’t make my guidance right.

Architecture gives us a good example. An architectural drawing must answer to dimensions, materials, weight, and use. In teaching, an explanation must answer to evidence, and guidance must answer to the circumstances of the person receiving it. If I want students to care about truth, I must welcome questions that complicate my account and acknowledge when I need to reconsider. The search becomes personal as well. What can they do well? What do they need to learn? Which commitments are genuinely theirs? What is worth pursuing, and what will it ask of them?

Discovering what they are made for may begin with learning to ask those questions honestly.

Walking alongside my mentees

My own changed plans make me sympathetic to uncertainty. I once had a fairly definite picture of my future, and my life took a different turn. That experience cannot tell a mentee which direction to take, but it reminds me to leave room for possibilities I have not understood. A student may be good at something without wanting to build a career around it. Another may be drawn toward work they do not yet do well. What appears sensible from my position may look different from theirs. Have I understood their reasons, or have I already begun comparing their plans with the future I would choose?

Sometimes, we move forward by just looking at the next steps—a skill to practice, a class to try, or a conversation to have. These small steps help someone make decisions without having to figure out their whole future at once. And it is always a joy when mentees come back and can explain a choice in their own words. They might still have doubts, but they’re starting to tell the difference between what they know, what they fear, and what they still need to learn.

Near the end of Purgatorio, Virgil tells Dante:

Or “Do not wait any longer for my words or signals; your will is free, upright, and sound.” The poem describes a spiritual journey far beyond anything I could claim for teaching. Still, the scene offers an image of guidance I find worth considering: a guide recognizes that the person he has accompanied no longer needs to wait for every instruction. One can only hope that our work as teachers helps students and mentees develop something of that independence. Their growing ability to judge, make sense of life, and find meaning in it is part of what makes the time together worthwhile.

When former students check in, I am glad to hear from them. When they tell me what they have decided without asking for my approval, I am glad of that, too.

A vocation in daily practice

On Teachers’ Day, people often talk about educators in grand terms, but the work itself can feel much more ordinary. Teaching is mostly about preparing, grading, meeting deadlines, repeating explanations, meeting with students, and making decisions when you’re tired. Still, the calling shows up in these everyday tasks. Feedback helps students know what to work on. A thoughtful answer can make it easier for someone to ask a tough question. Clear and consistent expectations help students understand what’s needed. This is how I see teachers helping to shape people’s character. We help develop attention, judgment, conscience, and imagination through what we teach and how we live.

Of course, our role is just one part of the picture. Students are shaped by their families, friends, backgrounds, and beliefs. Their growth belongs to them, and we’re fortunate to be trusted with a part of their education. That trust calls for care and brings genuine joy. My students and mentees ask thoughtful questions, share ideas worth hearing, and make plans that deserve our attention. They remind me that teaching means seeing each person as a whole, with their own relationships, hopes, responsibilities, and choices. Sometimes, I get to witness something click—a challenging idea, a decision, or a new possibility someone feels ready to explore. Those moments bring a special kind of excitement I never expected from this job.

What remains of the architect

I still love architecture. I still see the child in myself who studied floor plans and wanted to create something useful for others. Teaching has become another way to do that. I plan carefully, figure out what’s needed, and change what doesn’t help. The real reward comes when someone can use what we’ve worked on together. Both architecture and teaching are ways to serve others by paying attention to the people they’re meant for. In the classroom, those people are right in front of me. They have their own voices, dreams, doubts, and the freedom to question what I suggest.

My students and mentees open their worlds to me, sometimes cautiously, sometimes with an enthusiasm that makes me reconsider my own limits. Their trust makes me want to prepare better, listen longer, and give more of myself. Their care reminds me that this relationship has helped shape my life as well. As a child, I imagined standing inside a building that had begun with my drawings. Now I find satisfaction when someone takes what we have worked on together and uses it to make a choice I could never have made for them.

I once wanted to draw places where people could live. Teaching brought me alongside people as they discovered how they want to live—and helped me discover how I want to live my own life.

A small tribute, with gratitude, to my students and mentees, whose company makes even the demanding days feel like days well spent.

Hey there!

Yes, it’s me again, with yet another letter. Looking back, I realize I’ve written my students so many letters, at least two for each batch I taught. I always tried to keep my rambling to a minimum, but I won’t hold back today.

It’s strange that this letter has been so easy and so difficult to write. I seem to never run out of things I want to tell you, but also I can never find the right words to do so.

