Hidden Soapbox

Good afternoon my schoolmates, friends.

This past week has been an interesting one for all of us, and a really hectic one for us candidates who now stand here on this stage. This campaign week, we have seen students from all over the university, enter our classrooms, delay our classes and talk about their GPOA’s and chant their tag-lines. This past week, we have been handed an obscene amount of fliers, containing the credentials and testimonials for the candidates, showcasing what they have and what they can give. This past week, we have been screamed at by posters hanging on the walls of Malcolm Hall and by pins hanging on the chests of its denizens. It’s been an interesting week. It’s been a crazy one. Some of you have even seen me and luis, do our comedic act to explain our BABABUBU GPOA.

It is my fervent hope, that throughout all this craziness, we were able to see the sanity that lies beneath. Hidden between the lines of these GPOA’s, whispered under the chants of these tag-lines, invisibly clipped with these fliers, declared in unison with these credentials and testimonials and printed in the finest lines on these posters and pins... is the truth. The truth that we, your candidates, are here and ready to serve you. All we await for is your nod, and your choice. Hidden beneath the seeming childishness of the phrase BABABUBU, is the maturity of a plan for you my dear batchmates, and for the college in general.

My friends, we stand at the precipice of change. This year, the last of the decade, will bring about a ton of changes. By June of this year, for good or for bad, our country will have a new President after 9 years. A little after this, or maybe even before, if issues of constitutionality are overcome, a new Chief Justice will be appointed to head a very different Supreme Court. The opening of this coming school year will mark the beginning of our university’s Centennial Year. For my dear batchmates, it also marks our last year within the hallowed halls of this ancient institution –it’s our graduating year.

A lot of these changes, we cannot control. And most of them will bring about uncertainty and maybe even a tinge of fear.

Ngunit hindi natin kailangang matakot. Not everything is beyond our control. Marami pa po tayong pinanghahawakan. Isa na po dito ang pagboto natin sa lokal na eleksyon dito sa College of Law. Bukas po, dala ang ating ID o kaya ang ating form 5, kaya nating gumawa ng sarili nating pagbabago at hindi lamang magpasuyo sa pagbabagong dala ng daloy ng panahon.

The College of Law may be a small community, but I know that to each of us, personally, the changes that happen within its walls out-shadow those that are happening outside in the bigger world, simply because these are the most immediate, and the ones that affect us directly. So let us pay attention to the changes that will happen to our small community, and more than paying attention, let us lend a hand in steering such changes.

Bukas, sana po ay bumoto tayo, at iboto natin ang mga kandidatong naniniwala na sila ay hindi lamang aakyat sa kanilang posisyon, kundi baba upang magsilbi. My batchmates, as next year’s graduating batch, let us set an example. Let our Batch be Bonded by going Back to the Basics so we can start creating Building Blocks and begin Building Bridges. That is the essence of BABABUBU. Change for ourselves, change for our batch, change for our school and change for the rest of our country.

I have said much in the last 3 and a half minutes, so let me end with someone else’s words – the words of the Immortal Bard Shakespeare as two of his most famous characters are on the precipice of change: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."

Ako po si Carlo Alojado, tumatakbo bilang 4th year batch representative. Magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat.