Wella Maria Sardon - Hong

This was a speech I gave on an International Peace & Understanding Forum held at Ateneo de Cagayan - Xavier University.

The Peace Forum is attended by student volunteers coming from different universities in South Korea. University students from Mindanao, and some Lumads (natives) play host to this forum. Invited are different peace workers, government leaders and academic personnel.

Most of my audience, however, are students  who had also been to the Working cum Peace Camps that I had supervised. I reckoned that they do not want to hear what they already know and had experienced. At the eleventh hour I decided to forego the spill I had prepared (pertaining to the usuals on peace talks and etc) and listened to my heart and shared something more relevant me, and hopefully to my audience. Because I delivered something I constructed literally at the last minute, this is not the whole speech verbatim, but the gist of it. 

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I am Wella Maria Hong, a volunteer for JTS Mindanao. I apologize for I wasn’t able to join the last Peace Camp (in Mantaboo) - it was my father’s 50^th birthday. But I am here now. Although I really do not know much about peace, at least not something that you wouldn’t know anyway, I’m going to share to you, something that hits a little closer to home – my dad.

I just graduated from Development Communication and Mrs. Trel Borja was my teacher, she is also a great inspiration which is why I am standing where I am now. However, like most of my friends who also just graduated, I do not have a job.

In a third world country like the Philippines, to have a regular job is a luxury. I was lucky enough to have a part time job while I was a student, one that pays a little above the minimum wage. And the good thing also about this job is it guarantees me a work right after graduation. Usually, most of the companies here are on the look-out for experienced workers, so a fresh grad still has a lot to go through.

However, I have to give up this regular, 8-hour, Mon-Saturday job because I promised myself that right after graduation, I will be a volunteer for at least a year. I understand that my fulfillment as a complete human being does not lie in having a living but in having a life.

Unfortunately, my dad does not understand this. He is the son of a Chinese business man who grew up tending a local Chinese store. In other words, he grew up in business and up to now, he is still in business. He is also the kind of dad who would attend PTA meetings just to make sure that his daughter will make it at the top of the honor's lists. And sure enough, I did make it there. Which is what bugs him the most – because after everything, I’m still not landing the ideal job.

He would always question my trips to the mountains or, when he is in a bitter mood, he would find excuses to not permit me to go. There was even a point that when I went home late after a trip to the mountains with Mr. Lee and Mr. James. Upon knowing that I was wet in the rain while we were visiting the hinterlands, he was so enraged that he even threatened, among other things, to burn Ma’am Trell’s house (we are neighbors).

The greatest lesson I have learned from Venerable Pon Nyun Sunim was when he spoke at a previous Peace Forum just like this. He said that understanding is the key to peace. Mother Theresa also said that if you want to build peace, go back to your homes. Which is why, after that incident, I wrote my dad a five-paged letter, detailing to him what I am doing with JTS, why I am doing it and what my plans are. I poured out in that letter everything about how I honestly feel about work, about helping people and about finding meaning in my life. I tried to make him understand that the daughter that he loves so much is actually happy to be where she is now…

No, change did not happen overnight, like all peace processes -- it took time for him to finally accept my decisions. This is not the first time that I tried to communicate to him about what I want in my life, and I know that this will not be the last. But I will not give up with my dad. As much as he had never given up on doing things which he thinks will be best for me. I know that my dad loves me very much, and I try my best to see through his anger and his sincere ignorance of what I really want. In the same way, I also want him to understand me. Understanding though, is not as easy as it sound for it is not merely a mental exercise but an exercise of compassion as well.

On the other hand, because I graduated top of my class, modesty aside, there will always be people approaching me to ask about my job, taking me as a bench mark of some sort. I am proud to tell them that I am working as a freelancer, a job that does not exhaust my schedule while I balance this with JTS, as well as helping out my family (being the eldest I could not escape the family business). Sometimes, I feel like I am only doing so little for peace, but I am reminded of my family and I am once again encouraged that I have done, at the very least, something and therefore, I can still do more.

