Tuesday, March 13, 200711:20 PM
A Civilian’s Letter to the Maragtas Class
At my graduation ceremony, I was told that it was not my graduation day.
The day of my graduation happened when I was finally given a 1.75 on the last subject that was holding me back. Another friend’s graduation happened when she was given permission to finally bind her thesis after 51 revisions. Other classmates’ graduation day was when they finally earned that grade of ‘P’ from their comprehensive exams. I recall that there was no applause that day, no weeping parents, no teachers sighing with relief, and no speeches from university presidents. It was quiet, calm, ordinary, and yet earthshaking.
Would the same principle apply to a graduation ceremony at the Philippine Military Academy? Would March 19th be your graduation day? Or would graduation day for you really be the final step off the bus after the long trip from the grueling training at Fort Magsaysay? Or when you last disembarked from a naval ship as a cadet? Or the last reveille that woke you up? Or the moment you have finally completed your clearance papers? Or the last touring hour? That was your graduation I think and not the pomp and ceremony that awaits you on the morning of the 19th.
The 19th of March is just a ceremony that only serves to show the Philippines (and the world) what you earned long ago. On that day, you will receive a diploma that’s roughly worth around four million pesos of government money, but this is not why it’s the most valuable paper in the world. It is the most valuable paper in the world because you gave the past four years of your life to the Academy.
It is the most valuable paper in the world because you have officially offered your life to your country.
So what comes next?
All of you will serve at your respective branches of service, and we, your family and friends (and special friends) will stand by like what we have done for the past four years. Let’s put it this way, while you were training and studying in the “rotting” life in the Academy, so were we schooled in the arts of waiting, worrying, hoping, and even praying.
Now I would like to declare that we are now trained and ready for more waiting, more worrying, more hoping, and more praying. We are now ready for combat as you are ready for yours; because it is a given fact that though you have officially declared your lives to this country, we, as your loved ones, have also become government property unofficially.
And still, we are so very proud.
Your graduation has been scheduled in the midst of a lot of politicking. The May elections are coming up and most likely your assignments will be greatly affected by it. While actors run for senate and boxing champs run for congress, real life in the service for you begins. You will join the many women and men like yourselves that aim to ensure that we in the civilian world will get to sleep soundly at night knowing that we will still have a country the next day for the politicians to backlash each other in and the masses be swayed to ratify it. Such is the irony of our lives: while you choose to sacrifice the normal life, normality for the rest of us would also entail the many who choose to waste it.
Your loved ones could only hope that you will not lose heart.
I wonder if people knew how significant the word “Maragtas” is as a name for a graduating class in the PMA. The word, Maragtas, is a Visayan word corrupted from Sanskrit, which means “Great Country” or “Great People”. It is a code instituted by the seven datus that fled from Borneo to the island of Panay in the year 1212. This code is a piece of pre-hispanic history, where there were not yet any Filipinos. The Maragtas Code outlined specific powers of the datus, orders, and laws that governed the new settlement of Borneo refugees in Panay. Your class is actually named after adventurers who abandoned wickedness and shunned tyranny. They sought greener pastures to emphasize the observance of the rule of law for the good of civilization as they knew it. They were pioneers of Filipino civilization. Will you also be pioneers of justice and honor in your own right as your namesake so requires?
They say that every age, every generation, requires a new confession. Each generation speaks a language only peculiar to itself, best suited to express its ideas and ideals, its hopes and frustrations, and molded more cleanly for the newer and more manifold uses of man and society. Will your language be like the Maragtas code?
My only request as a civilian is for your confession to be the best officers that you can be, worthy of the Maragtas name, worthy of the vision that the Academy crafted for you, and worthy of the wait, worry, hope, and prayers from those who love you the most.
And we in the civilian world do promise to make our existence worthy of your precious lives that you have given so willingly for us.
* * *
"There are things out there that I want to discover, that one day this will all make sense... I am searching for the meaning of this cosmic existence that we're in. And
probably when I find the answer, I'll go and look for the anti-thesis."
5 THINGS
1. I sing in the University Chorale of the University of Asia & the Pacific, and we swept four gold medals in Greece for our very first International Competition. I got to do my two absolute favorite things: singing and traveling.
2. Although I am an Alto Two, my range widens up to Soprano One when I am drunk. Think Charlotte Church's Flower Duet. (I think it has something to do with swallowing the diaper pin when I was a baby). Dancing barefoot in debut parties may also be expected.
3. I work in an non-government organization focused on private sector development. It involves sleepless nights in the office and the constant worry of displeasing a former Secretary of Finance. My other two bosses are harmless.
4. I like my men in uniform. The Military has always been a fascination of mine even before when I was finishing a BA degree in Political Economy.
5. I no longer watch The Bold and the Beautiful much to the joy of friends and family.
