It’s not easy to wax poetic about a sport when you’re living in the only one of two countries on Earth that isn’t crazy about it. But really, there’s no getting around it:
football is the beautiful game. And if there’s anything that the ongoing 2026 World Cup is doing is to demonstrate, revive, to the world on how dramatic, unpredictable, elegant, powerful football is.

Many will perhaps shake their heads in disbelief. It is after all just a game with twenty-two men running up and down a field kicking the ball and getting crazy should it happen to go behind the net one or two times during the game.

But Ann Coulter (right as she often is; proof of which is how she drives leftists and progressives nuts) was wrong to say in her column that there are no MVP’s in football, that scoring is merely accidental. If that were so, there would be no Messi or Neymar or Cristiano Ronaldo. And scoring in football is far from accidental. It is ability.

Football is not to be compared to basketball, the sport, which most Filipinos go gaga about. Basketball’s strength is in its repetitiveness. I don’t buy it when Phil Jackson said basketball is a spontaneous, fluid sport. It is repetitive. Even Kobe Bryant said such in so many words. The plays are crafted, then memorized. Both teams, at the highest levels, actually know what’s going to happen next at both ends in the court. Basketball all boils down to execution, of which Bryant and Michael Jordan are its primary executioners (pun intended).

No. The better comparison would be to chess. After the first 40 possible moves, chess progresses to 400 possible positions. By the fifth move, one could possibly log 4,897,256 potential moves. Football is the same; although, in some ways, even more complex: moves are not fixed alternating between players, the twenty-two “pieces” are moving (and moving fast), and the movements don’t remain on a flat square.

Admittedly, football has problems translating to media. It does not lend well to being made into a movie or for TV viewing. The fact that it has no breaks except for half-time means that advertisers get left out. It’s not broken into quarters and statistics for TV analysts to comment about during lulls in the play.

Unlike baseball, on the other hand, football keeps moving. Baseball is easy to shoot as a movie or to write as a novel: with all the breaks between innings and pitches, the writers have the opening to put personal drama (or comedy) in between the actual action of the play (see For Love of The Game or Bull Durham, as examples).

Football, on the other hand, has to be experienced directly. And this is to be emphasized: watching those moments in youtube won’t be the same. Those moments have to, must, be experienced.

So contrary to what some say that it’s a sport where the ball just get kicked back and forth, a closer look reveals the sheer artistry in footwork that even Nijinksy would envy, the athleticism that an Ali would admire, or the speed that would exhilarate a Senna.

And then you have those supremely, shatteringly, magical moments that last you a lifetime, imprinted in your brain, replayed over and over again to marvel at and, yes I’ll say it, remind you that life is good. And much like life, good comes with the bad.

The bad: I remember being 16 years old watching Maradona in 1986 shamelessly celebrating a goal he handballed over the English. But then, I also remember, of moments later rendered speechless seeing Maradona dribble from mid-field, at full speed, past one, two, three, four, five English players and finally blasting it into the goal. I could still hear, in my mind’s ear, the announcer shouting in disbelief.

Indeed. Life, like football, has its ups and downs: I still remember frail Roberto Baggio, going against the powerful Nigerians and with Italy facing elimination, in the Round of 16 of the 1994 World Cup, miraculously left alone within the penalty area, to score in the final two minutes of the game. He’d later score another cardiac arresting but utterly sublime (no other word for it) goal, again in the last two minutes, against Spain in the quarterfinals. He’d then authoritatively stamp his will against the much bigger Bulgarians in the semis. In the finals against Brazil (which had Bebeto and the great predatory Romario), Baggio, exhausted, in pain, would be blamed for the loss, missing in the decisive penalty shootout.

Thinking about it more, ultimately, perhaps, there really are no ups and downs. For in football, it’s not the tedium or the disappointments or hooliganism that one remembers. Like life, it’s about those fleeting moments when once in every great while, amidst all the complexities and confusion, you get to live perfection.

It’s a beautiful game.

Whether it is in the stillness of the shore or simply in the mental safety of imagining these inky depths, however safe the onlooker actually is from danger, he cannot escape that strange feeling of feeble insignificance. Yet, rather than feel physically endangered, the onlooker encounters a formless terror that reveals a power beyond himself and, consequently, his powerlessness. For as long as we perceive this feeling, we collectively understand that we each play the role of the onlooker.

Even more strange is this negative pleasure—this universal delight—we derive from attempting to perceive a power so formless. The power involved is not just “great”; it is so overpowering that we fail to comprehend it. Given that, the formless is anything that cannot be contained in any sense or form, which in turn produces this aforementioned delight. As paradoxical as the feeling sounds, there exists a thrilling mix of awe and fear. This is what the 18th-century English philosopher Edmund Burke called the sublime.

While not being the first thinker to describe this elusive feeling—that thinker being the Greek rhetorician Longinus1—Burke’s account of the sublime provides the defining properties foundational to an understanding of the term. In short, the sublime is the aesthetic experience derived from encountering phenomena that, due to their immensity and scale, overwhelm the senses.

Consequently, the onlooker of the sublime is left feeling small, vulnerable, and insignificant, since he is rendered in a state of astonishment. By this redefinition, Burke meant the “state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended to some degree of horror”.2 The mind becomes wholly engrossed by the object—in a cognitive arrest—that it cannot think of anything else. This horror differs greatly from the horrors of an immediate danger. The sublime indeed arises from things vast, immense, but most importantly threatening—things that can cause immediate danger to us; however, the sublime arouses the idea of danger and pain from a safe distance without the onlooker being physically endangered. In short, the idea of danger is divorced from physical harm. The thrilling sensation that arises from confronting the seemingly infinite, raging sea from the position of a quiet shore is one of negative pleasure, or as Burke says, delight. He writes:

When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience.3

Terror had long since accompanied the dimensions of the sublime when Burke first linked it to the dimension of delight. Indeed, no sublime feeling can arise in the vicinity of a destructive storm, nor in the act of being thrown among the waves, since an onlooker’s terror is fixated on self-preservation. Rather, watching the raging sea from the peace of a coast can produce the feeling of the sublime. In other words, the sublime arises only when the terror is abstract enough to occur within the comfort of personal safety. Thus, Burke’s delightful terror emerges when the instinct for self-preservation is nullified by the realization that one is not in actual, immediate danger. Moreover, fear becomes the most effective method to suspend the mind’s motions—its power of reasoning and acting. So universal is this sentiment that it is shared by the Roman poets who said:

Primos in orbe deos fecit timor.

Or, “Fear first made gods in the world.” If fear reveals an imagined danger, the fear in the sublime reveals a human fragility. However, as foundational as Burke’s account is, it stumbles across three critical flaws. Firstly, he limits the feeling of the sublime to the aforementioned dimension of delight. By limiting it to mere fear and pain, he limits the experience to only an expression of self-preservation. Secondly—as a result—he fails to give an efficient explanation for excluding the dimension of positive effects in the sublime, such as moral grandeur and awe-inspiring acts of human courage. Thirdly, he limits the perception of the sublime to sensory information. When Burke limits the sublime to sensory impulses, he also limits the person to a sensory will, thereby ignoring his rational nature. Neither is this an adequate explanation to account for an experience so abstract as the sublime, for Burke’s fiercely empirical conception of it suspends the onlooker into a state of horror and leaves him stranded on a placid island of insignificance.4 Thus, the onlooker stands hopelessly. Nevertheless, he partially succeeds in rendering a proper account of the sublime by making the foundational claim that whenever power is only useful to utilitarian benefit and pleasure, its strength does not produce the sublime.

The horse in the light of a useful beast, fit for the plough, the road, the draft, in every social useful light the horse has nothing of the sublime; but is it thus that we are affected with him:

whose neck is cloathed with thunder, the glory of whose nostrils is terrible, who swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage, neither believeth that it is the sound of the trumpet?

In this description, the useful character of the horse entirely disappears, and the terrible and sublime blaze out together. We have continually about us animals of a strength that is considerable, but not pernicious.5

The sublime ought to be magnificent; the power of the sublime arises when we see the power as an end in itself, not as a means to certain ends. Immanuel Kant reflected on this and sought to express the abstract complexity of the sublime. For the German philosopher, finding pleasure in the fear and pain associated with a raging storm would mean going against the immediate interest of the senses.6 Therefore, he argues against Burke: the sublime is not simply an expression of self-preservation, but it is an experience of human elevation.

In his Critique of Judgement, Kant points out that it is not the phenomena themselves that constitute the sublime, but rather the discovery of a human transcendence—an ability to rationally surpass the phenomena—that constitutes it as an elevation. What one discovers is a person who is beyond sensory impulses. The feeling of terror when watching a storm is elevated to the sublime when the onlooker realizes his rationality over brute nature. While a violent storm can break and batter his body, it cannot break his resolve; for his is a resolve of rationality to derive a purpose from the world. It is because of this that if one is capable, through reason, to attempt to grasp the very concept of infinity, it indicates the mind’s power to “surpass every standard of sense.”7 For the onlooker,

Sublimity is contained not in any thing of nature, but only in our mind, insofar as we can become conscious of our superiority to nature within us, and thereby also to nature outside us. Whatever arouses this feeling in us, and this includes the might of nature that challenges our forces, is then (although improperly) called sublime. And it is only by presupposing this idea within us, and by referring to it, that we can arrive at the idea of the sublimity […] by the ability, with which we have been endowed, to judge nature without fear and to think of our vocation as being sublimely above nature.8

If Burke’s account is foundational, then Kant’s is revolutionary. The former suspends the soul in a degree of horror, and leaves it wafting on the fringes of uncertainty; the latter transcends the soul unto an elegant certainty. One stops at astonishment, whereas the other moves towards edification. The project of the sublime then shifts focus: one becomes concerned with enriching one’s moral and intellectual life, for what truly becomes sublime is the person. In short, Kant provides us with a potent redefinition: the sublime is that aesthetic experience derived from encountering phenomena that, due to their immensity and scale, awaken the person to a higher state of living.

To suppose that Kant represses the fear and insignificance present in the sublime is to misunderstand him entirely. It is quite the contrary; he sees them as essential to the process. He champions the dimensions within negative pleasure as a starting point for edification. Kant’s onlooker of the sublime understands this relationship, for fear is not a letter of rejection; fear is an invitation to ascend.

Yet the sight of them [sublime objects] becomes all the more attractive the more fearful it is, provided we are in a safe place. And we like to call these objects sublime because they raise the soul’s fortitude above its usual middle range and allow us to discover in ourselves an ability to resist, […] which gives us the courage [to believe] that we could be a match for nature’s seeming omnipotence.9

An instinctual fear of the sublime is necessary for it to manifest, insofar as confronting it is necessary too. Concretely speaking, that would look like the depths of an ocean spanning beyond the horizon, which instills a formlessness. It is not just “big”; it is so massive that the mind fails to hold its scale. Conversely, the form would mean something we can contain in our minds, and that the form would be our capacity for comprehension. In confronting the fearful and formless ocean that is beyond sensory understanding, we affirm living itself. As onlookers, we do not simply recognize our physical fragility, as Burke supposes, but triumphantly understand as well where we stand in the world: the formless elevates the form.

And yet this same violence that the imagination inflicts on the subject is still judged purposive for the whole vocation of the mind.10

The human person, in definite form, evolves by the times; but that which is sublimely formless never will, for ultimately, the sublime is an encounter between self-transcending humanity and the self-contained world around it. As long as we retain a consciousness that we are capable of going beyond formless things, as Kant did, then the feelings that persist in that unceasing confrontation remain.

What only evolved was our understanding of the sublime and how an aesthetic experience can awaken us to a higher state of living. Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant may have defined and redefined the term in the 18th-century, but they stumbled upon an irrefutable sea of triumph already existing. It only becomes evident that as 21st-century onlookers, we ought to rediscover that irrefutable sea and redefine the term that mankind has found to be properly called the sublime.

This feature is part of a two-fold series by the author. Stay tuned for part two.

References

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Edited by David Womersley. 1757. Reprint, London: Penguin Books, 2004.

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

This article was originally delivered as a homily for St. Josemaría’s Feast Day Mass at Sancta Maria Stella Orientis Oratory on 26 June 2026.

