Three Gifts
20 March 2025

Fr. Joseph Haw, President, Mrs. Thess Ladrido, School Principal (also my third year English teacher), administrators, teachers, family and friends, and most importantly, the graduates of the Class of 2025, good afternoon.

Allow me to also acknowledge in a special way our Senate President, Chiz Escudero, who was previously our EDCOM Co-Chairperson, and an invaluable supporter of the work of the Commission. 

Dear graduates, it is an honor to join you on this special day as you finish your 13-year journey. As you enter this liminal space between high school and college, allow me to reflect on three gifts that you have and will receive, for the journey ahead.

1. The gift of a fresh start
It is surreal coming home to Xavier many years after my own high school graduation. Moments like these take me back to my own high school years when Stephen Speaks and Spongecola were at their peak, when Chicago won the Oscars for Best Picture (which we then riffed on for our One-Act-Play, which won first place), while we progressively embraced “adulthood”, and savored the liberties of senior year. 

High school is a truly formative period in one’s life: it was during this time that I felt called to take on leadership roles, honed my skills in writing in the Stallion (which led me to apply to UP for broadcast communication), and also the time when my passion for education began: during many Saturdays trips to ERDA Tech in Pandacan to teach high school students, and those hot days of May when we taught San Juan students in Para Kay Kiko.

But it was also during this time when I harbored many insecurities about myself: two things I feared most then was math and PE. It started when I failed math in Grade 7, and then struggled through proving in second year. My teacher, Wilson Mendoza, was quite the terror then, and did not hesitate giving 0/20s for quizzes (at one point, my class standing was 20 over 60!). 

This fear of math followed me throughout: in UP, I avoided Math like it was Covid, but still ended up getting a dos for Math 2. Safe. In Harvard, I avoided difficult statistics courses even if it meant  having to sneakily cross-enroll to MIT. Safe again. But during the pandemic, as I took my PhD in Cambridge, there was no safe exit, and “the only way out was through.” Thus, while the world was on lockdown, I was on a personal lockdown on my laptop, learning statistics on loop, and practicing Stata day in and out. 

Today, ironically, most of my work is about dealing with numbers: correlating achievement rates with socioeconomic indicators, analyzing per capita spending for education, preparing budget proposals. 

All that to say, that who you are in high school does not define who you will be forever. The first gift of graduation after all is a fresh start. Allow yourself to be open to new experiences. Give yourself the permission to unlearn things about yourself, and to explore beyond your comfort zone.

To me, this was embracing numbers, and more recently, even joining Sparta and marathons, and trying out bouldering. My embarrassed high school self who could not even dunk a ball to pass PE would be proud.

2. The gift of community
The second gift is community. The past months, we have been hard at work reviewing Senior High School, and reflecting on the purpose of upper secondary education. Is it mainly for college preparation? 

Amidst debates on how to teach science and math, or English and Filipino, we have been asking ourselves: to what extent does it prepare graduates for the realities of life? For instance, its inevitables, such as failure, grief, or heartache? 

When I was 30 years old, I was appointed Executive Director of the Commission on Higher Education or CHED. I had my reservations because of political issues that surrounded the position, which I was worried about inheriting. Earlier that year, my predecessor was removed due to graft and corruption. But I was grateful for the opportunity to serve. 

In the months that followed, my predecessor was able to get a ruling from the Court of Appeals, reinstating him to his previous post—my position. I then found myself harassed by multiple lawyers, thrown out of my own office, and publicly embarrassed in Congressional hearings. 

Come January, I started receiving anonymous threats to my life and family every 4 in the morning. I was debilitated and lost my peace of mind. By the end of that month, I went to Malacañang to submit my resignation, walking away from the reforms we fought hard for. 

Fr. Joel Tabora, then President of Ateneo de Davao, saw me during this period, hugged me tightly and exclaimed, “courage!”. Did I lack courage, I kept asking myself? How does one build it? Was my technical know-how and good intentions not enough to serve? While we had 6Cs in Xavier, how did we miss out on this important virtue that seemed, literally, life and death?

Years later I realized the two gifts of Xavier that helped me survive this episode, which was really more newspaper than textbook material. Anne Lamont says that “All courage is fear said with prayers”. And true enough, at that time, all I could do was continue working and praying hard. Every night, I was in the adoration chapel of Mary the Queen, asking for guidance and strength. Fr. Johnny, Fr. Ari, Fr. Xave, and Fr. Guy were also there throughout, offering guidance and prayers. 

The weekend after I resigned, it was my grade school best friend, Jacob, that drove me all the way up to La Union to decompress. When I went through a tough breakup, it was my best friend from high school, Oliver, who came to the rescue. And during the tough lockdown, it was my other best friend, Chico, who drove all the way to Cavite to check on my 100-year old lola.

