'86 UPLB Commencement Exercises

Message of President Edgardo J. Angara
to the 1986 Graduates of U.P. Los Baños
during the UPLB Commencement Exercises
9 April 1986

Let me begin with the words of Padre Florentino on Rizal's novel El Filibusterismo "...we should achieve freedom by being worthy of it, by exalting reason and the dignity of the individual, loving unto death whatsoever is just and good and great; and when a people attain such a height. God furnishes the weapon, and idols fall, tyrants topple down like a house of cards, and liberty shines with the first dawn.

Less than two months ago, with the aid of the almighty and the courage, intelligence and daring of many Filipinos, the Philippines threw out the past regime and installed in its place a democratic government headed by a popularly elected president. Mounted against the authoritarian values and practices of the overthrown government, that revolution is a reaffirmation of the dignity of the Filipino.

There is in the aftermath an optimism all over the land. Under an era of freedom, there is a renewed faith in our capacity to solve our grave economic and social problems. This new government has awakened our hopes that the people may now be liberated next from the tyranny of poverty, ignorance, and ill-health with the same bold resolve, sacrifice and courage which won for the Filipinos their political emancipation.

The next urgent agenda the nation therefore must address is the economic well-being of the individual Filipino. That means to me that the central object and purpose of the national development shall be the elevation of the living standards of every Filipino.

National development is indeed no simple process. I am convinced, however, that development can be achieved successfully only in freedom. One lesson our recent past has taught us is that a national development plan is no good when drawn up and made by one man or a group of men subject to his centralized will. For its success, development requires the energies and enthusiasm of the entire citizenry and therefore must have popular participation and commitment. We must not take shortcuts for the sake of narrow technical efficiency and expertise. We must not become impatient with the processes of consultation for they lie at the very core of democratic practice. For if we bypassed those who stand to gain or lose from the effects of development we would be in effect saying that they themselves are hindrances to their own development.

We must reject the idea that in order to develop we must trade away our freedoms. The U.P. experience is a good refutation of that idea. Here we have shown that the development of individuals as well as institutions is best achieved in an atmosphere of freedom. Let us reaffirm that only free men can truly aspire for development not only in the social and spiritual sense but also in economic terms.

The issue of our time is not so much the question of whether men and women should give up their freedoms for economic well-being, but whether economic well-being is achievable and of value without freedom.

Please allow me to end this brief message as I began with Dr. Jose Rizal's apt reminder: "... so long as the Filipino people do not have sufficient energy to proclaim, with head erect their right to social life, and guarantee it with their sacrifice, with their very life-blood; so long as we see our countrymen in their private life feel inwardly ashamed of themselves and in public life keep silent, join the voice of the abuser to make fun of the abused; so long as we see them shut themselves up in their egotism and praise with a forced smile the most iniquitous acts, begging with their eyes for a part of the loot, why give them liberty?"