Maybe it’s because I can’t quite figure out what I’m trying to say. I think it’s a goodbye (with many tangents and asides) — a final one to you, and a momentary one to teaching. I think it’s also a reminder, a record of a time in my life that I will treasure for a long time.

As a farewell, this letter has been writing itself at the back of my mind for quite some time, earlier and more frequently than you may have expected. It’s odd, isn’t it, to describe a farewell as “frequent”? Those things usually only happen once, but not in my case I guess. In one sense, it was always almost happening, a potential departure that was hanging over me for a long time. At the same time, it was happening often, repeatedly, at the end of every semester. It was always a relief and a surprise to find out that I would have one more sem of teaching a subject that, as I’m sure you have been able to tell, I care about so much. But that’s the thing. A person can take only so many farewells, and this person reached her limit.

But I digress.

It’s probably been a while since you’ve thought of me or about my class. I suppose our relationship has always been a bit disproportionate like that. Perhaps it is the blessing and curse of a teacher to think about your students more than your students think about you. Or is that just me?

I loved this subject so much that it was always on my thoughts, which meant I ended up thinking about you a lot. While I was teaching, my teacher mode was always on. What I mean is that I’d be doing lecture prep by just living my life. Whether I was reading for fun, talking to friends, or watching movies, I would often think to myself, “Hey, I should tell my students about this in class tomorrow!” In a way, to be a teacher is to see one’s students everywhere.

Now that I’m not teaching anymore though, I just keep adding to a very long list of things I should have said and done. The teacher mode is still on, but that just leaves me with many thoughts and insights and no one to share them with. Maybe that’s why I’m writing you a letter (again).

Many of you are walking into a classroom today, but I’m not. Not anymore.

During the first few weeks of class, there was always a weird feeling in my chest as I passed a row of classrooms and heard other teachers discuss their syllabi and class policies and knew I wouldn’t be doing the same. I felt it when I realized that my name wasn’t in the subject offerings for enlistment this sem and when I hesitated to delete the Canvas Teacher app off my phone. It hit me most strongly when I found out about a Rizal-themed breakout room for Buwan ng Wika and History Month. It was about the manuscript of Makamisa, and I think you guys would have had fun if we went. It would have been a really good bonus activity, but there is no longer a class that I teach for that to matter.

Why does it sting to speak about teaching in the past tense? It also doesn’t help that my office is at the end of a hallway full of classrooms.

Every time I walk by, I hear the strain in teachers’ voices as they try to make themselves heard above the rain and the electric fans. I hear the rustle of students shaking out umbrellas and turning notebook pages. I hear (and feel!) the teacher’s relief when a joke lands, and the students’ relief that hey, maybe this subject won’t be so bad after all. Somehow, as much as these things are removed from me, they are still so dear to me, all the more now that they are things of the past.

So melodramatic! You might tell me, “Miss, it’s not that deep.” But to me, it was. It is.

It is said that you only realize how precious something is when you are about to lose it. I guess that’s why teaching was always so precious to me — because I always thought that I was about to lose it. This letter is a goodbye that I have said many, many times.

It feels so silly to mourn something for so long and so deeply even if sometimes I feel like I was teaching only in a shallow, watered down way. I was a part-time lecturer with a part-time subject load, I had only one prep for the year and a half I taught in university, making the time I spent in a traditional classroom a measly total of two and a half calendar years. But this letter isn’t about proving to myself that I have a right to this heartache. This letter is for telling you all the things I wanted to say but never did, and I’ll start with this:

I cared about you a lot.

I probably came off as distant because I intended to. Experience taught me not to share even more of myself than I already do share given I’m a teacher. That’s why I tried not to talk about myself, I tried to be approachable but not too approachable, and I only added you all on Facebook after I left the school and was absolutely sure that you can no longer be my students.

But in ways you didn’t see, I think I really still did care way too much. I spent an unreasonable amount of time writing and rewriting my announcements, emails, and feedback so as not to wound. My comments on your essays were essays in themselves. I agonized over every requirement I assigned, checking over and over (on my own but also with my colleagues, and even my siblings and friends) that it was structured in a way that made sense and was useful to you. I wanted you to take my class seriously, but not too seriously. I wanted my class to be a meaningful experience, but not one that weighed too heavily on your academic and personal lives.