In the Gospel of St. Luke, the story of the calling of the first disciples begins not in a sacred space, but at the lakeside, amidst the environment of fishing. It begins with Jesus stepping directly into the boat of Simon Peter. That boat was the image of their ordinary lives. Without it, the fishermen could not fish; it was their livelihood, their routine, and their daily reality. Yet, it was precisely within that workspace that their first true encounter with Christ took place. Jesus did not call them away from their reality to meet Him; He met them in it.

This Gospel scene offers a beautiful lens through which we can look at the life of St. Josemaría Escrivá. At a young age, Jesus entered the “boat” of this young Spanish priest, calling him to carry out Opus Dei (The Work of God) on earth. Like the first disciples, St. Josemaría responded with immediate generosity and faithfulness. But his mission was not just for himself. His life and teachings serve as a vivid reminder that while not everyone is called to found an institution, every single one of us is called to let Jesus into our personal boat. We are all called to bring Christ into our own unique environments.

St. Josemaría is widely known as the “Saint of the Ordinary.” He introduced the “novelty” that holiness is not a premium concept reserved for a chosen few—like priests or cloistered religious—but a universal call meant for everyone. For many, this is an idea heard many times over. But do we really understand what it means to be holy in ordinary life?

We generally understand holiness as drawing closer to God, falling in love with Him, and striving for heaven. The real disconnect usually lies in our understanding of the word ordinary. By definition, the ordinary is the regular, customary condition or course of things. Humanly speaking, it is much easier for us to look for God in the extraordinary—in miracles, emotional spiritual highs, or dramatic crises. We tend to subconsciously equate God’s presence with things that happen outside of our routine. By doing this, we accidentally lock Him out of our day-to-day life.

The story of the Apostles reminds us that the ordinary is the very place of our sanctification. If you are looking for God, you do not need to wait for a more “spiritual” set of life circumstances. You can find Him exactly where you are right now:

• In your environments: At home with your family, at your desk in the office, or during your daily commute.

• In your experiences: In your professional successes, your frustrating failures, your relationships, and your periods of rest and vacation.

• In your changing seasons: In moments of vibrant health or exhausting sickness, and through your deepest joys and heaviest sorrows.

All of these moments are not distractions from a holy life; they are the material of your holy life. They are continuous opportunities to grow in intimacy with God.

Finding God in the routine, however, is not automatic. In the Gospel, after Jesus entered the boat, He did something profound: He worked the miraculous catch of fish.

The miracle only happened because the disciples allowed Jesus to act in their workspace. To find God in our own lives, we have to invite Him into our routine through a consistent life of prayer, the reception of the Sacraments, personal sacrifice, and daily apostolate (sharing our faith with those around us). When we do this, the external details of our ordinary life might not change. You will still have to do the dishes, answer emails, catch the bus, and pay the bills. But while the ordinary stays the same, you begin to live it in an extraordinary way. This is how God continues to perform the miraculous catch of fish in our lives today—by transforming mundane duties into acts of profound love.

St. Josemaría perfectly captured this truth in his famous homily, Passionately Loving the World:

None of these forms of love is complete by itself. A flourishing human life is usually woven from all four. But in almost every story we tell, it seems like love ends the same way: two people meet, they choose each other, build a life together, and then the credits roll. From childhood onward, we are surrounded by this narrative.

Films, novels, songs, advertisements, and social media content mostly quietly or loudly repeat the same assumption: if life goes well, you will eventually find someone who becomes your person. And for most people, that is true. Marriage is one of humanity’s greatest goods. To look at another person and say, “I will stay with you not only when life is beautiful, but when it becomes difficult, ordinary, and demanding,” is a remarkable act of courage. But marriage is more than romance. It is a daily transformation of affection into fidelity. It is choosing the same person a thousand times. It is building a shared world through sacrifice, forgiveness, tenderness, understanding, and perseverance. The desire for such a love is not shallow. In fact, it reaches into something fundamental in us: we long to belong, we long to be known, and we long to give ourselves completely and receive another person completely in return.

Yet marriage is not the only way a human life can become a gift. There have always been people who loved differently. They do so not because they were incapable of love, nor because they feared commitment, nor because they failed to find someone. These people love differently because they felt called to give themselves away in another way. Older traditions call this celibacy. Perhaps many people today might understand it more simply as being single on purpose. This kind of loving, when freely chosen, is not a rejection of love. It is one of the most radical affirmations of love imaginable because it says: Love is so valuable that I am willing to surrender even the good of marriage for the sake of a larger calling. Love is so abundant that I will not reserve all of mine for a single household. I will spend it wherever it is needed. Now this love is not less love; it is a different form of love. It is a love without possession.2

More than a relationship status

For many young adults today, singleness often feels like a waiting room. You are waiting for the right person, waiting for the relationship to become official or have a name, or you are waiting for your life to begin (once that someone appears). Try scrolling through social media long enough, and it can seem as though everyone else is moving forward: getting engaged, posting anniversary photos, celebrating weddings, and building families while you remain stuck in place. The unspoken message is difficult to miss: coupled means successful, and single means unfinished.

But what if the assumption is wrong? What if a person’s life is not measured by whether they have found someone to love, but by whether they have become someone capable of loving? The difference matters. How? One makes your happiness dependent on being chosen. The other asks what kind of gift you are becoming regardless of who chooses you. While it is true that relationship status matters, we cannot forget that it is not identity. Look at it this way: A person can be deeply loved and still be single. A person can be in a relationship and still profoundly alone. So, the deeper question is never simply “Who loves me?” but “What am I giving my life to?”

Two ways of giving yourself away

We often speak as though marriage and celibacy are opposites, as though one affirms love while the other rejects it. Let’s get this straight: such perception misunderstands both. Marriage and celibacy are not rivals; they never were and never will be. They are two different ways of making a gift of one’s life. Where marriage says, “I give myself wholly to one person, and together we will build a home,”3 celibacy says, “I give myself wholly to a larger calling, and I will remain available wherever I am needed.” One concentrates love; the other distributes it. One gathers devotion around a family; the other releases devotion outward into the world. Neither loves less. They simply draw different maps of responsibility.

This was one of the insights emphasized by St. John Paul II. Marriage and celibacy, he argued, are not competing ideals but two ways of expressing the same human vocation: the vocation to love.4 Celibacy only makes sense because marriage is beautiful. One cannot meaningfully renounce what is worthless. The sacrifice is significant precisely because what is being sacrificed is good.

Marriage is strengthened when celibacy is honored, for celibacy reminds us that romance is not the highest purpose of human life. Human beings are more than couples. Love is greater than desire and there are forms of devotion that extend beyond the walls of a household. Where marriage is cheapened, celibacy appears pointless. Where celibacy is mocked, marriage risks becoming absolute. The healthiest cultures honor because both are ways of loving.

The forgotten freedom

Psychiatrist Carlos Chiclana observes that celibacy is often misunderstood because people focus only on what is surrendered: no marriage, no spouse, no children, and no romantic exclusivity.5 But isn’t it that every meaningful commitment involves giving something up? Marriage itself requires giving up countless alternatives in order to belong faithfully to one person. The real question is not what is sacrificed. The real question is what the sacrifice makes possible.

One hidden gift of celibacy is freedom. It is not freedom from commitment. Rather, it is freedom for commitment, that is, the freedom to go where one is needed, the freedom to serve without dividing one’s attention between competing responsibilities, and the freedom to belong, in a certain sense, to everyone. This freedom is not an escape from responsibility. It is responsibility redirected. The celibate person is not saying: “I belong to no one.” Ideally, he is saying: “I belong wherever I am needed most to serve.”

Alyosha and the expanding heart

Again, let’s turn to literature, which often portrays fulfillment as finding one special person. But our dear Fyodor Dostoevsky offers another possibility in Alyosha Karamazov. We see in Alyosha a character who is not detached from the world. On the contrary, he enters it more deeply by listening, encouraging, reconciling, and forgiving others. People are drawn to him because he possesses something increasingly rare: genuine availability. His life suggests a profound truth: that some people are called to build a home, while others are called to become a refuge or sanctuary.

Alyosha’s celibacy is not one of emotional distance. We could take it as emotional generosity, in the sense that he belongs to no one person precisely because he is available to many. His heart is not empty; it is simply unclaimed by any human love. And because it is unclaimed, it remains open.

A life given away

I once knew a woman who lived exactly this way. She never married. Instead, she devoted her life to caring for Filipino-Chinese students in a school and dormitory community. Year after year, generation after generation, young people passed through her care. She guided them, corrected them, encouraged them, and comforted them. When students were homesick, she was there. When they struggled, she helped them. When they succeeded, she celebrated with genuine pride.

Decades later, these former students would return as adults. Some came back with spouses; others came back carrying children in their arms. Many sought her out first not because she had taught them a subject, but because she had helped shape their lives. She never became a mother in the biological sense, yet she became a mother to hundreds. She did not build one family but helped nurture countless families. And she was happy in the quiet, steady way that comes from knowing that your life is spent on something that matters. Her love was not romantic, but it was real and it changed lives.

Love without possession

Perhaps the biggest mistake we make is imagining that the opposite of marriage is being alone. It isn’t. The opposite of human love is not singleness. It is self-absorption. A married person can spend a lifetime giving himself away. A celibate person can spend a lifetime giving himself away. And both lives become beautiful for exactly the same reason, not because they acquired something but because they offered something.

Marriage gathers love around a home; celibacy releases love outward into the world. Marriage teaches fidelity through belonging. Celibacy teaches generosity through availability, and both require sacrifice, commitment, and courage. Most importantly, marriage and celibacy can become extraordinary expressions of love.6 Chiclana expresses this beautifully saying that: “It means that the world is full of wonderful people with whom to venture into the sacrament of marriage, that your human nature works wonderfully, and that your spiritual and supernatural life makes you appreciate with greater sensitivity and refinement the meaning of spousal love, of care, of self-giving, and of intimacy. All these meanings are also reasons for celibacy.”7 These two vocations are not competitors. They are two distinct ways of making one’s life a gift, rooted in the same calling: to love well.

In the end, the measure of a life is not whether it belonged to one person or many. Choosing a path in life, whether through the shared life of marriage or the dedicated service of celibacy, is ultimately about discovering where your capacity for love can best flourish. It is not about finding a hidden “correct answer,” but about recognizing where you feel, think, and believe most called to contribute your unique light to the world. We aren’t being asked to choose between love and loneliness; we are being invited to choose between settling for a life kept for yourself and a life that is expansive, offered to the world.

The world does not need more people grasping for possession; it needs more people daring to offer themselves. Both marriage and celibacy are different languages of the same soul, both proving that love is never a commodity to be held. It is an energy (dunamis), a life to be released. And perhaps the most beautiful love stories are the ones that never seek to own but simply seek to serve.

Naging mainit na balita sa buong bansa ang pag-angat sa estado ng Pilipinas mula Mababa sa Katamtamang Kita na antas o ‘Lower Middle income status’ tungo sa Mataas na Katamtamang Kita na antas o ‘Upper Middle income status.’1 Gayonpaman, hindi na ito nakapagtataka at inaasahan na ito batay sa masusing pag-aaral ni Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas (BMV) isang ekonomista ng Pilipinas at propesor emeritus ng Univesity of Asia & the Pacific. Sa katunayan, ayon pa rin kay Dr. Villegas, sa taong 2040, ang ekonomiya ng Pilipinas ay lalo pang lalago hanggang sa Mataas na Kita o ‘High-income’ kung magagawa ng Pilipinas ang patuloy na repormang estrukturál at pandaigdigang pagbabago na nakatala rin sa ‘Ambisyon 2040’ mula sa pag-aaral ng Department of Economy, Planning and Development (DEPDev) ng bansa.

