We Can Not Be Apathetic

In times like this that the identity of our beloved university will be knocked off its feet by its nearing neo-liberalization, we have the role as students—the youth—to act.

It would be shameful for us that on this time that we have witnessed a big turning point of big social conflict of the community that we can not unite for a common interest. Yes we will graduate and leave the campus soon but it will be far from what it is now in the future.

We can not let the grown-ups tell us what to do, even if they were in the frontline of every picket line during the Marcos’s time. They faced a different reality far from ours today. Simply we can not be living to start on what they left behind and finish what they failed to do. We have the role to create and see our own world according to how we see it.

What is the unique of being a youth? When we graduate we can not be really free. In fact, when we leave the university we will be more tied down. We can not just subvert things, for such point of time, because—chances are—our concerns would be finding a job, working on our savings and helping our families. We get to be more submissive and become docile warm bodies. We are aging and we are realizing the structure and we lose the youth spirit to express our innocent questions.

Ever spent a time with a 3-year old child? If you would spend a day with her, you would probably think of gluing her lips together because of her ‘to the nth power’ number questions. She would never stop asking about everything. The expected crude answer for the questions is simple: ‘That is how it works’. Basically the child challenges things because she has not yet assumed structure on her reality. However grown-ups already did—choices are reduced—norms are familiar and accepted. Think about it. We lose pieces of our huge and numerous aspirations of who we want to become bit by bit as we ladder age groups.

When I was very young I wanted to become a doctor—as clichéd as it sounds—or as a film director. As I stepped in high school I realized that hard sciences aren’t for me and film requires a lot of creativity and capital. Considering also my family’s capacity to spend for the education I needed for the road to any those professions. Other factors also put effect on my decisions. There is just no such thing as serendipity. Fate is weaved not by coincidence but in subtlety.

The more we age, the less we feel for agency over our reality—the more we realize prohibitions and limitations to our childish fantasies. When we grow up we have all the time to be ‘obedient’ to norms (which are presumed to be ‘just’) because we have to deal with ‘real’ things.

The saying that: ‘Ayusin mo muna sarili mo bago ang iba,’ can not be firmly applied. See, it is very hypocritical and it expounded no exact standard of what is ideally acceptable. If we are meant to conform to the norms, then why should we put effort to change it? If we give in, it would be hard to challenge it later. It doesn’t even follow that what is wrong is justifiable just because we are not yet that ready to be ‘right’. When can we say we are ready enough?

We should not be afraid to be over-angered by things around you that threaten youthful values. We have to prove where we stand. Antagonisms are everywhere—with our parents, the academe, media, fellow students and the grown-ups. We are not brainwashed just because we deviate from their standards. In fact those who call corrupted are the ones who readily gave up their youthful ideas to the ideological apparatuses. They were the first to be corrupted. They are the ones got brainwashed in the first place.

Yes we believe in academic freedom, but not all of our ideas are made out of a genuine preference of our subscription. Academic freedom ideally should function not to divide us among political camps but to help us define our own emancipation with less stigma for the interest of a student community. I believe that being cynical and apathetic is not inborn. We are conditioned to act so. Before we become apathetic let us at least know the interest of our cultural class. How can we be responsible citizens if in the first place we pay neglect to our own category? Before we become apathetic and hypocritical, let us first envision our reality in the perspective of a youth, as a UP student—that each can not be isolated from our bigger social concerns.

Let us not allow our freedom to be reduced to the freedom to consume goods or the freedom to park a vehicle. Let us not allow others do significant choices for us. We want to do it on our own. The saying ‘Ang kabataan ay ang pag-asa ng bayan!’ still holds though it sounds sappy and passé. Apathy will not lead us to anything worthy. Let us know how to stand upon these overwhelming social issues we are currently facing. Let us be involved and be conversant.

When you get stabbed, the least you could do is to be aware of it.