Until now, I can’t figure out what to do when I see you outside the classroom or outside school. I’m always trying to gauge the appropriate reaction, but I’m also always so happy to see you. If I look a little panicked or frantic, you’re either seeing my default stressed and frazzled mode or I’m trying to remember your name. I think I’ve said several times that I’m horrible with names, and I feel so guilty that my colleagues seem to memorize your names so effortlessly, and that my own teachers still remember my name after all these years. I kid you not, when I see you outside class and realize I can’t recall your name, I genuinely pull up my class list to review. I do remember some things, like where in the classroom you’re seated (on my left with your blockmates), where in the class list your name is (somewhere around M),or whether you’re in a morning or afternoon class (my last class of the day, and also yours, but your tiredness didn’t show in the quality of your recitation).

In a way, I still try to carry you with me. I already told you that I still think about you when I chance upon things it would have been good to discuss in class, but I also do that in a literal sense. The two origami cats, an amigurumi bee, and a crocheted coaster that you gave me sit on my work desk. A crocheted flower keychain hangs on my lunchbox, and a cat keychain guards the books on my bookshelves. On pages of my journals and planner and in the notes app on my phone, I keep all the funny and profound things you shared with me in recitation or in your essays. There is a box in my room full of all the letters I’ve ever received from you, and even if it seems ridiculous, it was so hard for me to throw away the rubrics for your oral exam midterms, because I wrote down your nicknames on them. (Yet another failed attempt to memorize your names.)

On the last day of the sem, I asked you to write down what I hoped you’d remember about this class. I also gave you a survey on your experiences of this class to document my teaching approaches. But I haven’t read them, not really. I skimmed through them enough to assign bonus points when necessary. I’m hoarding them, happy knowing I have them secreted away in my shelves and in my Google Drive. At the same time, I’m afraid of what I’ll find when I look through them. What if my worst fears are true, and I was a terrible teacher and you thought my class was pointless? But I think that would be just as heartbreaking as finding out that I was a good teacher and that you did have a meaningful experience in my class, and that I made a grave mistake by deciding not to teach for another school year.

Teaching meant, and means, everything to me. I never took this job lightly, even if I tried to temper my idealism so I wouldn’t end up burning myself out (again). I worry I’ve left behind something essential to the person I am and want to be by stepping away from the teaching profession, even if I don’t intend to do so permanently. As I was writing you this letter, some of you heard I’d no longer be teaching this school year and asked me what happened. I didn’t go into detail, because at times, when I think about my decision, I stray dangerously close to something like regret. I just desperately hope that my decision didn’t cheapen everything I said and did as a teacher.

What is my class like, in your memory? I can never know, but in my imagination, it was where you realized what it could mean to see a person as a person and treat them as such. It was where you explored your place in building a more just world. It was where you had a change of heart. That is all I can really ever hope for as a teacher, because no matter what I say or do, only you can make your choices for you.

I only ever wanted the hours of your lives that you spent in my class to mean something to each of you, and for that to make itself felt in the people and situations around you.

This letter is embarrassingly long, and I don’t know how to end it. I feel I’ve said too much, revealed too much. I think I’ll just end it with yet another embarrassing letter, which I left anonymously at an exhibit I visited days before I decided to leave teaching (for now):

To my students —

I know it doesn’t seem like I do, but I care about you a lot. I’m always regretting the things I didn’t do and the things I could have done better. Many times a day, I remember you and it makes me smile. I hope it somehow means something to you to have been loved so clumsily. I don’t know if you’ll know it or feel it though.

— Ms. M.

ViARE’s The Anti-Color Division, written and directed by Ally Solis, an alumna of the Political Economy program, imagines that shift inside a paint company where color starts becoming an inconvenience. Staged at Dizon Auditorium from September 28 to 30, with the final show on October 3.

The story begins before anyone sits down. Each ticket handed to the audience is a time card—the kind workers use to clock in and out of a shift—and robot workers roam the audience in their seats. By the time the lights dim, the audience themselves become employees of Rainbow Paints. The future the play warns about has clocked in before us.

Inside, the stage becomes the workshop factory of Rainbow Paints, humming with old, nostalgic music. Workers tune the dials in the workshop and create new colors. One worker briefly breaks character to stretch her sore neck, as if doing the job really aches. The company’s slogan promises that “life could be a little less dull“, yet its neutral division gets raises and nicer workshops, while the color division gets nothing new.

Mr. Whitman, played by Rafa Racho, provides the play with an unsettling presence. He asks Reese Garcia’s Julia to create a dark white or a light black, and presents it as a simple task. In truth, it is part of his scheme: each shade moves the neutral division a step forward, while the color division is slowly phased out. Each step sounds reasonable on its own, which is how the color division disappears without anyone ever announcing it. Gray is practical. Gray is cheaper. Gray is what you get when everything is made interchangeable. It’s hard not to see our own world in that, where more tasks are automated, more experiences are streamlined, and “efficient” has quietly become another word for “good.”

