“ON THE tip of my tongue, an offensive is poised and rearing. My intention a bullet my body a trigger finger—yeah my pen is a pistola!” –Incubus–Pistola
For this last column, I’d like to share a few words. All my columns this year were critical to an extent, but highly impersonal. Before I part mysef from this public trust that is the Varsitarian, please let me give a bit of advice to those who read this column.
The quote above has been an inspiration for my writing for the past few years. It was in my third year that I started to seriously write essays on various topics. I suggest that all who wish to write for public service listen to the whole song.
***
In the weeks prior to the writing of this piece, I have become at peace with myself rather suddenly and realized a few things.
First, I have been in and around Manila and saw the beauty that you see underneath all the soot and dirt. For those afraid to venture out of their comfort zone (particularly fresh graduates, debarred students or transferees), do not forget this: the world is both a beautiful and a harsh place.
Second and more alarming—there is apathy and petty quarrels in our University community. A casual observer will see this by standing in a corridor or in the parks and looking around.
We are a 400-year-old University, but we fail to realize that the one beside us is essentially a sibling. (As for an immediate solution, I can’t offer any. Looking into one’s conscience and consciousness, perhaps?)
***
Even though I said that we writers, photographers, artists and editors of the V are more than mere marks on paper (read: “Marks on paper” almost a year ago), I have to admit that I forgot to show a bit of myself. So please pass me the tissue as I bid adieu to the people I got to know in the past four years, and to the V-staffers.
First of all, Legal Management batch 2010—you have made me learn about myself and helped me out one way or another, even though we were never that close. And more so to Marc, whose gung-ho attitude helped keep our thesis and projects move like clockwork.
I also owe a great deal of thanks for my friends in the other people in AB (Mayam and people in Literature, Political Science, Philosophy, among others), Arki (Pada, Francis) and Educ (MC, Zel, Jemai, Pong, Ruthie, Vien, Phillipe)
Big thanks go to the Special Reports section: Andrewly, Rose and Ailex. We managed to get through the whole year even though we had a few bumps, even with each other. The companionship and the hard times we had were both frustrating and exciting.
Emil and Prinz, I commend and admire you both. No one feels the burden of coming up with the campus publication regularly more than its editorial board. Good luck with your respective endeavors as journalists.
My Inkblots 2009 co-chairpersons and editors, Eli and Dani—I’m glad we were able to push through with Inkblots relatively unscathed, along with the fellows who joined Inkblots.
To my fellow editors, I thank you for the friendship and even the arguments. I pray that we will meet again at the next Valik-Varsi with more marks on our belts.
To the next set of staffers, the task soon at hand will be very challenging, but keep in mind that what matters most is the public service rendered
To my parents Pedrito and Minerva, my brother, Izi, and my cat, Marble—I’d like to thank you very much for all the support all throughout college and my life in the Varsitarian. You never really spoke against the things I did in the V and you pushed me to stay at the V when I didn’t want to stay. It’s quite an irony that I now love it so much that it hurts.
And to Aya, fellow editor, writer, very fun girlfriend and my “dear friend” in the traffic column last year—you make the feeling of writing infectious. When you become a teacher, please bring the joy of writing and reading to your students; it’s indispensible.
I will miss making articles for Special Reports and being part of a public trust—the campus newspaper.
And with a bow, I’d like to thank you, the most humble reader. My column is never complete until it is read. It is through your reading that makes the two of us more human. But for now, this Brightlancer, hangs his proud lance with a heavy but nevertheless satisfied heart.
‘I am proud to be a Thomasian, but I am prouder still to be a Varsitarian staff member.” –Dr. Apolonio de Jesus, last of the founding fathers of the Varsitarian. So once a V-staffer, always a V-staffer!
