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Being an Iskolar ng Bayan, you were put in a pretty peculiar position. You were given the education to see what’s happening with the world beyond the daily grind. You were equipped with the knowledge to understand better -- to comprehend the story amidst the reality of multiple truths. You’ve read literature enough to understand the struggle of our people and how multiple ideologies have shaped the course of this nation’s history. The perils of absolute power and the corruptibility of the human mind.

“SERVE THE PEOPLE,” you remembered clearly, as if a mandate or an obligation, written in bold red letters below the stage on your graduation day.  You’ve always wanted to help your own people. But you thought help to those who don’t think they need saving might simply come off as arrogance. And so you lit a candle in silence. Or joined a rally. Perplexed in this cycle of desperation and wanting to help.

In the most polarizing of times, you can’t help but ask, staring at your screen, are these the actual people you were supposed to serve? This merely-capable-of-proper-punctuation punk on the internet claiming your entire stay in UP worthless -- an utter waste to his hard labored tax?

I can’t even.