Against that stands Art, played by Kay Cabacungan, who believes color is more than just pigment. To him, it carries memories, sceneries, and emotions—the things that make life feel lived. When he is told to desaturate his teal with more white, he refuses to make a gray. Julia sees the same teal differently. Where Art finds feeling, she finds deadlines and shades to make, and when she is offered a place in the neutral division, she chooses to take it. The play never casts her as wrong. Her gray is the choice most of us would make quietly; the practical one, trading wonder for something useful.

The production’s lighting does much of the arguing. Colors wash across the stage to set each mood or to paint the scene itself, so when the lights cut out mid-performance and return blindingly bright, the loss of color is felt rather than explained. The ensemble (Kyri Maramo, Tobey Perez, JD Caparas, Abram Erna, Mar Suemith) deserves its own credit. As the robots and machines of Rainbow Paints, they turned the factory itself into a performance, and later became the whirlwind that swallows Art’s fight. The robots who greeted us at the door were not only a warning about a duller future; they were part of the system that stops anyone from resisting it.

Then comes the ending. Art storms into Mr. Whitman’s office, shows off the new color he created after a week of strain, and the answer he gets leaves him with nothing to hold onto. In protest, he sprays the newly-made paint across the room and lunges at Mr. Whitman until the ensemble swarms him in a whirlwind of fighting.

Then everything stops and rewinds. None of it happened. It was all in his head, and then he quietly left.

It was the saddest moment of the night, and the most honest. Holding a belief is easy; acting on it is hard. The play suggests that dullness rarely wins by force. It wins because the people who care most are the ones who stay silent.

As the lights came back up and as my eyes adjusted, one thing was clear: I understood Art the most, yet part of me felt for Julia. Her decision to join the neutral division may have seemed like the wrong choice because of how important the color division is in preserving the sliver of whimsy and wonder in people’s lives. We might have mixed feelings about her decision, but we still understand it—even Art did. To believe in something takes determination, but standing by it takes more than that. And sometimes the world makes giving in look like the only practical choice.

Maybe the lesson is that the fight Art imagined, loud and all at once, isn’t the only way to stand by something. Sometimes it is smaller and quieter, like refusing to make a gray when we could make our own color, or keeping the things that make life feel lived even when no one has time for them. Art’s fight ended where it began, in his head, and that is the part worth taking home. A belief we never act on, even in the little ways, will fade just as surely as the ones we abandon.

So as the lights fade, the question lingers for everyone in the audience. What memory, what feeling, what color will you fight for before it fades?

But sometimes, a song gets left behind.

It stays inside an old notebook in the corner of a room, untouched because life gets too busy. The chords become harder to remember. The lyrics that once came so easily begin to feel unfamiliar. Days become months, months become years, until one day, you find yourself returning to the same song you once promised you would finish.

For Rain and River, that song is KasLoy.

Dulaang Rock Opera Company’s (Dulaang ROC) KasLoy: Bukas Itutuloy, written by John Custer and directed by Ricci Ferrera, follows two friends who meet at a mountain peak with guitars in hand and a song they have been trying to complete for years. The play moves between their past, present, and future as they revisit the memories that shaped their friendship and everything that has changed since they first began writing the song.

At first, KasLoy feels deceptively light.

Rain, played by Manuel Casapao, arrives at the mountain carrying an oversized bag for a picnic. River, played by Airyn Jace Santiago, greets him with a birthday surprise. What follows is a string of teasing, complaints, jokes, and arguments over food and lyrics. Rain has gone all out with the picnic setup, inspired by one he saw online, but after everything is unpacked and the food is gone, all that is left are sandwiches and water.

These small exchanges establish the friendship before the play asks us to understand its weight.

Rain and River use small, shruggable interactions to show that they know each other. They interrupt one another, remember old jokes, and bring up embarrassing habits. River can imitate Rain’s old voice asking to make a song together, while Rain can immediately answer with the same irritation he had years ago. When the two return to KasLoy, even their unfinished lyrics become part of their familiar rhythm.

Instead of simply telling the audience that these two have been friends for years, the production lets their history surface through their dialogue and manner. Their friendship feels lived-in because the audience is allowed to see the little things that have accumulated between them over time.

And then, almost quietly, the jokes begin to mean something more.