Sa madaling salita, nangangahulugan ito na sa nakalipas na dalawang dekada, ang Gross National Income (GNI) per capita ng Pilipinas ay mahigit triple, na umabot sa $4,470 noong 2024. Ang ekonomiya ay lumikha ng 11.7 milyong bagong trabaho, at nangangahulugang ang paglago ng trabaho ay mas mabilis kaysa sa pagtaas ng lakas-paggawa, na nagresulta sa mababang antas ng kawalan ng trabaho at kakulangan sa trabaho. Gayundin, nabawasan nang malaki ang antas ng kahirapan mula 16.7% noong 2018 patungong 15.5% noong 2023. Dagdag pa ni Dr. Rogelio Alicor Panao, isang associate professor sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, Diliman at data scientist ng Inquirer, na ang mga klasipikasyon ng kita ng World Bank ay mas maiintindihan bilang paraan ng pagpapangkat sa ekonomiya batay sa karaniwang kita, sa halip na tignan bilang pagsusuri sa kalidad ng pamumuhay ng mamamayan.2

Ang ganitong usapin ng bansa ay mahirap unawain kaya marami ang nagtataka sa ulat na inilabas ng World Bank. Sa nakalipas na maraming taon, isa si Dr. Villegas sa matiyagang nagpapaliwanag sa estado ng ekonomiya ng bansa upang maintindihan ito ng pangkarawaniwang mamamayan. Dahil ang ekonomiks ay hindi lamang dapat nauunawaan ng mga eksperto kundi ng lahat. Totoong hámon ito na maipaunawa lalo na sa pangkaraniwang mamayan mula sa antas ng barangay hanggang sa pambansa. Paalala ni G. Mabaggu “ang ekonomiya ay dapat laging para sa tao, ang pag-unlad ay dapat laging para sa lahat, at ang pag-angat ng bansa ay dapat laging may kaakibat na pag-angat ng dangal, responsabilidad, at kabutihang panlahat.”3 Kaya naman, dito inianak ang proyekto ng Kagawaran ng Filipino ng College of Arts and Sciences – ang 4Ps o “Pamanang BMV: Pagdalumat, Pangarap, at Pagsasalin” upang maging tulay sa lalo pang pag-unawa at pagpapalawak ng konsepto ng ekonomiya sa bansa.

Paano nga ba dapat isalin ang ‘fiscal deficit, farm to market road, emerging market, GNP, GDP, credit rating, labor intensive, medium scale enterprises, low, middle at high income status at iba pang termino na hindi natin alam ang kahulugan o walang salin sa Filipino na wikang higit na naiitindihan ng lahat.

Ang pamagat ang unang hamon sa lahat

Kapag pinag-uusapan ang Ekonomiya ng Filipinas hindi mawawaglit sa aking isipan ang aming huntahan sa pagsasálin ng aklat ni Dr. Villegas na may pamagat na “The Philippine Economy towards First World Status” na may salin na: “Ang Ekonomiya ng Filipinas tungong First World.” Sa pagtatangka pa lámang na isalin ang pamagat ng aklat, bakás na ang hámon upang maisalin ito. Bakit nga ba ganito ang salin ng pamagat na ginawa ng Kagawaran? Mapapansing ginamit ang ‘Filipinas’ sa halip na Pilipinas, ginamit din ang First World sa halip na Unang Daigdig, at ang ‘status’ sa halip na nakasanayang salin na estado? Malinaw ang tunguhin ng kagawaran sa pagsasálin, ito ay dapat maging ‘eleganteng’ Filipino hindi Tagalog ang wikà, na higit na angkop sa nagbabagong panahon. Ayon kay Dr. Villegas, “Even the very title indicates that the translation is in Filipino, not Tagalog, and will therefore appeal to at least the two youngest generations—the Millennials and Centennials.”

Ang pagsasalin bilang isang larang

Mahalagang mapanatili ang katumpakan ng impormasyon dahil anumang pagkakamali ay maaaring magdulot nang maling interpretasyon o seryosong epekto sa mga gagamit ng teksto, lalo na sa larang ng medisina, batas, at agham. Sa katunayan, kahit hindi ka tagasalin lahat tayo ay nahaharap sa gawaing pagsasalin. Lagi tayong tinatanong o tinatanong natin ang sarili kung ano ba ang salin ng iba’t ibang salita sa araw-araw. Lantad man ang gawaing pagsasalin o hindi, personal man ito o dahil sa pangangailangan, mahalaga ring mataya ang mga umiiral na praktis sa pagsasalin at matiyak ang mga pagpapahalagang maaaring makaapekto sa tagasalin o proseso nito sa panahon ngayon.

Mabilis nating naiintindihan ang pagsasalin sa literal na pamamaraan. Katulad ng pagsasalin ng tubig na nasa pitsel patungo sa baso bilang bagong sisidlan ng tubig. Kung ano ang laman ng pitsel ay dapat ganoon din ang naisasalin sa baso. Kung dadalumatin, ang gawain ito, hindi ito ganoon kasimple. Ang tunay na hamon sa pagsasalin ay siguruhing gayundin ang lalabas dito mula sa pinanggalingan nito batay sa kulay, anyo, laman, at linaw ng tubig. Ganito rin sa pagsasalin, kasama rito ang leksikal at semantikang bahagi ng wika maging ang (1) kahulugan batay sa konsepto, layunin, at kultura, (2) estruktura mula sa gamit, idyoma o matalinghagang salita, (3) estilo kung anong pinagbatayang teorya o nilapat sa pag-aaral, at ang huli ay ang (4) pinaglalaanan nito – sino ba ang mambabasa at kanino ito nauukol (?) upang ganap na mahuli ang kahulugan at masigurong maisasalin ito nang maayos.

Isa ito sa nagtutulak sa lalo pang pangangailangan at propesyonálisasyon ng pagsasálin. Kaya natatangi ang sub-area ng teknikal na pagsasalin dahil higit itong nakatuon sa pagiging eksakto, obhetibo, at sistematiko kumpara sa malikhaing pagsasáling pampanitikan. Kung sa pampanitikang pagsasalin ay mahalaga ang estilo, estétiká, at emosyon ng teksto, sa teknikal na pagsasálin naman ay higit na pinahahalagahan ang kalinawan, konsístensí, at katumpakan ng terminolohiya.

Gayundin, ang tagasáling teknikal ay dapat may sapat na kaalaman hindi lamang sa wikà kundi maging sa espesyalisadong larang na kaniyang isinasalin katulad ng doktor upang magkaroon ng tamang diagnosis at mapagtagumpayang malunasan ang sakit ng kanyang pasyente. Ganito rin sa bahagi ng pagsasalin, kinakailangan ng tamang pamamaraan upang tamang maisalin ang lahat ng nakapaloob dito mula sa Simulaang Lengguwahe (SL) patungong Tunguhang Lengguwahe (TL).

Sa patuloy din nating pagyakap sa AI o Artificial Intelligence, hindi kailanman magiging sapat ang Google translate, ChatGPT, Claude, at iba pang application kaugnay rito. Mali ring sabihing bakit pa may pagsasalin? May Google na naman hindi ba? Ang pahayag na ito’y kamangmangan sa tunay at nararapat na pagpapahalaga sa disiplina. Higit din nating dapat pag-isipang mabuti ang magagawa ng AI sa ating buhay. Dagdag pa ni Newmark, “I take technical translation as potentially (but far from actually) non-cultural, therefore ‘universal’; the benefits of technology are not confined to one speech community.”4 Higit sa lahat, ano ba ang gusto nating ipamana sa susunod na henerasyon - ang kawalan ba ng pagkilala o tuluyang pagkitil o pag-alis sa isang disiplinang maaring magturo sa kabataan ng tama at huhubog sa kanilanang kamalayan na patuloy na mag-aambag sa ikapapanuto ng lahat? Napakahalaga ring gamitin bilang lente ang ambag ng mga naging susi sa pundasyon ng pag-aaral sa pagsasalin tulad nina Eugene Nida hinggil sa Dynamic Equivalence na nagpapakita sa kahalagahan ng pag-angkop ng mensahe sa target na mambabasa.5 Binigyang-diin naman ni Peter Newmark ang pagkakaiba ng Semantic at Communicative translation na mahalaga sa teknikal na pagsasalin.6 Gayundin, ang pagtalakay ni Susan Bassnett ng interdisciplinary nature ng translation studies at ipinakita naman ni Mona Baker ang papel ng diskurso at konteksto sa pagsasalin bilang disiplinang may kaugnayan sa lipunan, kultura, at komunikasyon.7

Ang tagapagsalin ay hindi lamang tagapaghatid ng mensahe kundi isa ring tagapag-ugnay ng kaalaman at kultura. Sa pananaw ni Shapiro ang pagsasalin ay “attempt to produce a text so transparent that it does not seem to be translated. A good translation is like a pane of glass. You only notice that it’s there when there are little imperfections— scratches, bubbles. Ideally, there shouldn’t be any. It should never call attention to itself.”8 Mahalaga itong maging batayan sa proseso ng pagsasalin upang makalikha ng natural na salin at makapagtakda ng tiyak na pamantayan sa pagsasalin. Totoong isang masalimuot na proseso ang pagsasalin. Ito ang sinuong ng mga guro sa Kagawaran ng Filipino upang maisakatuparan ang layunin ni Dr. Villegas at magsisilbing “Pamanang BMV: Pagdalumat, Pangarap, at Pagsasalin” upang maging tulay sa lalo pang pag-unawa at pagpapalawak ng konsepto ng ekonomiks sa bansa tulad ng lower, upper middle income status tungong First World upang higit na maunawaan ang ekonomiya ng Filipinas.

Pamana Wika: Isang epektibong behikulo sa pagsasalin

Sa Filipinas, maraming mamamayan ang higit na nakauunawa ng impormasyon kapag ito ay nasa Tagalog o katutubong wika. Napatunayan na natin ito noong panahon ng pandemic. Isa sa mga sintomas ng COVID-19 ay ang ‘ageusia.’9 Kung sisipatin, wala nga ba talaga tayong panumbas nito sa Filipino at sa ibang medikal na salita o sadyang nakasanayan na natin ang panghihiram at pangongopya sa halip na gawin ang paghango at pagpapalit (?) kahit pa mayroon tayong 130 aktibo at buhay na mga wika na magagamit sa bansa ayon sa pagtaya ng Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (2016). Noong panahon ng mga Kastila, naging suliranin din ang paggamit ng wika “Ang isa sa naging pangunahing suliranin noon ay kung sa aling wika tuturuan ang mga Pilipino. Nilutas ang problema sa pamamagitan ng pagtuturo sa mga katutubo sa sariling wika.10 Malinaw itong hakbang sa proseso ng paghango at pagpapalit lalo na sa teknikal na pagsasalin.

Mula rito, kailangan lamang nating gamitin at linangin ang ating wika batay sa dimensiyon ng pagpaplanong pangwika ni Haugen at gawin ang propagasyon at elaborasyon ng wika.11 Kailangan lamang tayong maniwala na kaya ito ng ating wika upang tuloy-tuloy nating mapalitan at makalikha ng mga salita tungo sa intelektuwalisasyon ng wikang Filipino. Katulad ng sinabi ni Dr. Jose Rizal, “Ang wika kapag mahusay na sinasalita, kasinghalaga ang Tagalog ng anupamang wika. Napakayaman ng talasalitaan nito para magpahayag ng damdamin at mga gawaing pang-araw-araw.”12

Dahil din dito, nagiging instrumento ang teknikal na pagsasalin upang maipalaganap ang kaalaman sa mas malawak na sektor ng lipunan kung saan papasok ang iba’t ibang disiplina mula sa antas ng HEIs o Higher Education Instituion - mga kolehiyo o unibersidad salig sa DO #52, serye, 1987 na nagsasabing “Tertiary level institutions shall lead in the continuing intellectualization of Filipino.”13 Malinaw, lantad, at mapanghamon ang tungkuling ito. Ang intelektuwalisasyon ay dapat isinusulong at ginagawa sa mga unibersidad at kolehiyo. Ang pagsasalin ng mga babasahing pangkalusugan, batas, at impormasyon ukol sa kalamidad ay nakatutulong upang maging mas inklusibo ang akses ng mamamayan sa mahahalagang impormasyon. Sa ganitong paraan, ang pagsasalin ay hindi lamang akademikong gawain kundi isang panlipunang tungkulin. Maiuugnay rin ang akademikong disiplina ng pagsasalin sa mas malawak na sitwasyon ng lipunan dahil ito ay may direktang epekto sa edukasyon, komunikasyon, at pambansang pag-unlad. Sa edukasyon, mahalagang maisalin ang akademikong mga kagamitan upang maging mas madaling maunawaan ng mga mag-aaral ang komplikadong konsepto sa agham, matematika, at teknolohiya. Sa larang naman ng pamahalaan at serbisyong publiko, nagiging mahalaga ang pagsasalin upang maiparating sa taumbayan ang mga patakaran at impormasyon. Ipinapakita rito na ang pagsasalin ay isang paraan ng democratization of knowledge o pagpapalawak ng akses sa kaalaman para sa lahat.