You see, over and above what we learn in class, the gift of Xavier that endures is faith and community. Through good times and especially in bad, these guys around you are the friends you are likely to keep. And, when you find yourself in moments that require extraordinary courage, turn to your friends and to the Lord, to help you remain steadfast. 

3. The gift of mission
The third gift is mission. Our halls proudly display our school’s ideals: “Men fully alive endowed with a passion for justice, and the skills for development”. I get most of the sentence, but how do we really define justice?

John Rawls defines it based on two principles: first, equal liberty for all, and second, that social and economic inequalities must benefit the least advantaged. On the other hand, Amartya Sen critiques Rawls’ definition and proposes a “capability approach” focusing less on institutions but on people: to reduce suffering and improve their well-being. Both agree on the importance of addressing inequalities, and a “preferential option for the poor”. 

In our work in the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM), we have been studying the challenges of Philippine education, and have been pushing for reforms to make it more “just”. Among the findings we are trying to solve are the following:

●     That today, 48% of Grade 3 students are struggling readers
●     That 80% of our Grade 3 students are not numerate— worse, here in Metro Manila, only 3% could divide, when asked these questions: 321×4, 168 divided by 8.
●     Our accumulated a backlog of 165,000 classrooms in the past 30 years, had forced schools to implement multi-shifts. In Cavite for example, we found a school whose enrollment surged from 600 to 6,000 students between 2021 to 2024.
●     Meanwhile, in college, we find that 4 out of 10 students drop out before finishing. While very few of the poorest can actually proceed.

But the Ignatian definition goes beyond this, further espousing that “reconciliation is the deepest expression of justice.” That justice is not just about redistributing resources, but about: (1) fixing what is broken, (2) healing the wounds it has caused, and (3) rebuilding trust through forgiveness and transformation. 

I am lucky to be working with exemplary Xaverians in addressing these injustices and addressing these deep seated challenges of Philippine education: Sec. Sonny Angara of Batch ’89 in DepEd, and Sec. Kiko Benitez of Batch ’86 in TESDA.  

But how do we heal the wounds of illiteracy? How do we rebuild trust— of the teacher we met who finished PE but is now also teaching music? Of the english majors being asked to teach Math? And the Filipino teachers handling tech-voc? 

How do we  rebuild trust of the principal in Cavite who has to walk back and forth between her school of 4 classrooms, and the resettlement houses turned into makeshift ones? Or of the Grade 1 students who have to start class at 5:30am because of lack of classrooms?

The first step is acknowledging where we are. That about 30% of Filipinos, including high school and college graduates are not functionally literate, and that most Filipino students are struggling— not with Chinese, or proving— but on reading comprehension, multiplication and division. 

The second step, is to be part of the solution. That, while, policies will take time to fix and effect change, we do what we can to help:

●     Parishes, parents, volunteer organizations, for example, can help with nutrition interventions: Today, 1 in 4 Filipino children are stunted and the damage to cognitive development is irreversible. Each day counts.
●     Student and teacher volunteers can help tutor children in Grades 1 to 3, so that we could make sure that no student moves to Grade 4 without gaining foundational skills.

Sabi nga po ni Fr. Roque Ferriols, “Kapag nasabi na ang lahat ng masasabi, ang pinakamahalaga ay hindi masasabi. Magagawa lang.” 

Whether this is in education, or in other injustices, this is the gift of mission we all Xaverians share. To not just be excellent in what we do, and be fully alive, but to fix what is broken, to heal the wounds it has caused, and to rebuild trust through forgiveness and transformation. 

Conclusion
Dear graduates, years from now you will not remember anything from my speech. But on your seats you will find a notecard that contains a photo— of the schools, students, and teachers we have visited and met in the past two years. 

Allow me to thus give you one last homework as a Xaverian:  Tonight, when you get home after your celebration, please take awhile before bed to write a letter to yourself 10 years from now, ask yourself what injustice could you hope to contribute to resolving: is it education, healthcare, climate change, poverty, or others? In what areas of your life could you bring about reconciliation?

On March 20, 2035— a decade from today— allow this note and photo to remind you of your high school graduation and your commitment to be a “man endowed with a passion for a justice that heals and rebuilds, and the skills for development”.

My fellow Xaverians, your education has prepared you sufficiently for college and for life— much better than what most of our countrymen currently receive. Carry yourself humbly, use your privilege wisely, and give of yourself generously. After all, the true test of being a Xaverian is not in the diplomas we carry, but the life we live, and the missions we dedicate ourselves towards.

Luceat Lux, Let your light shine! Congratulations.