Happy thoughts? - September column

It seems that oil prices will not go down anytime soon. Given this hardship, some may have begun walking to their destinations instead of riding vehicles.

It costs me P13.50 to commute from my residence near Binondo. To find out what 13.50 means, I tried walking - counting every step of the way - starting from the South Gate, home. I arrived ninety minutes and 5850 steps later. Just for information, each step (2.5 to 3 feet in distance) cost 0.23 centavos.

Lasallians should be grateful they still have oil to fuel their cars. It is scary to think of the day Lasallians will have to go on “forced exercise.” This is bad, which is why everyone should help conserve fuel in their own little ways.

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If the number seven is considered lucky, then DLSU should be quadruply lucky. 2401, in 2401 Taft, is seven raised to the fourth power.

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Life in DLSU is certainly not utopian. We all know the openly taxing trimestral academic system. However, the opening statement does not just point to that. Every so often, “disruptions” sprout, tangling in a jungle of dispute some of these sectors: the students (Student Council usually), the Administration, Faculty, and in the background, Employees.

Is it normal for a respected institution like DLSU to have internal disparities? It should be normal, since each sector of the university comes from different backgrounds, hence possessing distinct viewpoints about the world. Age is another complicating factor. As Randy David wrote in his column “Salute to the New,” the new blood politicians are openly pushing changes of a radical nature, while their older comrades prefer the status quo. I could say the same is true with DLSU’s politics.

These internal disparities sometimes get out of DLSU’s walls. Employees file legal cases against DLSU, and DLSU retaliates with cases of its own. Sometimes the order is reversed, but the irrevocable fact is that money is spent in these cases and wasted on ones with trivial roots. Mang Bay showed us a memorandum on one case and I found it rather weird for DLSU to have spent 800 thousand on one theft case of not more than 3000 pesos’ worth. But of course, DLSU has an image to protect. My only question is why this wasn’t solved within DLSU.

Quite many people have asked me blatantly, “Do you hate DLSU?” pointing to the fact that The LaSallian comes out with articles seemingly highlighting these disparities and do not necessarily put the institution’s best foot forward. My answer is an unequivocal no.

It is not a contradiction. Matthew 10:34 in the New Living Translation version paraphrased Jesus Himself saying, “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, I came to bring a sword.” This simply meant Jesus did not want to ignore deep and hard-to-reconcile differences to bring about superficial harmony. Rather than keep it hidden, it should be brought out and tackled in the hope that a lasting solution will be found.

In our government, politicians have long ignored the deep problem of patronage politics among others (Randy David again) and recently shrugged off the Gloriagate controversy to make the government move on. Unity, the Administration had clamored. Superficial harmony. But is the problem solved by ignoring the impeachment complaint? It is time to start the great debate on which came first, the egg or the chicken. What is the root of the problem as our politicians see it?

As DLSU is but a microcosm of the real world, should DLSU be exempt from this route? DLSU is small, can’t we all be friends, someone once quipped. On a person-to-person basis, correct. But on a large scale, this is what I see as an easy way out, the superficial harmony that lulls everyone into a false sense of security. Maybe this is what ecumenism has led us to thinking.

To me, it’s an enigma why people tend to connect loving DLSU with “praising” DLSU. To some extent, this is the same logic as telling an ugly child that he/she is the prettiest/handsomest kid in the world. Or the Backstreet Boys “As Long as You Love Me” chorus.

Rather, the question I ask myself is, “is there any difference between love and
tolerance?”

Because seeing differences and taking action only to avoid clashes of principle, i.e. reach a common ground, is not the same as seeing differences and taking action to resolve the differences though it’s not the most pleasant option.

The operative idea may be akin to a saying I read once. It says that people take praise by the bucket yet receive criticism by the grain.

People should find the banksia a fascinating plant. Unlike normal plants that die upon contact with fire, banksias need fire before its seeds crack and grow. I can see that institutions like our government need to be more like the banksia.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the institution of The LaSallian is perfect. If this was the requirement, then not even God’s prophets can pass analyses on DLSU’s situations.

There may be another installation on this topic soon.