Tunay ngang mahirap pasukin ang disiplina ng pagsasalin lalo na’t kung dadalumatin ang sub-area nito sa usapin ng teknikal ngunit kung hindi ito pag-aaralan mas magiging malaki ang puwang ng pagsasalin sa lipunan. Matutugunan lamang ang puwang na ito kung itataas natin ang ating kaalaman, kasanayan, at praktika at pagpapahalaga sa ating wika bilang isang mahalagang propesyon at akademikong larang. Isang pamanang maipagmamalaki at magbabalik dangal sa ating pagiging Pilipino.

Kaya tara na’t magsalin! Basahin at abangan ang kopya ng aklat na “Ang Ekonomiya ng Filipinas tungong First World” ni Dr. BMV na isinalin nina: Dr. Moreal N. Camba, Dr. Leodivico C. Lacsamana, G. Louise Vincent B. Amante, G. Albert A. Lagrimas, at G. John Errol Velasco.

Sanggunian

Antonio, L. 1986. “Ang Pagsasaling-Wika at Pananampalataya.” Malay 5, no. 1. https://ejournals.ph/article.php?id=7697.

Baclig, Cristina. 2026. “What an Upper-Middle-Income Status Means for the Philippines.” Philippine Daily Inquirer. https://business.inquirer.net/598444/what-an-upper-middle-income-status-means-for-the-philippines.

Baker, Mona. 1992. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London: Routledge.

Bassnett, Susan. 2002. Translation Studies. 3rd ed. London: Routledge.

Coroza, Michael M. 2016. “Taksil Daw ang Tagasalin? Isang Pag-unawa sa Pagsasalin Bilang Disiplina.” Katipunan: Journal ng mga Pag-aaral sa Wika, Panitikan, Sining at Kulturang Filipino 1, no. 1: 29–39. https://www.scribd.com/document/375269784/2199-7812-1-PB-pdf.

Department of Education (DepEd). 1987. Department Order No. 52, s. 1987: The 1987 Policy on Bilingual Education. May 21, 1987. https://www.deped.gov.ph/1987/05/21/do-52-s-1987-the-1987-policy-on-bilingual-education/.

Newmark, Peter. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall. https://archive.org/stream/ATextbookOfTranslationByPeterNewmark/a%20textbook%20of%20translation%20by%20peter%20newmark_djvu.txt.

Nida, Eugene A. 2000. “Principles of Correspondence.” In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge. https://newuniversityinexileconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Week-6-Dynamic-equivalence-and-formal-equivalence-Nida-1964-1.pdf.

Ocampo, Nestor S. 2002. May Gawa na Kaming Natapus Dini: Si Rizal at ang Wikang Tagalog. Quezon City: Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development, University of the Philippines.

Polack, Fernando P., Stephen J. Thomas, Nicholas Kitchin, Judith Absalon, Alejandra Gurtman, Stephen Lockhart, John L. Perez, et al. 2020. “Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine.” New England Journal of Medicine 383: 2603–2615. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577.

ScienceDirect. “Ageusia.” ScienceDirect Topics. Accessed May 29, 2026. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/ageusia.

Sison-Buban, Raquel E. 2014. “Ang Pagsasaling Teknikal: Pagsipat sa Praktika at Pagpapahalaga / Technical Translation: Revisiting the Practice and Essentials.” Malay 26, no. 2: 117–127. https://ejournals.ph/article.php?id=8058

Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge. https://cbpbu.ac.in/userfiles/file/2020/STUDY_MAT/ENGLISH/JS/venuti.pdf.

Warren, N. 2020. “National Haiku Day: COVID-19 Edition.” Erie Reader. https://www.eriereader.com/article/national-haiku-day-covid19-edition.

World Bank, “Philippines,” World Bank, accessed July 9, 2026, https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/country/philippines

Sensationalism, the tactic through which content is intentionally exaggerated or distorted to provoke strong emotional reactions, reigns supreme as the easiest way to fame. It is no surprise, then, that research has found that platforms like Instagram have increased the exposure of negative emotional content by 23%.1 This forced me to grapple with a disturbing problem: if I sought to inform, how could I reach more viewers without simultaneously distorting the truth to elicit stronger reactions? The dilemma of a content creator is deciding the price of their integrity in the face of virality. There is, however, a way to cheat that price—if one is willing to get a bit creative.

Before even beginning to cheat the system, however, a content creator must first understand the principles they aim to defend. The temptation to seek engagement at any cost is all too easy to give in to; you can find videos of people screaming at trees, which gain millions of views due to the sheer absurdity of the content. This temptation indicates the first barrier to using social media as a platform to benefit society: understanding the social responsibility that comes with the power of reach. The first component of this awareness is realizing the cost of time that content charges viewers.

On TikTok, video analytics display the total watch time for any posted video. My most popular video has 412,513,000 seconds of watch time, or roughly more than 13 years of accumulated watch time—all for a one-and-a-half-minute-long video. I realized the gravity of my reach then. I took 13 years’ worth of time away from society—was what I gave in exchange worth it? While entertainment in itself isn’t harmful, I grounded myself in the desire to create content that delivers value to people in exchange for their time. That, however, led me to another question: what exactly is a content creator’s role in society, and when is content worth watching?

The second component of this social responsibility is understanding the very real effects content has on society. Every person has schemas, or mental models that organize and interpret information, shaping how they perceive the world around them.2 When one imagines a cat, for example, related information might come to mind: cats have fur, four legs, whiskers, a tail, and so on. Those schemas are malleable if additional information is provided, and that is where the true danger begins.3 Imagine being pushed information for years that creatures that meow and have whiskers are, in fact, dogs—one might even start to believe it. Through a phenomenon called the illusory truth effect, human minds are structured to believe statements the more frequently they encounter them, even if they aren’t true or accurate.4^,5 This means viewers’ perceptions of reality aren’t determined by the veracity of information, but by how often the algorithm chooses to push certain content.

One can think they are in control of what they watch, but their preferences have often already been shaped by previous content. This is the logical endpoint of the illusory truth effect: after prolonged exposure to consistent media messages, people’s schemas change to mirror them—a phenomenon described in cultivation theory. This is dangerous when algorithms are designed to push content that feeds into people’s negativity and confirmation biases because it means algorithms are positioned and structured to alter people’s perceptions of reality in harmful ways.6 A direct example of this is TikTok’s personalized recommendations resulting in a strong correlation between adolescent anxiety symptoms and eating disorder behaviors.7 In the context of important sociopolitical issues, this can lead to political alienation and echo chambers that have significant impacts on voter turnout, political sentiments, and agenda-setting on a national level.8^,9 This is the true responsibility of the content creator: with the power to shape people’s perceptions of reality comes an obligation to use the power of reach to effect positive social change. Otherwise, one would become complicit in a system already poised to harm society.

How can a system that rewards negativity and echo chambers be cheated to effect positive social change, then? The key is striking a balance between utilizing different cognitive biases while still exercising moderation. Problems arise when emotions are provoked by misrepresentations and lead to bad outcomes, but that isn’t the only way to evoke powerful responses from viewers. Negative content is harmful when it breeds learned helplessness, such as by permanently degrading people’s trust in democratic institutions or when it exaggerates the risks of long-term crises to scare viewers into engagement.10 However, important pieces of news and knowledge can still be negative and elicit strong reactions while leading to positive social change.

If the algorithm rewards negativity, truthfully reporting on corruption or war can still engage viewers, and positive social change can be effected by providing clear calls to action to avoid learned helplessness. In other cases, representing diverse perspectives to mitigate the risk of echo chambers or providing clear paths to resolution can also reduce panic. Social media is inherently interactive, and while engagement can be solicited by replying to comments and following trends, the burden is also on content creators to broach new topics and avoid echo chambers. Inherently valuable information should always be able to elicit engagement if it matters, and the art of content creation is discovering an angle that makes knowledge both relatable and useful without distorting or exaggerating it.

The path content creators take to retain their integrity lies not in rejecting the algorithm, but in refusing to let it dictate their values. Algorithms are powerful because they find the most efficient ways to use human behavior for engagement, but they fail to discern between outrage from information and outrage from manipulation. The responsibility of the content creator is to make that distinction for the algorithm and find creative ways to deliver the truth without succumbing to sensationalism.

Content creation is still a trap. There will always be the temptation to sacrifice nuance for engagement, and there will always be creators willing to pay that price and take the easy way out. Integrity, then, goes beyond a price to be paid for virality; it is a conscious decision to refuse to sacrifice the truth for engagement every time we press the “post” button. If every scroll shapes how someone understands the world, then every upload is an ethical decision. The challenge for content creators is to rise to that responsibility and prove that the truth is compelling enough to win without abandoning itself.

Bibliography

Cinelli, Matteo, Gianmarco De Francisci Moreales, Alessandro Galeazzi, Walter Quattrociocchi, and Michele Starnini. 2021. “The Echo Chamber Effect on Social Media.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (9): e2023301118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023301118.

Fagan, Abigail. 2025. “Illusory Truth Effect.” Psychology Today. November 12, 2025. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/illusory-truth-effect.

Hu, Ziye. 2025. “Research on the Impact of Social Media Algorithmic on User Decision-Making: Focus on Algorithmic Transparent and Ethical Design.” Applied and Computational Engineering 174: 18–22. https://doi.org/10.54254/2755-2721/2025.PO24665.

McLeod, Saul. 2026. “Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development.” Simply Psychology. January 23, 2026. https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2024. OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions—2024 Results: Building Trust in a Complex Policy Environment. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9a20554b-en.

Perera, Amanda. 2026. “Cultivation Theory in Media Communication.” Simply Psychology. May 18, 2026. https://www.simplypsychology.org/cultivation-theory.html.

Ye, Steeven, David Attali, Maria Ghazi, Arnaud Cachia, Mathieu Cassotti, and Grégoire Borst, “Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Evidence for an Illusory Truth Effect and Its Determinants,” Nature Communications 17 (2026): Article 3270, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70041-x

Drawing from research on Organizational AI, Gonzalez emphasized that successful AI adoption goes beyond automating existing tasks. Instead, organizations must redesign entire workflows, rethink how teams collaborate, and prepare for the evolving demands of work. He also discussed how AI is transforming skill requirements, highlighting both its potential to strengthen human capabilities and the risks of overreliance on AI, which he described through the concept of “cognitive surrender.” Additionally, he explored how AI is creating new forms of work by reshaping specialized roles and enabling organizations to simulate workflows and test decisions before implementing them.

The forum concluded with a discussion on how leaders and organizations can responsibly navigate the rapid evolution of AI. Overall, the talk highlighted the growing importance of responsible AI adoption as organizations navigate an increasingly technology-driven future. By encouraging discussions on workflow redesign, emerging skills, and the evolving nature of work, the UA&P Alumni Business Club continues to provide its community with valuable insights into one of today’s most transformative developments in business and leadership.

Impeachment is back in the national conversation, what with some House members initiating an impeachment complaint against the Vice-President. Employing the “kitchen sink” approach, the complaint boasts of 24 articles of impeachment against Sara Duterte and apparently works under Stalin’s dictum that “quantity has a quality all its own.”

Set aside obvious issues regarding timing and perhaps the numbers required for a possible Senate trial, the House complainants seem to be of the belief that if “less is more,” then “more must be more more.”

In any event, in the Philippines, impeachment is found in Article XI(2) of the Constitution:

“The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust. All other public officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.”

The grounds are slightly different from that in the US Constitution, which states: “The President, Vice-President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Despite the differences, statutory construction tells us that both provisions envision utterly grave offenses committed by the subject government official. Whether that offense need be committed against the State or merely an individual is subject for another discussion.

But it does lead us to a discussion on whether impeachment is even a necessary measure. Are there other ways to hold a sitting vice-president accountable, such as a criminal suit?

Note that the Constitution is silent as to the issue of vice-presidential immunity (and for that matter, presidential immunity as well). The Supreme Court has not had the opportunity to address the issue directly but has done so numerous times regarding presidential immunity. In 2021’s Nepomuceno vs Duterte, the Supreme Court declared that:

“Presidential immunity from suit remained preserved in our current system.

