Apparently, no amount of effort or medicine can cure this disease. It may be genetic, developmental or perhaps airborne, but the cause of the disease does not really matter. What is more important is finding a cure for it. For sure, science, technology and the great minds of DLSU have found a cure to manage the effects of this disease.
This illness has many manifestations. Some students fail classes because of this sickness, while others lose hope on improving their performance. Some do not even graduate while those who do graduate do not have the confidence to become industry leaders.
Another interesting aspect of this disease is that it blinds people from ever seeing one as part of the community. Apparently, when you have this disease, you are automatically alienated from the group. You, however, cannot blame the community, as they do not control their actions since the illness penetrates into their bodies in many ways; either it makes an infected person emit an aura or pheromones that make him completely invisible, or it induces other people to ignore him or her.
Again, we really have not gotten to the bottom of this disease. All I know is that people collectively call it stupidity, or as some would put it, not being the best and the brightest. Many of us will deny that we have contracted this sickness, but have you ever wondered why many of the offices in the University do not listen to what one has to say, especially if you are a student?
Isn’t it odd that no one listens to your concerns and suggestions? I am sure that there are countless times that you have wondered why the University spends more on a building rather than spending more on the faculty – to incentivize them stay in this research university. I am also sure that you probably get angry when discipline officers brand you as guilty of an offense, immediately after they have apprehended you, but once you try to explain your side, they will treat your explanation as an alibi, no matter how true your story is.
And speaking of the truth, has it not come to your attention that the discipline system at DLSU is legalistic that the manifestations are more important than the truth? This is because we cannot tell the truth and those who need to know find themselves unable to discover it as the aura students emit blocks their senses.
We cannot blame the institution, or any of its offices, as we are infected with the disease and we might infect the whole herd if we blame them. The only solution, as how a vet would put it, is to terminate the infected herd and repopulate with higher quality specimens, or as how the norm goes—forget about the sick and spend more time and effort on the best.
This explains DLSU’s use of probiotics, well at least its attempt to use them. We have to get the best and the smartest; they are the pills that will cure us. The University needs to subsidize their tuition and fees since the intelligence that trickles down their foreheads is pricless. A wise professor once said, “we just have to prepare our buckets, catch the surplus intelligence of others, and become 0.5 percent smarter”. These are the people we need to listen to because they can cure us. More important, they can make us realize our sickness, even before it becomes sporadic.
It makes sense for a research university to get the best students, and to be the best institution for the brightest, and it is only right that we ask the mediocre ones to support them, after all, a good university prepares its students for the future—in this case, a realistic future.
But are we really that lost? Does majority of Lasallians, students who may not be the best and the brightest, but are good and happy with what they are doing, not stand a chance in the real world?
Many who have cancer have found cures. Medicine has progressed at a phenomenal rate that what is impossible today may be already possible tomorrow. More important, has anybody ever examined us thoroughly to find small cures to the disease’s manifestations. I really do not know, but surely paying closer attention to what the students are saying will make an administrator or a DO hear half of their story.
Maybe it is just me, but I do not think that anyone should cut us off, yet. We should get the chance to prove ourselves. We need the opportunity to improve, and despite of our disease, I believe that we still have a valid say in most of the University issues.
Had there been more spending on professors and less on the unnecessary infrastructures and extravagant celebrations, or had there been more trust and faith shown to students, we could possibly get rid of some of the implications of the disease.
Perhaps there is a long-term solution to our disease. Maybe it is not even about the disease or the sick. Maybe, it is about the system we have, where dog eats dog and formation is a walk through a landmine.
Do we really need a panacea, a cure for everything, or all we need is a chance to be able to prove ourselves? Are we even sick in the first place?
