The Essence of Being a Pisay Scholar

Back in my grade school days, I had always wanted to go to Pisay. This is the country's finest Science High School. They say that this place is a hallowed ground where the best of the best converge. In my little inflated ego in my younger days, this place is surely another laurel in my head. I qualified for the entrance exam, took it, and I passed. I was overjoyed. I had a dream come true. I am now a bona fide student of Pisay. I could say that I am one of the best of the best. I felt like I was on the top of the world.

June came, and I was already in Pisay. I thought things was just so easy like in elementary days, but the exams came, and, yes... you've got it right, i nearly flunked all of the exams. Where is the 'top of the world' feeling? It was now replaced by the 'you suck' feeling; the feeling that really reduced me to rubble. I really felt bad, and that was I consider, the lowest moment of my academic career.

It was during these times that I realized what being a Pisay scholar means.

We Pisay Scholars are, yes, the cream of the cream of the crop. From a young age, we are picked from the upper 10% of our batches, then we take the NCE (the hardest exam I had took to date, much much harder than UPCAT). If we pass whether due to luck or sheer talent, we have the prerogative to enroll or not. 


Just like the other fortunate passers, I had also enrolled in Pisay. But enrolling in Pisay is not about adding laurels to one's head. It is also a commitment to serve the country. Going to Pisay means tying yourself to obligation to be the pioneers in scientific development in our backward country. Enrolling in Pisay means you need to give back to the people the taxes they pay to finance your quality education. In short, going to Pisay is not an honor, but a responsibility, a responsibility of serving the country and the people.


That is why being a Pisay graduate/student/passer is not worth bragging, if after all, you are not even serving for the good of the Filipino people who paid for your education. That is why I despise Pisay people who let the plaudits off their head. They are just words and pride, but inside, they don't even know the meaning of being a Pisay scholar. They are just braggarts that does not even know what service is. I even doubt if they are performing well in school. They might be proud in saying 'I came from Pisay', but who knows if his grades are all 2.50 or 2.75, well, I hope just not.


From a young age, we are built to become excellent leaders and servants of the country. Being leaders in scientific development and modernization in the future are our responsibilities as scholars. This explains why our three cardinal values include integrity, respect and loyalty. Integrity to mold us into future honest and true leaders, respect to have respect for the law, others and oneself, and loyalty, to our country and to our pledge as scholars of the nation.


That is why we graduates need to pick science-related courses. Because we are groomed to serve the country through being the pioneers in science. There are two keypoints here: serve the country and pioneers in science. Let me talk about the latter first. We are to be the pioneers of scientific development in this country. In our productive years later in life, we need to have significant contributions to the development of our nation, scientific development, of course. Science is the key to a bright future. Every industrialized nation if one can see, has a base built on scientific progress and development; on a highly-literate citizenry proficient on science and mathematics. But if for whatever reason we hadn't been really productive in making highly significant things for the betterment of the nation, then it is alright so long as we serve the country. Serve the Philippines. It is just plain giving back. We are to give back what is due to the people that had financed our education and had invested in us the money to be the future scientific leaders of the country. That is why I urge my other co-scholars and would-be scholars to at least serve their RSAs faithfully, and as much as possible, serve in the country for the rest of their careers. In a country like ours, we need scholars and people who would be the catalysts for change and betterment in our society.


This is the essence of being a Pisay scholar. And every Pisay scholar is expected to be faithful to this dogma. Pisay is established to give the Philippines a group of scientifically-gifted individuals that will propel the Philippines to modernization and prosperity. And we scholars must do our part. Let us give to our country and to our fellowmen the return of investment they deserve.

Justice and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's arrest

Justice is defined by giving people their respective due. Criminals are caught and put behind bars. They are tried and then given the necessary punishment according to the weight of their crimes. This is what you call justice, and the main government agency that is supposed to uphold justice according to the law is the court. They are the interpreters of the law and they give rulings to cases; they are the ones responsible for giving punishment, they are the ones responsible for acquitting innocent citizens, etc.