“While the concept of immunity from suit originated elsewhere… at this juncture, we need only concern ourselves with immunity during the President’s tenure, as this case involves the incumbent President. As the framers of our Constitution understood it, which view has been upheld by relevant jurisprudence, the President is immune from suit during his tenure.

“Unlike its American counterpart, the concept of presidential immunity under our governmental and constitutional system does not distinguish whether or not the suit pertains to an official act of the President. Neither does immunity hinge on the nature of the suit. The lack of distinctions prevents us from making any distinctions. We should still be guided by our precedents.

“Accordingly, the concept is clear and allows no qualifications or restrictions that the President cannot be sued while holding such office.”

As for the rationale in granting immunity? It’s “to assure the exercise of Presidential duties and functions free from any hindrance of distraction, considering that being the Chief Executive of the Government is a job that, aside from requiring all of the office-holder’s time, also demands undivided attention.”

Now whether that reasoning can be applied to vice-president is something that needs to be pondered on.

Finally, there’s the canard that impeachment is a “political process” and hence legal principles, the rules of evidence, fair play, and logic do not apply. Not true and they do.

The Senators, before being part of an impeachment court, need to take an oath (or affirmation, see Art. XI(3[6])). That oath requires them to impart “justice,” which is clearly a legal standard:

“I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of ______ ______, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.”

The key portion here is: “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God,” which hardly lends to an interpretation of anything goes politically.

Furthermore, the presiding officer when the impeached official is the president is the Supreme Court chief justice, thus lending legal and judicial assurance to the proceedings, as well as ensuring participation of all three branches of government.

Citing Alexander Hamilton (in Federalist No. 65), Alan Dershowitz points out that the meaning of “high” crimes are “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

In short and Dershowitz emphasizes: “Hamilton didn’t say the process of impeachment is entirely political. He said the offense has to be political.”

But really, the best way to hold public officials accountable is to vote the undeserving clear out of office.

This article originally appeared in Atty. Gatdula’s BusinessWorld column, “Being Right,” on 6 December 2024. The text is reproduced in full below.

It’s round two! After the aborted impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte last year, another Articles of Impeachment approved by 257 of 318 members of the House of Representatives were transmitted to the Senate on May 13. She is being charged with: (a) alleged misuse of up to ₱612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education (DepEd) from late 2022 to 2023; (b) alleged accumulation of unexplained wealth disproportionate to her income as a public official, and supposed nondisclosure of all her assets; (c) alleged bribery and corruption through monetary gifts and secret payments to DepEd officials during her tenure as education chief; and (d) public disclosure of allegedly contracting a hitman to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Two days earlier, some senators led by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, engineered a sudden Senate leadership change installing him as the new senate president ousting Sen. Tito Sotto unexpectedly. It was a shrewdly planned political coup which included convincing Sen. Loren Legarda to join their bloc, and the surprise appearance of Sen. Bato de la Rosa after around six months in hiding so that they can muster enough votes. When the Articles of Impeachment reached the Senate on May 14, the new majority allied with the Dutertes is already in place; among them are Sen. Bong Go, Sen. Robinhood Padilla, Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, Sen. Mark Villar, and Sen. Imee Marcos.

What happened next is drama after drama including a bizarre situation of two Senates claiming legitimacy, each with its own Senate President, each with its own set of committee memberships; each conducting separate hearings. Fortunately, the impasse was finally resolved when Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian was elected with a clear majority of 13 Senators after weeks of obstruction and maneuvering by the Cayetano bloc.

The Senate proceeded with the pre-trial conference from June 18 to 25 which centered on the marking and evaluation of documentary evidence submitted by both the House prosecution panel and the VP’s defense team leading to a Pre-Trial Order, the document that will govern how the impeachment proceedings will unfold. Considering the amount of documents and number of witnesses, both prosecution and defense panels agreed to 92 trial days held only three times a week which means that the whole proceedings will drag to at least seven months, i.e., until February 2027. This is on top of the Senate’s regular job of conducting hearings and lawmaking.

Ahead of the July 6 start of trial, the prosecution panel listed 57 witnesses, while the defense team named 45. Both sides share at least 17 common witnesses, including the VP’s self-confessed former bagman Ramil Madriaga, former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, and Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla. As the prosecution presents these common witnesses to strengthen their case, the defense will most likely demolish them to discredit their testimonies.

A classic legal battle is expected as both sides assembled impressive teams of lawyers. On the prosecution side, the 11-member panel representing the House led by Reps. Jinky Reyes-Luistro, Terry Ridon, Chel Diokno, Leila de Lima and Kaka Bag-ao, will be ably assisted by private prosecutors led by Atty. Lorna Kapunan and former SC spokesperson Theodore Te. On the defense side, heavy weight lawyers from the Fortun Narvasa C Salazar firm led by Atty. Sheila Sison, Atty. Philip Sigrid Fortun, and Atty. Gregorio Narvasa, together with Atty. Michael Wesley Poa, former DepEd and OVP Spokesperson lead the team.

There is one important question to resolve which is how to interpret Article XI, Sec. 6 of the 1987 Constitution which states that “The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment… No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate” which is based on the assumption that there are actually 24 functioning Senators. With Sen. dela Rosa’s disappearance due to an ICC arrest warrant, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s detention due to plunder cases, and the possible arrest of other Senators involved in the flood control corruption scandal, will the two-thirds majority still mean 16 Senators? Retired SC Justice Adolfo Azcuna, one of the framers of that Constitution, believes that 16 votes are needed to convict the VP since Senators who are unable to participate in the proceedings remain members of the Chamber, although a possible exception is if Sen. dela Rosa is declared a fugitive and disentitled from holding his Senate seat.

While President BBM’s popularity continues to fall, and no clear opposition candidate strong enough to challenge her has come out yet, VP Sara Duterte is dead set to run for President in the next elections banking on her solid support base shown in surveys over the past months. A long-drawn impeachment trial lasting at least seven months will exhaust our attention and resources which may just end up with not meeting the required two-thirds vote for conviction. Before we knew it, it’s campaign season once again, and a new President occupies Malacañang in 2028. Let’s continue the fight for truth and justice whatever happens!

This article originally appeared on 4 July 2026 in Dr Alviar’s Manila Bulletin column, “Inciting Insights.”

MBM Program Director Manfred Salandanan formally welcomed the inaugural cohort comprising 15 students, emphasizing that the program’s intentionally small size was designed to ensure focused learning. Salandanan highlighted three sources of learning: the faculty lineup of industry leaders and practitioners, the intentionally structured curriculum, and peer learning from a diverse group spanning expertise and experience in technology, energy, government, fashion, and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, he stressed the program’s use of real market and company data in its coursework, reinforcing the program’s emphasis on the data-driven application to real-world scenarios.

SCM Dean Jerry Kliatchko then introduced himself and the faculty who will teach the cohort’s first 8 courses. He discussed what defines SCM: its “crimson class” culture and its four pillars. These include: passionately human, fiercely truthful, obsessively strategic, and insanely creative. The university’s strong roots in Opus Dei and its commitment to premium business education were also touched upon. An open discussion was held regarding the program and its prospects of company trips and international study tours, showcasing the program’s promise for real industry networking and global thinking.

The cohort’s first class was led by Professor of Practice and President & CEO of Acumen Strategy Consultants, Pauline Fermin, who shared her professional journey—from brand manager at Procter & Gamble to senior strategy roles at Coca-Cola Philippines and the Coke-Nestlé joint venture in Bangkok to her current position leading transformation for some of the biggest local companies like the Gokongwei Group, Cebu Pacific, NutriAsia, among others. Each of the 15 participants introduced themselves, sharing their companies, roles, reasons for enrolling, and one key business question they hoped to answer. Among them was Loreine, GCash Product Manager and Engineer, who wants to upskill in marketing and personal branding; and Chris, a Filipino-American, who moved from California to the Philippines to establish his fragrance business in Southeast Asia. Together with their peers, they discussed the importance of marketing and the value chain, structured business model canvases on their respective companies, and emphasized value propositions and customer segments.

With the School of Media and Marketing’s dedication and penetrating business expertise, the University of Asia and the Pacific ensures that its inaugural cohort of the Master in Brand Management is readily equipped with the data-driven analytics, keen insights, and refined expertise needed for the professional world.

The first tennis match I ever watched was Alex Eala’s match against Iga Świątek—world no. 3 and Wimbledon’s defending champion. I learned the rules in real time, the people around me explaining the sport between rallies, and somewhere in the nail-biting first set, seeing Alex’s electrifying performance, her mantra popped up in my head: Kapag lumago, hindi na hihinto (“Once it grows, it cannot be stopped”).

In a post-match interview with Tennis Channel, the hosts asked her about what the phrase meant to her, and she said, “More than tennis, it refers to dreaming.” It seems that, for Alex, once dreams are set in motion, they build an unstoppable momentum—one that carries us onward, moving us to reach what at first appears unreachable.

And so it was for Alex on Centre Court.

In the third round at Wimbledon, Alex beat Iga in a phenomenal display of talent. During the rallies, our room went as silent as the crowd at Wimbledon. I had no history with tennis, and still the tension found me, point by nerve-wracking point. She was dragged through deuce after deuce as the game refused to end. But at match point, Alex closed it out, becoming the first Filipina to reach the Round of 16 at Wimbledon.

After an emotional celebration, she had an on-court interview during which she alluded to her dreams as a child, having just found success in what she considered one of the biggest matches of her life. She said, “I went to train with my brother and my grandfather every day after school, with my ruffled socks, my light-up shoes, and my chubby cheeks. So to her, this is everything.”

Alex articulated what we all implicitly live. Dreams are the concrete expressions of what we hope for, and in many ways, dreams sustain our desire to go on living. Dreams compel us to keep on with the project we ought to complete, to persevere in the vocation we were called to live, to work on the person we want to become. In short, we dream because we aspire to be someone. It’s telling how the word aspiration, synonymous with dream, etymologically comes from the Latin aspirare, “to breathe toward.” This helps us understand why our dreams become those realities that we channel our whole being to achieve.

As humans, we’re oriented beings. More precisely, we’re future-oriented beings. We’re structured to aspire: we go to school because we want a degree; we want a degree because we want to land a good job; we want a good job because we want stability and security, and so on. All our actions are oriented to something or someone else, and dreams are precisely what give shape to how we orient ourselves. That’s why a person who stops dreaming risks losing her sense of direction—she no longer knows where she’s going, no longer knows what she wants. Alex is what that orientation looks like when it’s followed all the way through.

A cynic could argue that dreams are impossible fantasies. But aren’t impossible dreams what give our quest in life its thrill? Without dreaming, without hoping for something or someone, without aspiring to play and win at Wimbledon’s Centre Court, what else will feed our determination, grit, and daring? Most of our motivations are founded on our primal aspirations, what we most hope for in the deepest recesses of our inscrutable hearts. And it’s only with such dreams that we can begin to make real what is not yet but could be.

With a mix of much effort and a measure of luck, Alex fought against the odds of a more favored foe. But her triumph, which we all share, all started with that younger Alex’s willingness to dream. And that willingness to dream is something we can strive to imitate, because dreaming is one of the most human things we can do.

I was recently asked a question I hadn’t expected to have an answer for: “What was the color of your childhood?”

I was quick to respond with yellow.

The sun’s warm glow, reflecting off the torn-out pavements of the familiar streets I had lived in all my life. The pencils I used to write stories with. The sticky golden spread on my toast and the rush to the obnoxiously yellow bus. Lemon-flavored lollipops. Balloons.

All in yellow.

It made small moments seem livelier than they were. The world felt brighter, and life’s colors appeared vibrant both to the eyes and to the childhood light within us. And then, as time went by, the vibrant colors changed, and those shades of yellow faded into something duller—something realistic, something limiting. As these hues evolved, we did too—we grew up.

The older we get, the more we talk of the past. Our parents’ classic phrase, “back in my day,” feels a little more sincere than simply being another way to follow their orders. Suddenly, we find ourselves saying the same thing as we look back on our lives, and in doing so, we experience a specific feeling: nostalgia.

