what matters is what must be

I just got home from a date to the GRF Grand Reunion at the Gateway Suites - was with two Philo majors namely K and S. We had a very enjoyable, enlightening, and slightly mind-boggling conversation on the taxi ride home, but anyway, the similarities and differences between Ateneo and UP are not what I plan to write about.

The highlight of the entire (almost) six-hour event for me, discounting the very enjoyable media board photo op with K, S and 2 new friends, was Hon. G. Padaca's speech. S says she used the same speech once before, from the intro down to the punch lines, but I didn't really care much, mainly because I'd never heard the gobernadora speak before. To attempt to share the same speech through my words would botch the message Hon. G. was trying to convey, but anyway, I'll try.

Basically, she shared her story of triumph over the Dynasty in Isabela politics, her battle with polio since she was three years old, and how, upon being awarded the Gerry Roxas Leadership Award on her high school graduation in the '80s, she was too shy to go up the stage. As a child, she had preferred studying quietly in a room, far away from the prying eyes of people, and she could barely understand why she had gotten an award for leadership, of all things.

But, many years later the meaning behind the award materialized as she took a good look around, and realized it would not do to simply wait for others to act, that for one to achieve results, one must take action even without prodding for others. That's why she ran for Governor - and won, by a 17K margin. Even though she was physically handicapped, and she had no experience in politics, she possessed the one vision of ending the political dynasty in Isabela, and that's what kept her going.

And what touched me most about her speech, aside from the part about each person having to act to get what s/he wanted instead of waiting for others to do something, was the part when she said that for some reason only God knows, all of us GRLAs gathered in that room were given the Gerry Roxas Award to fulfill a predetermined, distinct purpose that only we, and no one else, could fulfill. That even when we felt weak-kneed and incapable, we had to try and see how we could change things, because even the small, even the frail, could do something for the world somehow.

And then, after joining the standing ovation that the crowd had given her after her speech, I found myself wondering what I was waiting for. Was I waiting to grow? Should I force myself to grow? I felt weak, and I felt useless, and in UP I had never been possessed with the same driven spirit that filled me in high school. I wondered what my purpose was.