I know, we are all gathered here for one thing – despite our differences in color, education, language and more – we are all gathered here for peace. But by and by, all of us, one by one, will be going separately to our own homes, to share to our dearest family what we have done and what we plan to do. Some of us may feel rejuvenated from this encounter, some of us disappointed, some frustrated… but let us not forget, that we are all builders of peace, and the best place to start it is always, right at home.

with my mom and dad

PS. It happened that while I was delivering this speech, my brother was able to attend the forum. The gist of what I've said managed to reach my dad, which ironically helped patch things more between us. By now, we had tremendously improved our dynamics as father-daughter through a more honest and open dialogue with each other ever so often.

2006 Commencement Exercise Speech

Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan

Out of the thousands of graduates of Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan, Batch 2006, I was honored to have been selected as the graduation speaker. Here was my speech,which was also published in the local daily.

“I”

Ask any English or communication teacher here and I’m sure that most of the required compositions are brimming with this most used pronoun “I”.

Having studied media in this institution I am convinced that the world today revolves on this little word “I”. As globalization whittles down the world into a smaller place, popular media serves everything imaginable to each “I” in its fancy outlets.

Ironically in this great era of mass media, sophisticated networks and communication high ways, we are left all alone in our couches with the company of the tube. Where our Friendster Inboxes are jam-packed with friends we barely even know and we get suffocated by the events of tomorrow which are the news of yesterday. In our thesis on media perception, especially in rural areas, the world of entertainment media recreates a powerful antidote, a temporary escape from the burdens of the everyday “I”. Clearly, mass media, and even businesses and politicians have done well enough to capture the vanities of each “I”.

But then again, amidst this entire hullabaloo about “I”, why do you think it is so short and so brief a word? So stark and naked in its singleness and so feeble in its monosyllabic structure?

Inspite of all its whims and wiles, an “I” can easily sink into despair nowadays. Especially here with our political turmoil that never ceases and economic boosts that make it to the headlines but not to the people. And yet, even in a crowd, “I” is also not strong enough unless it can stand alone, distinct but not apart.

Think about the crowd in the Wowowee tragedy, sadly it can only be indicative of us as a people, stumbling blindly forward for the things that we think can make things better.

As a group of “I’s” sharing the same heritage and the same fate, doesn’t the stampede only remind us of how we push on blindly, sacrificing integrity, hard work and the little things that count like family dinners and bedtime stories to give way to the endless monitor on bank accounts?

Doesn’t the stampede only run parallel to the youth of today who rush to college but graduate without really acquiring anything save a diploma, just to enter white-collared jobs? The youth of today to whom the youth of yesterday generally have misgivings on because of our indifference that we fail to live up to their Edsa.

As a people, we have been defined by the things that the world reads or hears about us: the commotion in our streets and our recent presidents who we always love to hate.

But amidst all these, who is “I’ in a people?

In all its stark nakedness, “I” is not a brief and feeble word. In fact, it is the only pronoun that is always capitalized, an indication of how important “I” can be.

So… expand your horizons, soar free, dare to dream big.

When we make “I” bigger, we make the world smaller and more manageable.

So why don’t you extend your “I” to the next fellow, to a friend in need, to parents who badly need a date, then go further - to the stranger you pass by, to the streetkid you meet in the corner. Go even further, to the victims of the Leyte landslide, to the cause for our environment, to silent war waging in our streets everyday.

“I” doesn’t have to be wealthy, or affluent to be a great big “I”, just little acts of kindness, just the courage to die everyday to be free.

In closing, let me leave you a thought. Do yourself a favor and make “I” bigger. The horizon is only the limit of what our eyes can see. Maybe, if we close our eyes, we will see more.

We, as a people, can only better if there is an “I” who took it upon themselves to be better in their individual tasks and roles in the society.

I think I have said enough of “I’s” already, but the world still need bigger versions of it. Make your ”I” matter.

As published in our local daily (pictured here):