In the 17th century, physician Johannes Hofer coined the term nostalgia—derived from the Greek nostos (homecoming) and algos (pain)—which refers to the feeling of pleasure and slight sadness when you think about the past. This is true for many of us as we remember our childhood. We generally view it as a brightly-colored yellow, feeling more vibrant because it felt simpler to us, yet painful because of how distant it is now. The Childhood Illusion1 causes us to perceive our past brighter than it really was. This simplicity was not necessarily due to the world being better, but because we ourselves were simpler. My childhood felt brighter as responsibilities belonged to the adults in my life; my finances, future, and decisions were someone else’s worry. The simplicity of childhood gave me a space for curiosity and imagination to grow.

Imagination continues to play a large role in our lives today, just in a different way. The phenomenon called rosy retrospection2 is the tendency to remember experiences more positively than they actually were. We are biologically inclined to preserve the pleasant parts of the past while the pain of unpleasant experiences fades more quickly. In the brain, the hippocampus, which stores autobiographical memories, and the amygdala, which processes emotional experiences, work together to assign meaning to those experiences. Our memories are then not exact recordings but reconstructions of the past, built by our imagination.

Thus, our minds may hold our memories, but they constantly edit them. Memories are not always vivid; they are blurry, arriving only as fragments of what we once knew. It could come in the form of disconnected snapshots or a few words from a conversation. My high school musical experience exists in my mind much in the same way. I may not recall every practice, but I remember the chats I had with my classmates during the breaks and the full-circle moment when we left the stage. It lent a burgundy hue to the painting of my life, as the exhaustion and difficulty of being a seventeen-year-old reflected its dark yet rich tone. I can still see the residue of that burgundy color: scripts that creased under my fingertips from constant use and the songs that echoed in the hollow halls.

These sensory triggers act as vivid bridges to versions of ourselves that no longer exist, bypassing the blurry fragments of our conscious mind. Listening to “Nowhere to Go But Up” from Mary Poppins takes me back to the stage as I took my final bow beside my classmates. It reminds me of the seemingly endless preparations and the mistaken lines that became inside jokes. The exhaustion suddenly loses its weight, leaving me with the warmth of having gone through it together.

The bright yellow of my childhood and the deep burgundy of my high school days lent hues essential to the painting of my life. I recently stood across that canvas with a palette that felt dull and green-tinted. This green felt nauseating—a color for the refusal to let the present go. This is anticipatory nostalgia:3 missing the present prematurely before it has even become the past; a human rebellion against the fact that even as I live a special moment, I am already mourning its disappearance.

Anticipatory nostalgia carries a distinct duality. On one hand, it can be forward-facing and approach-oriented, encouraging me to savor the present as it unfolds, so that these experiences are captured for future recollection. On the other hand, it acts as an emotional distancing mechanism, causing me to mourn experiences before they even pass, which detaches me from my current state of mind and lessens my chances of enjoying the moments I am so desperate to cherish. Similarly, when nostalgia itself turns into idealization, it can convince one that the future can never match the past.

Therefore, the danger lies not in remembering the past, but in refusing to leave it. When we use the past as an escape from our current endeavors, nostalgia becomes a pathological discord from the present, trapping us in a state of suffering. By clinging to a version of reality that is dead and gone, we resist the changing nature of our existence. The favor for what has already passed conversely produces a preemptive sourness for what is to come—stripping oneself of the certainty and motivation needed to face the future.4 In contrast, using nostalgia as a restorative visit allows us to appreciate past versions of ourselves and to strengthen our sense of continuity and meaning. When we remain grounded in the present rather than being consumed by the fantasies of what has passed, nostalgia is a beautiful painting where every stage—from the bright yellow of childhood to the burgundy of our struggles—holds its own unique and necessary color.

So, look closely around you and try to observe every passing moment. Maybe the yellow never disappeared. The streets we walk on and the sun that rises every morning remain exactly as they used to be. The inherent joy and the world’s potential for vibrance never left.

As my painting shifts with each newly added color, it appears before me with more depth than ever. It is messy, it is complex. But it is art. Yellow represents my childhood—simple yet lasting joy. This darker shade of burgundy is the color of the passion I found when I stepped into the “real world” in high school. And only after learning to appreciate the present for what it is did I realize that the nauseating green had always been a beautiful emerald. I simply had to live—no longer chasing yesterday nor trying to outrun time—but witnessing the present as it unfolds to find its beautiful emerald shade. I had changed together with my painting. I continue to do so.

Nostalgia should not become a longing to stay in a version of the world that no longer exists, nor a longing for the people we once were, but rather a recognition of the life we have lived and the versions of ourselves that helped us arrive where we are today. And even now, at this very time and place, I paint with colors that my future self will one day long for.

But what if we have mistaken the relief love brings as healing itself?

The question lingers in Olivia Rodrigo’s recently released you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love album. Rather than simply recounting the rise and fall of a relationship, the album explores how love changes not only what we feel, but how we understand our own experiences. Divided into two emotional parts—girl so in love and you seem pretty sad—it presents what seems to be two different stories of the same relationship. Yet upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that it tells the same story twice. The relationship does not fundamentally change; the narrator does.

The first half of the album, girl so in love, feels almost weightless. Songs like “drop dead,” “honeybee,” and “u + me = <3” capture the exhilaration of new love—it feels certain, permanent, and healing. In “u + me = <3,” the narrator believes that “wounds are healing” and hopes that they “don’t” change, revealing the quiet fantasy that love can preserve happiness indefinitely.

It is easy to understand why people call new love the “honeymoon phase.” Every conversation feels effortless, every coincidence feels like serendipity, and every ordinary moment suddenly carries extraordinary meaning. In “honeybee,” even the simplest moments—walking home together, sharing silence, or feeling that “everything I own just feels like ours”—become expressions of complete emotional security. Perhaps that is why new love often feels like medicine. It temporarily quiets the loneliness, self-doubt, and uncertainty we have carried for years, making us believe another person has finally healed what we could never heal on our own. Yet even within this hopeful beginning, Olivia quietly complicates that fantasy. If love is seen as a cure, the album soon begins to ask whether it can become something else entirely.

The first hint appears in “maggots for brains.” Instead of describing romance through warmth or comfort, the song drifts into imagery of obsession and withdrawal. Separated from the person she loves, the narrator becomes almost lifeless, as though affection has shifted into dependence. She describes herself as having “a zombie in my body” and being “a sad shell of a woman,” insisting that this is “just the thing that happens when my baby goes away.” The language no longer resembles healthy longing; it resembles withdrawal. Love has stopped functioning as a cure and has become a vice the narrator cannot bear to lose.

Olivia never announces this transformation outright. Instead, she lets it unfold gradually, almost imperceptibly, much like unhealthy attachment itself. The shift is not only lyrical but musical. The bright, energetic sound that defines the album’s opening eventually gives way to more restrained arrangements, allowing the emotional weight to accumulate long before the narrator recognizes it herself. Rather than dividing love and heartbreak into two separate stories, Olivia allows one to quietly dissolve into the other. That subtle progression reaches its wholeness in “purple,” the exact midpoint of the album.

Structurally, “purple” acts as more than just a bridge between the two halves; it is the album’s emotional and metaphorical center. Its symbolism begins with color. The first half of the album is red—the color of passion, warmth, excitement, and the intoxicating certainty of love. The second half is blue—the color of grief, reflection, and emotional distance. When red and blue meet, they create purple. At first glance, purple represents something beautiful: two separate colors becoming something new together. Much like love, it suggests unity without conflict. But Olivia refuses to leave the metaphor there. In the song’s outro, “I see the world in purple” gradually gives way to “Melt with you ‘til it all turns black,” revealing how closeness can become overconsumption rather than connection. By the song’s conclusion, purple is no longer simply purple. Its hues begin to darken, foreshadowing the emotional descent that follows before leading directly into the album’s second half.

This is what makes “purple” the album’s metaphorical center. When red and blue meet, they create purple. At first, purple represents something beautiful: two identities becoming something new together. Yet Olivia refuses to let the metaphor remain there. As the song’s outro unfolds, purple gives way to black, suggesting that the boundaries between the two colors—and, by extension, the two people—have become impossible to distinguish. The same is true of love.

Love is beautiful when two identities meet. It becomes destructive when neither identity remembers where one person ends and the other begins. Somewhere between intimacy and attachment, closeness begins to blur the boundaries that allow each person to remain fully themselves. What begins as connection slowly becomes the erosion of individuality, as devotion gives way to dependence. By the end of purple, the narrator no longer sees the relationship as the joyful union she once imagined, but as one in which her own identity has begun to disappear. The relationship itself has not changed; only her understanding of it has.

The second half, you seem pretty sad, is where the album’s metaphor on illness fully takes hold. No longer asking whether love exists, the album begins asking what love can actually do. The answer begins with “the cure.” Its title alone reflects one of the oldest fantasies we carry into relationships: the belief that another person will fix us.

We often imagine love as the final piece of ourselves we have been searching for. “If only we could find the right partner,” we tell ourselves, “then everything would finally make sense.” Yet the song gently dismantles that illusion. Throughout “the cure,” the narrator repeatedly believes she has finally found “the antidote,” only to realize that another person’s devotion cannot heal her wounds. Even as she admits that love “feels like medication,” she ultimately concludes that “it’ll never be the cure.” No matter how deeply another person loves us, they cannot heal wounds they did not create, nor can they reach the parts of ourselves that we refuse to confront. A relationship can become a refuge. It can become a source of strength. But it cannot become our cure.

That realization reaches its emotional climax in “what’s wrong with me.” Instead of finding a cure, she discovers something far more unsettling: the relationship has become the mirror through which she finally recognizes the parts of herself that have always been hurting. The relationship was never about discovering an illness; it simply revealed one that had always existed. The album does not argue that love destroys us, but that it exposes us. It illuminates insecurities we never noticed, fears we never named, and dependencies we mistook for devotion. It reveals the uncomfortable truth that another person can accompany our healing, but they can never complete it for us.

That is why the final track, “cigarette smoke,” feels less like heartbreak and more like remembrance. Love is compared to smoke; addictive while it lasts and lingering long after it disappears. Impossible to grasp, yet impossible to ignore. Even after the relationship ends, traces remain. The callbacks to earlier songs—the unfinished beer from “drop dead,” the echoes of “honeybee,” and the darkness foreshadowed in “purple”—help the album reach full circle. Nothing has been forgotten. Everything has simply changed in color.

When Olivia sings, “Tell me something honest so the memories turn dark,” she does not ask for the memories to disappear. She asks to understand them. As the song closes with repetitions of “go dark,” the darkness no longer represents despair alone; it becomes acceptance. It becomes the quiet recognition that memories are never erased; rather, they are reinterpreted by the person remembering them.

That is why this album resonates beyond romance. Its emotional journey extends to friendships that consume our identities, families whose approval we desperately seek, careers we believe will finally validate us, and achievements we expect will silence every insecurity. Human beings constantly search for external cures for internal wounds. We tell ourselves that if only we were loved enough, admired enough, or successful enough, then we would finally feel complete. Yet life repeatedly teaches us otherwise. Completion cannot be borrowed, identity cannot be outsourced, and healing cannot be handed to us by another person, no matter how deeply they love us. What another person can offer is something quieter, and perhaps more meaningful: the opportunity to see ourselves more honestly than we ever could alone.

Ultimately, that is the truth Olivia Rodrigo’s album reveals. Not that love fails, or that heartbreak is inevitable, but that love possesses an extraordinary ability to “unravel” the parts of ourselves that remain hidden until another person brings them to light. Its goodness lies in reminding us that healing begins with recognition rather than dependence. As opposed to asking love to complete us, the album invites us to see how easily we can lose ourselves within it—and why holding onto our individuality matters. And its beauty lies in the remarkable way it tells that truth.

Through the progression from red to purple to blue and finally black, through recurring images of illness and smoke, through lyrical callbacks that allow the ending to echo the beginning, Olivia creates more than an album. She crafts a narrative that mirrors the way memory itself works. The story never changes. We do.

Perhaps that is why you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love lingers long after its final note. It understands that love is not merely something we experience. It is something that shifts our perception. Love is never meant to complete us; it is meant to reveal who we are when we are no longer pretending that it does.

Let me continue enumerating the private initiatives that foster the development of football as a sport in the Philippines. It is my intention to hold these efforts as role models that can be replicated in as many regions and sectors of the Philippines as possible.