Here comes Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The daughter of the 'Poor Boy from Lubao', she had inherited from her father the political prowess to bring her to the top. From being an economics professor in Ateneo and UP, and being a classmate of Bill Clinton in Georgetown, she entered government as Secretary of Trade and Industry. Later on, she became senator, then vice president. When Erap was ousted, she became President-continuing Erap's term until 2004 and subsequently until 2010, when her term ended after 'winning' the 2004 presidential elections.

In her nine years or so in office, many things had improved. Sources say that during her time, the Philippine economy grew at an average of 3% a year. Not bad. Of course, what do we expect from an economist that graduated abroad? During her time, there were  some other things that improved, but I don't really remember because they are not significant.

The significant events in her nine years in office was when she was embroiled in many controversies. I will just name a few from my memory, of course, these things had really caught my attention, and thus significant. One was the 2004 electoral fraud where she had 'conclusively won' over FPJ. The peculiar point here was, how did FPJ become annihilated on ARMM? Being a man close to the masses, one could never imagine why FPJ got 0 votes from the people from ARMM. Even without conclusive evidence, this matinee idol cannot lose in this region; it is just too hard to believe that nobody even voted for their idol, especially that these region contained lots of his loyal supporters. This is really something peculiar. In relation to this issue, she became embroiled in a controversy in which she called a particular election commissioner named Garcillano. I even had a ring tone of that very funny and nasty phone conversation in which she told the commissioner to rig the ballots in her favor. She later apologized in a much-publicized TV appearance. If justice was just upheld, she must have been caught at that very moment.

Another was the NBN-ZTE broadband deal. The Arroyos had reportedly talked things with the Chinese businessmen in underhanded business deals that could give the Arroyos quite some money. This is corruption at its finest, but I don't really know why nobody was prosecuted at that case despite the evidence being very powerful. I don't even known where the case went.

Going on, we have the ever-perennial imprisonment and murder of activists and critics of the government. Back in her days, I had a friend who lost his parents to these extrajudicial killings. Many other activists were jailed; some yet are detained even without legal basis. Some had vanished and never came back again. Of these cases, not one had been solved as of the moment. 

But the peak of these is the Maguindanao massacre where more than 50 journalists were killed and one was reported missing, perpetrated by allies of the Arroyo government. This is the world's most inglorious attack against journalists; imagine, 58 people murdered at an instant, majority of which are journalists and mediamen who worked as vanguards of the people's interests of learning about the news and happenings around them. 

There are still many others, much much many, too many that I even forgot about it already. We have the chopper anomalies, many others. And now, a sick and ailing Congressman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is asking the government to travel abroad for whatever reason (whether to escape her crimes or to have her sicknesses treated, I don't really know). The Department of Justice had issued a travel ban prohibiting Arroyo and co. to leave the country. Her party says that the travel ban is unjust as it is her constitutional right to travel and seek medical treatment. The Supreme Court sided with her (after the justices appointed by Arroyo voted against the travel ban), and the travel ban was lifted.

This had caused a ruckus in the government. The justice branch is fighting with the executive branch of the government for legal supremacy. I may not be a Political Science student, nor a lawyer to explain things, but I just want to say out loud my interpretations on the matter and how it should finish, again, from my own (call it biased) perspective.

Congresswoman Arroyo and co. here is asking for what they call justice. But then again, justice is just giving persons their due. During her days of power, she made off money with illegal deals and corrupt practices. During her days of power, she made deals with election officers to cheat off her victory. During her days of power, she was responsible for the abductions and extrajudicial killings. Where in the world is the justice here? Is embezzling the money of the people just? Is cheating in the elections just? Is murdering others just? Is abducting one's critics constitutional?

Readers, Arroyo has no right to talk about justice and constitutionality. With all her nine years of very impressive unjust and unconstitutional track record, we cannot really let her go and escape the weight of her crimes. Justice must be served. After all that she had done to the people, she must taste her own medicine. Depriving her of 'much-needed' medical treatment abroad may deem unconstitutional and unjust, but during her time, isn't she also like that? It is just giving what is due to her. It is also justice, in a sense.