Allow me to share this email from Eric Pasion, who passionately writes about his own dreams. Eric has been involved with GK in UP and is leading the way for raising thousands of students to become GK workers, volunteers and advocates. Eric is (or was until last school year at least) either president of the student council or the UPSILON fraternity. - Boy M.
Forwarded message
From: Eric Pasion
Date: Aug 5, 2006 5:23 AM
On my watch, it is 4:30am of August 5, 2006.
For thousands of young high school students, it is but 2 hours away from their taking of the UP College Admission Test or UPCAT.
Today would mark a very important day for them as the results of the test they will take will either make or break their dreams of entering the esteemed University of the Philippines.
To countless students from all over the country, this is their chance to make it big.
What is it with the University of the Philippines that so many students not only aspire but would do almost anything just to get in?
Does it make a difference whether or not a person graduates with a degree from UP?
Does it make a difference whether or not a person gets to sit in classroom filled with the brightest young minds of the country?
Does it make a difference whether or not they get to listen to the best professors in this country?
Well, apparently to a lot of young Filipinos, it does.
Perhaps just like me, these young students dream of becoming the best in their profession, or the best in their field.
Perhaps just like me, they want to create a name for themselves so that when they go out of UP, they will have a better life, an easier life.
Perhaps just like me, they have a dream for themselves of becoming somebody.
Having studied in the University of the Philippines for 4 years now, having taken my undergraduate course of Psychology in UP Diliman, and now taking up my bachelors degree at the UP College of Law, I've come to realize that what actually matters is what I do with my UP Education.
In order to be somebody, I would have to make the most out of my UP Education.
A lot of people before me have made the most of their UP Education.
They are now executives in companies, they are now well-established doctors both here and abroad, they have their own law firms, they have become congressmen, governors and prominent political figures.
They have now become a somebody, somewhere, having reached their dreams. Unfortunately though, the people who have put them through school still wait for their dreams to come true.
People go to the University of the Philippines not only because it provides one of the if not the best education available in our country but because it is cheap.
A semester in UP costs around P6,000.
This is a lot less compared to other universities that have a tuition fee of P60,000 per semester or higher.
Why is education in UP 10 times cheaper than other universities?
Well, perhaps it is because 10,000 Filipinos who pay their taxes so that 1 person can study in UP.
The tution in UP is not cheap beacuse it does not only take one or two parents to support one student, but it takes hundreds, if not thousands more.
The only reason we are able to study in UP is because the Filipino people have a dream that the student they put to school will give something back, perhaps not to them directly, but to other Filipinos.
They have a dream that their lives will get better because there are students who can make them better.
They have a dream that their quality of life will improve because of the quality of students that the University produces. This is a collective dream.
As a UP student, I cannot only dream for myself but I have to dream for others as well.
I cannot aspire to be the best, without aspiring for other Filipinos to be the best.
I cannot want to be well-off, without wanting other Filipinos to be well-off.
I am the product of the sacrifice of countless of Filipinos that the things that I want cannot only be for my self alone.
I owe who I have become to the education that I have received from the University of the Philippines, an education that was given to me by the Filipino people.
I hope the people who do pass the UPCAT and those who are already admitted into the University of the Philippines remember to dream big, not only for themselves but for others and that they give back to the people who have allowed them to become better and brighter individuals.
ERIC EMMANUEL C. PASION
President
UP Gawad Kalinga
"In this age of darkness,there are two ways of spreading the light. You may either be a candle, or the mirror that reflects its light." - Ninoy Aquino, while in prison