I am a strong believer of the principle of subsidiarity, one of the basic tenets of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. Simply put, this principle states that what can be accomplished at the lowest level of society, i.e. family, basic communities, schools, business enterprises, etc. should not be taken over by higher institutions, least of all by an all-powerful State. It may be providential that our Government has limited funds to finance aggressive programs to develop one sport or another. It will have to be the private sector that has to act if we are to be one of the football powers of Asia, as I humbly think we can be (definitely we can never be a basketball power because we are still generally a nation of “dwarves,” except for the towering children of the super-rich who are pampered with highly nutritious and protein-rich food in their early years).

In addition to those initiatives already enumerated in Part 1 of this series, the following are worth mentioning:

• The Aguila FC Youth Academy, which is a Manila-based club with a strong youth development program (U-13 to U-19). Aguila (which is Spanish for “eagle”) emphasizes discipline, teamwork, and grassroots training thus addressing the children of the lower-income households. It is the experience of some of the top football clubs in Europe that some of their best players come from poor families in Africa and Latin America.

• The Makati Football Club, which is one of the oldest grassroots football programs in the Philippines. It is known for international exposure and youth tournaments.

• Barça Academy Manila, which is an official academy linked to arguably the best football club in Spain (with apologies to the fans of Real Madrid). The young players are tutored in the FC Barcelona playing philosophy (tiki-taka, possession). Today, our teenager players can identify with Lamine Yamal, the 17-year-old sensation of FC Barcelona who will surely follow in the footsteps of Lionel Messi.

• The Global Football Academy Philippines, which focuses on player development and overseas exposure. Filipino players can hone their skills in the football clubs of our neighboring countries like Indonesia, Thailand, or Vietnam. A few of them are good enough to play in some second or third division football clubs in European countries like Spain or Germany.

• The GOM Football Center of Excellence, which was founded by former national team player, Darren Hartmann. The Center is known to be a pathway to higher-level football and scholarships.

In addition to academies, there are non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that function as foundations and grassroots-oriented programs that incorporate the sport of football in their overall poverty-alleviation initiatives. Among them are:

• The Younghusband Football Academy, founded by Azkals stars Phil and James Younghusband. The Academy gives the highest importance to values formation and access to poorer communities.

• Football for Humanity, which openly uses football to help disadvantaged youth. Thus, there is a focus on basic education, life skills, and social inclusion.

• FundLife, which is an NGO using football to support out-of-school youth and economically depressed communities. It is active in the regions with high rates of poverty like Eastern Visayas. Some of its leading programs are in Tacloban, Leyte.

The Philippine Football Federation sponsors youth football leagues that organize youth competition (U7 to U19). The League provides regular matches for academy players who, beyond training, must be exposed to competition. In short, the Philippines employs a club/academy model rather than exclusively school-based development. The top academies (Kaya, the Azkals Development Academy, the Henry Moran Football Foundation) provide pathways to national teams. The foundations and NGOs are normally conscious of their role in inculcating social values among the youth as well as economic inclusion. The established ecosystem is still growing but improving steadily.

Taking the principle of subsidiarity further, let’s look at academies, which are few and far between in the Philippines. Unlike in countries with strong football traditions, the Philippines has to depend on a number of elite private schools that can afford to invest in football development to complement the meager resources available to public schools.

The Philippines has a private school-based pipeline, where certain elite high schools feed directly into university teams like those in the UAAP and NCAA Philippines. For example, there are schools like Southridge and Claret School of Quezon City whose high school football players are so good that these two schools are already part of the UAAP tournament.

Southridge has one of the strongest high school football programs in the country. It is a school owned and managed by parents belonging to the high-income group of Philippine society, especially top business executives. Southridge, in its campus in Alabang, has one of the most modern football fields in the entire National Capital Region. Its football team is a regular contender (and champion) in the Rizal Football Association (RIFA). It produces players who move on to the elite universities like Ateneo, De La Salle, and UP. Its football club is well known for discipline (a hallmark of the school where values formation is given as much, if not more importance, than academic training). Southridge is often compared to a “feeder academy” for top universities.

One of its former pupils, Sandro Reyes, now plays for the National Team and trained at the famous La Masia Academy of FC Barcelona where Lionel Messi and Lamine Yamal, among other football greats, trained. Reyes also played for professional football clubs in Spain and Germany. He belongs to the notable Reyes clan of Marinduque.

Then there is Claret School of Quezon City, run by Catholic religious priests, the Claretians. It has a long tradition in youth football excellence. It also has a strong presence in RIFA and PAYA (Private Athletic Youth Association). Like Southridge, Claret regularly produces players for Ateneo University and the University of the Philippines. Its football players are well known for being technically skilled and their competitive spirit.

Other Catholic high schools well known for training good football players for the university level are Ateneo de Manila High School, De La Salle Zobel, La Salle Greenhills, San Beda University Rizal, and Xavier School. These elite private schools have the resources to provide strong coaching and structural development to aspiring football players who want to excel in collegiate football, and for the best among them to the various clubs and ultimately the national football team.

A good number of top Filipino players did not come from clubs but from schools. The system is still evolving, but these schools remain critical talent pipelines. For example, a notable product of the Claret pipeline is Anton del Rosario who was the former captain of the national football team and became one of the Azkals’ most respected defenders. A product of training at the Ateneo de Manila High School was Jarvey Gayoso, who was a star striker for the Ateneo Blue Eagles football team and later played for the Azkals. He then joined professional clubs in the Philippines Football League. From De La Salle Zobel, Miguel Tanton emerged as a top player for the De La Salle Green Archers football team and then pursued professional football in the Philippines and abroad. He benefited a great deal from the emphasis at De La Salle Zobel on technical development and ball control.

From these random examples, we can conclude that Philippine football is evolving. Before 2015, high schools like Southridge, Claret, and Ateneo dominated player development. Today, 10 years later, a hybrid system has evolved which combines school training (Southridge and Claret) with private academies (Kaya and Azkals). It is possible that in the future, academies will predominate in the production of elite players.

Meanwhile, the best players will increasingly come from a combination of school and academy training.

This article originally appeared on 24 June 2026 in Dr. Villegas’s Business World column, “Human Side of Economics.”

This article originally appeared in Atty. Gatdula’s BusinessWorld column, “Being Right,” on 26 July 2024. The text is reproduced in full below.

It’s likely she would have disapproved of the title. “Let me be your typewriter,” she prays to God in the movie Wildcat and while humbly appropriate that may be, the implications of that wish are nothing short of glorious.

Next week (Aug. 3) marks the 60^th death anniversary of Flannery O’Connor, widely considered as one of, if not the, greatest of America’s fiction writers ever. A devout Catholic, her small but incredibly profound body of work — macabre, violent, scandalous even — strikingly encapsulates every person’s struggle over what she deemed the “stinking mad shadow of Jesus.”

If the last phrase struck you as odd, you’re not alone. As O’Connor herself was wont to say: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”

“You think it’s this bitter old alcoholic who’s writing these really funny dark stories and then you find out she’s a woman and that she’s devoutly religious.”

That was Conan O’Brien speaking of Flannery O’Connor.

For some reason, which I have yet to fathom, Flannery O’Connor is frequently in my mind. Almost an obsession. I read her stories, I download her novels, I listen to podcasts about her. More than her work, something about her as a writer and as Catholic is calling out to me.

Perhaps what’s so compelling about her is the fact that her work (the complete opposite of saccharine, dark, twisted, offensive) is actually formed by her devout Catholicism.

Not for her is the bland and artificial “charity” of effete Catholics: “I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”

That orneriness and quirkiness is on full display in the new movie Wildcat, directed by Ethan Hawke and starring his daughter Maya (as Flannery O’Connor). In This Catholic Family’s review of the film (“Highly Recommended,” May 2024), it noted appreciatively that Wildcat — “stands out for its portrayal of a brilliant and very human Catholic person who deeply loved her faith, who found comfort in that faith during her life’s greatest trial, and for whom faith played an inextricable part in the unconventional stories she chose to tell. Wildcat begs to be savored while watching, and is primed to provoke discussion for some time after the final credits have rolled.”

Which leads me to my favorite Flannery O’Connor story, a story that she didn’t write but lived. As O’Connor herself recounts (in a letter to her friend Elizabeth Hester, dated Dec. 16, 1955):

“I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater… She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. The people who took me were Robert Lowell and his now wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the ‘most portable’ person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, ‘Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest is expendable.”

That’s as great a defense of the Eucharist that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in its present state wouldn’t be able to even approximate.

Of the present condition of the Vatican and the Catholic Church, O’Connor gives some consolation: “It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it.” She’s right. As St. Peter would say: “Where [else] should we go?”

For those still getting to know her, the Complete Stories is highly recommended. There are the novels, of course, for which Wise Blood takes prominence. For me, personally, her A Prayer Journal is dear.

In it, one recognizes a woman with deeply held ambitions and yet mindful to conform such ambitions within her faith. As O’Connor writes: “They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.” Written sporadically in 1946, her Prayer Journal offers a glimpse of a young woman unsure and uncertain, whose greatness is still to come. Reading it, one feels as if praying with Flannery O’Connor herself, through the Journal’s four major parts of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication.

Finally, Flannery O’Connor absolutely captures the feeling I have about writing, advocacy, and for standing up and speaking out for what I believe in but surrounded by people so scared of offending others: “To the hard of hearing you shout and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”

Exactly! And in these times of sexual orientation and gender identity, divorce, same sex marriage, and other woke causes, including horrendous works of “art” such as the Barbie movie, she would likely say: “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”

She even manages to make an attack against mediocrity which, again in today’s Philippines where almost every student graduates “cum laude,” is most apt: “Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

Flannery O’Connor is the writer and model we most need today. After years of being besotted so much with Patricia Highsmith, to be with Flannery O’Connor is like for me coming home. Of being finally with the right woman. And I truly hope more of our youth get to know her.

Reading them enriches us with the wisdom of the past, empowers the conversations of the present, and will continue to do so in the future. As literary scholar Italo Calvino notes, classics are books that have “never exhausted all that they have to say to their readers.”

1. Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell

A sharp political satire in under 150 pages, it is an allegory about power and class naivety disguised as a fable, making it a highly accessible read. Orwell details the hijacked rebellion of farm animals who overthrow their oppressive human master, only for the oppressed to become the oppressors.

Reading it is comparable to watching a smile slowly morph into an insidious grin.

2. Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding

Watch the morality of a company of stranded boys erode into savagery. What is thought to be a classic island adventure story cascades into a visceral calibration to fear and mob mentality in roughly 200 pages.

Golding’s simple wording and thrilling plot provide readers with a modern, easy-going starting point into literary classics.

3. White Nights (1848) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Reading Dostoyevsky’s 100-page novella is like wandering through an endless twilight. Written as a first-person diary, the unnamed narrator profoundly captures the ache of wanting to be understood. Over four nights, he meets, falls in love with, and ultimately loses an unrequited lover.

Devastating and tender, this one is for those hopeless romantics.

4. Siddhartha (1922) by Hermann Hesse

A simple yet meditative journey of Buddhist enlightenment. This modern literary classic blends Eastern philosophy with Western individualism to tell us the quest of a young man in ancient India who abandons a life of privilege to seek spiritual self-discovery.

Hesse’s novel of no more than 160 pages brings us closer to the definition of true wisdom.

5. The Metamorphosis (1915) by Franz Kafka

Short but engaging; in 50 pages, Kafka plunges you into a nightmarish experience where the true horror isn’t in the surreal premise of transforming into a bug; it is in the dreaded pangs of isolation.

Lovers of strange and weird fiction will find reading this deeply unsettling.

6. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde

A deliciously dark and hypnotic experience, this novel is a pure psychological horror, at around 250 pages long. Dialogue crackles with wit as a philosophical duel between art, morality, and hedonism.

Watching Dorian maintain his youthful, seductive facade while his hidden portrait rots is a mesmerizing metaphor for the corruption of the soul.

7. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley has successfully rendered the melancholy of poetry in prose form with her most well-known literary classic. Rather than focus on cold, clinical “mad science”, she relies on the internal turmoil of her characters. What results is a shockingly eloquent monster whom readers begin to empathize with.

Step into less than 300 pages of Gothic romanticism and emotional stakes.

8. Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller

Famously disorienting yet utterly hilarious, walking through Heller’s grim comedy is like running in circles. You are thrown into a military where incompetent, ambitious leaders make decisions that actively jeopardize the lives of their men.

If you love scathing bureaucratic critique, you’d love Catch-22.

9. The Count of Monte Cristo (1846) by Alexandre Dumas

This literary behemoth sweeps across 1000 pages with a slow-burning revenge. It is a sprawling and exhilarating ride into the consequences of betrayal that reads like a modern thriller, making the page count fly by.

Unravel the transformation of a wrongfully imprisoned Edmond Dantès and his meticulous orchestration of those who ruined his life.

Banner: Reynolds, Joshua. Portrait of Samuel Johnson (”Blinking Sam”). c. 1775. Oil on canvas. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA.

A humble tribute to St. Josemaría Escrivá, whose feast day we celebrate today. The phrase "Tired, but happy"—from The Way—has long reminded us that work done with love and offered to God is deeply fulfilling, even in weariness. Happy Feast Day of St. Josemaría, and happy Charter Day to all who form part of the UA&P community.

There is a particular kind of tiredness that brings peace. Not the tiredness that comes from chasing success or recognition, but the kind that comes from fulfilling one’s duty with love—the quiet satisfaction of knowing that, despite the demands of the day, one has given generously in service to others.

This is the tiredness St. Josemaría Escrivá wrote about. He reminded us that holiness is found not in extraordinary moments, but in the faithful fulfillment of ordinary responsibilities. Work, when offered to God, becomes more than a profession or a task—it becomes a path to sanctity and a way of serving others.

Working in this university has taught me this lesson time and again. There are days filled with meetings, deadlines, difficult conversations, and decisions that are never easy. Sometimes the work goes unnoticed. At other times, despite the best intentions, people may still find something to criticize. No matter how carefully we prepare or how sincerely we work, perfection on our own remains beyond our reach.

Yet at the end of the day, I find rest in a simple truth: I have tried my best. That realization brings a happiness deeper than comfort — the happiness of knowing that, in some small way, I have contributed to the mission of the University and to the lives of the people it serves. Whether those contributions are visible or hidden, they become meaningful when they are offered with the right intention.

Being tired but happy is not about ignoring disappointments or pretending difficulties do not exist. There are moments of frustration, setbacks, and discouragement. But when the mind and heart are rightly oriented — when work is understood as a vocation rather than merely an obligation—those experiences do not rob us of our joy. They become, instead, occasions to grow in patience, humility, and generosity.

Looking back, I realize this perspective was not formed overnight. It is a gift I received through my formation here in UA&P and through the foundational spirit that continues to shape its community. Beyond professional competence, I learned that work has meaning because it is an act of service—that excellence matters not for prestige, but because the University and the people it serves deserve our best; and that every ordinary task, however small, can become an offering to God.

For this, I am deeply grateful.

The tiredness remains. The responsibilities continue. The challenges endure. But so does the joy.

And if, at the end of each day, I can honestly say that I have tried to work with integrity, to serve others with generosity, and to offer my efforts to God — then I can rest with a peaceful heart: tired, yes, but profoundly happy.

When Blessed Alvaro del Portillo visited what was then the Center for Research and Communication (CRC), he reminded Dr. Jess Estanislao, Dr. Bernie Villegas, and Mr. Henry Esteban that Saint Josemaría had asked them to put up a university—not a center or graduate school.

From 1987, the work on the university began.

Ricardo Gloria, Head Commissioner of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), set three conditions for CRC to be converted into a university: that there be 40 PhDs affiliated with CRC; that at least four programs be accredited; and that CRC have a track record of four years of research in an academic journal.

The 40 PhDs were realized by gathering the consent and signatures of PhD holders within CRC and people from the Department of Education and universities who had been invited to give talks and lectures at CRC for its existing programs: the Master of Arts in Values Education, the Master in Business Economics, and the Applied Business Economics Program.

The four-year research track record was fulfilled by printing, within a period of two months, a compilation of research work from CRC’s founding. The journal was called Synergeia—the Greek word for “synergy.”

The accreditation of the programs was carried out through PACU-COA (Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities – Commission on Accreditation). PAASCU (Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities) was not sought because UA&P is not a Catholic university by claim or by structure. PACUCOA sent five accreditors, and by sheer providence, God placed people in the right spots for the conversion of the university. Within a few months, the programs were accredited. By the first quarter of 1995, one year after the birth of CHED, CRC had already met all the qualifications to become a university.

With the three conditions met, the five commissioners unanimously agreed to declare the conversion of CRC into a university.

The date Dr. Jesus Estanislao had wanted for the charter date was June 26—the heavenly dies natalis of Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaría Escrivá. But the date was hard to attain: Secretary Gloria was in Mindanao. When Gil Gonzalez, assistant to Dr. Estanislao, called Secretary Gloria’s office on June 26, he was told that the Secretary was out of town but would be arriving that afternoon. So Jess Estanislao and Gil Gonzalez went to Villamor Air Base. The helicopter landed at around four o’clock.

Dr. Estanislao approached Secretary Gloria. “I have here the possible charter of the university. We were wondering if you could sign it.” There was to be a photo opportunity, but Gloria raised a concern: “I have a problem—I’m only in batik, and you are in coat and tie.”

Dr. Estanislao was on his way to Manila Cathedral for the Mass for then-Blessed Josemaría Escrivá.

“Well, that’s not your problem,” he replied. “It’s mine.” He removed his coat and tie, and the photo was taken as Secretary Gloria signed the charter in his batik.

A few days after the university was officially declared before an assembly of faculty and guests from different universities, all in academic regalia. After Secretary Gloria’s address, the CRC flag—which still exists today—stood before the front curtain of the venue, Celestino Dizon Auditorium. Two students from the student council ascended the stage from either side of the staircase, lowered the flagpole, and removed the CRC flag ceremoniously. As the curtain opened, the tapestry of the University of Asia and the Pacific came into view.

That is the brief story of the beginning of UA&P, whose Charter Day we celebrate on the Feast of Saint Josemaría. It was providential that the charter was signed on his feast day itself. Looking back on the decades since—watching CRC grow into UA&P—I’m certain that everything was the work of our Lord. Everything was in God’s hands.

“What the hell is going on at the Senate?” exclaims one political analyst in exasperation. We have reached the point when two warring factions have declared two Senates; each with its own Senate President; each claiming to be the legitimate Senate. One prior trigger of that absurdity is when—some days before—one fugitive Senator in hiding for almost six months suddenly appeared full of bravado to join allies in ousting an incumbent Senate President only to disappear a few hours later in the dead of night amid gunshots and panic. Drama after drama unfolded in the next days until Senator Sherwin Gatchalian was finally elected as the new Senate President last June 17. With a reconstituted Senate in place, the multi billion-peso flood control corruption inquiry is expected to resume in which at least four sitting Senators are implicated. Several other high officials in the

Executive Department, particularly those from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), are accused of connivance with many Local Government Unit officials and private contractors in alleged irregularities in those flood control projects. There are insinuations too that many members of the House of Representatives, the former House Speaker, and even the President himself might be involved in some way in this large-scale scandal.

Meanwhile, there is also the looming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte who is charged with misusing confidential funds, submitting questionable liquidation documents, committing corruption during her tenure as Department of Education Secretary, and threatening to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos and former Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.

Have our civilian political leaders failed us? Is it time for the military to take over? After all, Article 2, Section 3 of 1987 Philippine Constitution declares that “the Armed Forces of the Philippines is the protector of the people and the State.” If the politicians can no longer be trusted, if our supposedly public servants are instead robbing taxpayers money to enrich themselves at the expense of Filipinos suffering in poverty and disillusionment, who else can save the Republic but a highly-disciplined, vision-united institution like the military?

Military rule is not alien to us. On Sept. 21, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. invited the military to govern the country with him when he declared Martial Law. For almost 20 years, military leaders took charge of various civilian functions and exercised political power. Even afterwards, we have relied on military officers in government, appointing them to high government positions in the bureaucracy and the Cabinet, as well as electing them to become mayors, governors, congressmen, senators, and even a president.

However, basic textbooks on politics identify the military’s primary role as the instrument of the State to maintain security and to defend the country against external aggressors. Logically, its personnel are particularly trained for this purpose, not for politics. Furthermore, our 1987 Constitution clearly states that civilian authority is, at all times, supreme over the military (Article 2, Section 3).

It is encouraging to note that the Armed Forced of the Philippines (AFP) has taken substantial and deep-rooted measures to professionalize the institution and to ensure its apolitical character. During the 35th anniversary of AFP Code of Conduct last Oct. 5, 2025, AFP Chief General, Romeo Brawner Jr. declared, “I would like to express my gratitude to the entire AFP for remaining solid, united and professional despite the political noise, the political chaos that is happening in our country.” For several years now, the AFP has partnered with the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA) in “promoting good governance and institutional transformation through the implementation of the AFP Transformation Roadmap (AFPTR) and the AFPTR Institutionalization Pathway (AFPTRIP) as blueprints for reform, modernization, and sustained transparency within the military organization.”

As regards the ongoing political crisis, AFP Chief of General Brawner gave assurance that “political intervention is far from our mandate… and we will continue to be a disciplined and professional armed forces.”

In 1986, the world rejoiced with the Philippines when President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was ousted, and democracy was restored through a peaceful people power revolution which has also served as an inspiration to other democracy movements across the globe. Since then, our democracy has progressed despite threats and challenges… with ups and downs. Giving the military another shot at politics does not seem to be a good idea. It’s a backward step toward our democratization process.

This article originally appeared on 20 June 2026 in Dr. Alviar’s Manila Bulletin column, “Inciting Insights.”

The graduation ceremony opened with a processional and an invocation led by Rev. Fr. Cecilio Magsino. This was followed by the salutation delivered by Silver Academic Excellence Award recipient Ramon Leopoldo Ongsiako Isabela, who reflected on the support and guidance he received throughout law school and the importance of extending the same spirit of mentorship to future generations of students.

“I have learned a simple lesson in this school: everything I am, I owe to my upper batch, and everything I give, I give to my lower batch. So this occasion would be incomplete without you all.” - Ramon Leopoldo Ongsiako Isabela, Silver Academic Excellence Award recipient

Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo of the Supreme Court of the Philippines then delivered the commencement address. In his speech, he emphasized that the legal profession is ultimately a form of public service and encouraged the graduates to uphold integrity, humility, diligence, compassion, and courage as they prepare to enter the Bar.

This is why the first lesson in law remains the most important: lawyering is service. It is service to those who seek justice; service to those whose voices are unheard; and service to those who seek truth in times of uncertainty. - Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo

Following the commencement address, Law School Dean Jeremy Benigno I. Gatdula presented the graduation petitions. The conferral of degrees formally recognized the members of the graduating class, after which diplomas and academic honors were awarded.

Among those recognized for academic excellence were Josemaria Leaño Villareal, recipient of the Gold Academic Excellence Award, and Isabela, recipient of the Silver Academic Excellence Award.

Gold Academic Excellence Awardee Josemaria Leaño Villareal subsequently delivered the valedictory address, reflecting on the challenges, sacrifices, and perseverance that defined the law school journey of the graduating class. Recalling the demands of coursework and review classes, he highlighted the determination that enabled the graduates to reach the culmination of their legal education.

From today, we may all be going on different paths. In doing so we may feel lost. So let the most unqualified person in the room give a piece of advice. Whatever that path may be, embrace it. - Josemaria Leaño Villareal, Gold Academic Excellence Awardee

The graduates then took the alumni pledge before receiving a message from UA&P President Atty. John Philip R. Yeung. Addressing the new graduates, Yeung encouraged them to measure success not by prestige or position, but by the respect they earn through their character and service. He challenged them to establish themselves as principled members of the legal profession and to forge their own paths in the years ahead.

The ceremony concluded with the singing of the University Hymn and the recessional. Graduates, faculty members, and university officials later gathered for a faculty dinner at the Administrations and Library Building (ALB) Dining Halls.

The ceremony concluded with the University Hymn and the recessional, marking the end of one journey and the beginning of another. For the members of the Class of 2026, the road ahead now leads to the Bar and, beyond it, a profession they were reminded throughout the day to approach with both excellence and a spirit of service as they blaze their own trails in the legal field.