The mountain is more than the setting where the play happens. It is a place Rain and River have returned to in different parts of their lives. Over the course of the play, the mountain becomes a witness to their friendship, holding memories of birthdays, conversations, arguments, and moments when the outside world felt too heavy.

The production need not change the setting of the mountain to show that time has passed. The place remains familiar, while the people who come back to it do not. They return with different stories, different plans, and different versions of themselves.

The play moves through these memories through conversation, silence, and especially music. A familiar guitar introduction brings Rain and River back to the song they started years ago. Lyrics are repeated, changed, challenged, and built upon. What begins as something playful between two friends slowly becomes a record of everything that has happened since they first wrote it.

Even the title captures this idea.

KasLoy plays on “Bukas Itutuloy,” turning tomorrow into something active rather than distant. It is not simply a promise that something will happen someday. It is a decision to continue. That idea keeps returning throughout the song, especially as Rain becomes determined to finish it before leaving for another country.

This is where the play’s message begins to unfold.

KasLoy is not really about finishing a song.

It is about what happens when life interrupts the things we thought we had more time for.

Rain and River’s conversations gradually reveal how much can change when we assume that things will eventually return to normal. Their lives have moved in different directions. Their plans have changed. The pandemic has left losses that neither of them can simply undo. Yet they still return to the same mountain, the same friendship, and the same unfinished song.

There is something painful about that repetition.

The mountain, the song, and the memories are still there.

But the people who return to them have changed.

For me, that was where KasLoy began to feel less like a story happening onstage and more like a feeling I recognized outside of it. There is a particular kind of grief in returning to something familiar and realizing that familiarity does not mean permanence. A classroom can look the same while the people who once sat in it have moved on. A restaurant can still serve the same food while the person you used to eat with is no longer beside you. Even a song can remain unchanged while the person who first sang it with you has become part of a memory.

The production gives these ideas room to settle instead of rushing toward them.

Its pacing is one aspect that may require patience from its audience. KasLoy lets conversations linger, pauses remain, and memories surface gradually. There are moments when the story feels deliberately slow, but that rhythm ultimately fits the subject it is exploring. Memory rarely arrives in perfect order. One joke can bring back an entire afternoon. One place can remind you of someone. One unfinished sentence can suddenly mean something years later.

The play understands this through its music.

The song does not simply appear as an interlude between scenes. It develops alongside the relationship. A lyric that sounds playful in one moment can carry a different weight when repeated later. The audience hears the same melody but slowly understands more of what sits behind it. By allowing the song to grow with the story, ROC makes music feel less like decoration and more like a record of what Rain and River have shared.

The performances benefit from that same restraint. The protagonists’ actors are given space to establish Rain and River as friends before asking the audience to sit with the heavier parts of their relationship. Their humor gives the emotional moments somewhere to come from, making the shift feel earned rather than sudden.

And perhaps that is why the ordinary parts of their friendship matter so much.

It is not the grand moments that first convince us that Rain and River care about each other. It is Rain bringing too much food. River complaining about it. Their constant teasing. Their arguments over lyrics. The fact that they keep returning to the same mountain.

The production lets these ordinary moments accumulate until the audience understands that this is what friendship often looks like: not a collection of dramatic declarations, but years of small memories that become meaningful precisely because they seemed insignificant when they happened.

That is also what makes the play’s grief feel familiar.

Watching KasLoy, I found myself thinking about my own unfinished things. Not necessarily songs, but conversations, plans, places, and versions of myself that I thought I would have more time to return to.

The play does not tell us that we should remain in the past. Instead, it asks what it means to continue while still acknowledging what came before. The past can remain part of us without becoming the place where we stay.

We spend so much of our lives waiting for the next thing to begin. But perhaps tomorrow does not ask us to become someone entirely new. Perhaps it only asks us to take what mattered with us and take the next step.

That is what KasLoy left me with. After watching Rain and River return to the same mountain, the same memories, and the same unfinished song, I found myself thinking about all the things I have been putting off for “someday.”

Maybe someday does not have to remain someday. Maybe all we have to do is take one foot forward and begin.

Bukas, itutuloy.

Dulaang Rock Opera Company’s KasLoy: Bukas Itutuloy runs at Telengtan Hall, ACB (Apex Communications Building), from October 1–3 and 9 at 8:00 PM, and October 10 at 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM. For anyone who has ever returned to an old place, an old memory, or an unfinished part of themselves, KasLoy is a story worth sitting with.

