A speech made by an honor student (of Sto. Niño Parochial School) has been making rounds on social media these past couple of days. People have been divided on the issue. Some think she should have just kept quiet. Others believe she did the right thing. At first, I thought she should've just moved on and spared her classmates the negativity on their graduation. They did not deserve that. I was quick to judge her for being rash and young, that she would look back on this day with shame and that she did not know better. See backstory here.
I should have been more prudent.
I think that depending on what perspective you are going to look at it from, this is either a beautiful or a sad story.
This is a great story of courage. The girl, young as she is, is brave to fight injustice through whatever means she can. She is not one to be silenced even if the system has already shown her how futile her other attempts have been. Believing that it was going to be her last chance, she delivered a different speech from what she submitted to the school administrators. It was going to be a speech not just about how she was robbed of the recognition due her but also more importantly about a corrupt system.
She was to speak about a system that many of us are very familiar with. And I am not even talking about our government yet but about many schools in the country. Countless times, I have heard of stories about how some students would give banana cues, pansit or would buy products from teachers to gain favor. The student that gives or buys more would be given opportunities or privileges and even higher grades. A lot of mothers complain about how their child should have been top 1, but lost it because another student regularly gave the teachers or school administrators pasta or cosmetic products. These are tales that remain legends not because they are not true (though many of them could be assumptions) but because, I am afraid, this has become the norm; corruption starts in school. With her speech, she showed that a great story could be had out of a terrible system if only you find the courage to stand and speak up.
I have read a lot of the comments from netizens saying that the girl should've just moved on as life is not all about medals and recognition. There are far more important things. That's true and this is the sad story. For why chide one who seizes an opportunity to quell corruption? Why kill off the girl's anger towards injustice? Shouldn't we nurture it? If we look around us, we need more people like her who refuses to be silent when politicians incessantly rape our country and our dignity as a people. Why not look into the veracity of her claims and be scared of the possibility that her allegations might be right? We should be worried that institutions where we send our kids to learn values and acquire knowledge from are themselves corrupt. Why bash someone who does not take the fight cowardly to social media but in front of friends and enemies at a podium on her graduation day. Many of us could not have had the courage to speak up like that. Most of us would probably be brave to comment on facebook, but cower at the thought of delivering a speech like hers. And, what is more important than teaching our kids to fight for what they believe in, to fight injustice and corruption?
That this is probably a mere accusation is a different story. We do not know if her claims are true or not. We do not know if the valedictorian is really a better performing student than her or not. All that needs to be proven, yes. But what is amazing about what she did is her tenacity for justice and truth, which many of us resign to idealism. In fact, in this case, we have not simply given up on ideals but also persecute those who try to approach them. It might be true that ideals are called so for the mere reason that they are, but it does not mean we cannot strive to achieve them. I hope that even with all the bashing she gets on facebook or twitter, she will never tire of standing up against an oppressive system.
I realized that I should be ashamed for failing to see what her speech and the succeeding media circus are really all about- more than her courage, it is about how we think as citizens of this country. It took me some time to understand that a slight discomfort to schoolmates on their graduation day is a small price to pay. There is more to gain in showing them how they should not be mere spectators in the face of injustice. In fact, she got more than what she expected. With her video becoming viral, many will surely know about the courage she displayed in standing up to an unjust system.
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