A renewed partnership

The seminar grew out of a courtesy call by H.E. Felipe Díaz, Ambassador of Chile, on UA&P President Atty. Philip Yeung, in which he expressed interest in renewing the university’s institutional ties with the Embassy. The Embassy later proposed a seminar on regionalism in Asia and the Americas, particularly South America, in the context of the Philippines’ ASEAN Presidency. On April 7, Ambassador Díaz and Diplomatic Officer Mr. Pedro Pizarro met UA&P representatives to settle the concept of a joint academic seminar.

Ambassador Díaz opened the program, and Atty. Allesandra Fay Albarico, Dean of the School of Politics and Governance, welcomed the diplomatic corps on behalf of UA&P.

Lectures and ambassadorial presentations

Dr. Bernardo Villegas, UA&P co-founder, economist, and University Professor Emeritus, delivered the opening lecture.

The first block of presentations featured H.E. Ricardo Bocalandro, Ambassador of Argentina, and H.E. Daniel Hernández Joseph, Ambassador of Mexico. A question-and-answer session then followed. The second block heard from H.E. Gilberto Fonseca Guimarães de Moura of Brazil, H.E. Eduardo Young Virzi of Panama, and H.E. Carmen Azurín Araujo of Peru.

Dr. Benjamin N. Muego, Full Professor of International Relations and Diplomacy at Philippine Women’s University, gave the closing lecture. Ambassador Díaz then offered closing words before guests moved to a cocktail reception.

The discussions were organized around two themes. The first, international politics and regional governance, covered models such as ASEAN, the OAS, the Pacific Alliance, APEC, RCEP, CPTPP, and MERCOSUR, along with strategic competition, middle powers, and regional order in the Indo-Pacific. The second, economics, resilience, and digital transformation, covered regional trade agreements, supply chain resilience, open rules-based trade, and new avenues for Asia-Latin America commerce in the digital economy.

A call for closer collaboration

The seminar is the first stage of a longer initiative. At the close of the event, organizers released essay prompts drawn from the two tracks. Philippine undergraduate and graduate students may submit essays of up to 1,000 words in English until October 28. Selected authors will then present 10-minute papers to a panel of diplomats and academics at UA&P at a date to be announced. The top essays will be edited and published in a commemorative volume under the ASEAN Presidency 2026 banner, expected after October–November 2026.

The event was organized by UA&P’s Marketing and Corporate Experience office in partnership with the Embassy of Chile.

On September 23, 2026, the College of Arts and Sciences, through ARTS 111: Fine Arts – Visual Arts, held Reading the Camarín, an Artist Talk on the ceiling paintings of the Camarín de la Virgen at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Abandoned in Santa Ana, Manila. Members of the UA&P community took part in the event.

The resource speaker was Mr. James Rainz Morales, Chairperson of the Santa Ana Church Heritage Commission. He guided participants through the camarín, a chamber behind and above the main altar where the image of Our Lady of the Abandoned is kept and venerated. Its ceiling holds eleven panels depicting scenes from the lives of the Virgin Mary and of Christ. Painted in the 1720s, they are the oldest datable oil-on-wood paintings in the Philippines and have been declared a National Cultural Treasure.

The panels belong to a wider story. They were made at a time when Manila stood at a crossroads of exchange linking Asia, the Americas, and Europe, and when images, devotions, and artistic forms traveled across oceans. They are works of faith, and they reward the patient work of reason: reading them closely shows how a local community received a visual language shared across the world, reshaped it, and made it its own.

The talk traced the devotion that gave rise to the camarín, offered a reading of the panels, and turned to the work of conserving them today. Mr. Morales showed that the paintings have survived nearly three centuries because two things have worked together. One is a community of devotees that has kept the room in use and in prayer. The other is careful, skilled conservation carried on in the face of present-day pressures.

This speaks to a question that heritage practitioners around the world increasingly share: how can heritage be sustained not only as an object to be protected, but as something living, held in trust by the people for whom it still carries meaning? The camarín offers one answer. A work endures when its materials are cared for, and also when each generation learns to see it, value it, and take responsibility for it as part of the common good.

The College extends its gratitude to Mr. Morales, the Santa Ana Church Heritage Commission, and Fr. Virgilio del Mundo, OFM, Parish Priest, for entrusting this treasure to a new generation of viewers. Special thanks as well to Mr. David Neil Joseph Lumba, who served as the event’s emcee, and to Ms. Eri Kondo and Ms. Tanaya Reverie Rafanan, former ARTS 111 students who joined the panel of reactors.