Someone once asked me if De La Salle produces good graduates. I said yes on a whim, because of DLSU’s good reputation.
A DLSU student does not stop at a “no”; a true Lasallian pursues his or her interest and belief persistently, lifting standards and ensuring constant innovation. Moreover, faculty and student alike have long had strong principles that have guided and molded them.
Simply put, I imagined Lasallians as future industry leaders. I imagined Lasallian businessmen as corporate heads, lawyers as justices, engineers as pioneers in design and sustainability.
No doubt, DLSU will soon have more Richie Riches as business graduates, more Harvey Specters as lawyers and more MacGyvers as engineers in the future.
At least that is what I thought.
But a recent conversation with a top administrator in DLSU changed my view. Worse, my statement about the wonders of DLSU may have made me guilty by estoppel—the principle that precludes a person from asserting something contrary to what is implied by a previous statement of that person, as the Mac dictionary describes.
I cannot generalize the entire view and actions of DLSU’s administration in that five-minute conversation, and I am not trying to, but you know what they say: a body cannot move without a head.
For the better part though, I still think DLSU is a good University, and I do not think that anyone will sue me for what I told the person who asked me about DLSU. But with this conversation with this administrator, I am guilty for making a statement I cannot back up and estopped from claiming otherwise.
Perhaps I am biased, and perhaps our whole conversation was a big misunderstanding. Perhaps my statement is a fact and not a lie. Maybe I really do not have anything to be guilty about and everything is just flawed in my mind. Let us see.
It all started when I met the administrator to appeal a case filed against my friend, which, by the way, I believe he wrongfully re-judged. I explained to him my friend’s merits, and the inconclusiveness of the evidence pinned against her.
The administrator stopped me before I finished explaining.
He said that the manifestations were there, and implied that everything else was irrelevant. He ended with that, and a smile to match.
It took me a while to compose myself after I left his office. I thought about what happened, and I kept replaying everything in my mind.
I thought that the administrator probably just had different views. I tried to think of his explanation. It might have been possible that I was too aggressive to the point that I forgot to listen to his side.
I may just have had amnesia from that strenuous meeting, but all I can remember was he implying that manifestations were all that mattered.
It was then that I realized that perhaps the truth barely mattered; manifestations are all that matter, in any case. I realized then that DLSU operates under a legalistic system—one where rules, definitions and manifestations outweigh the truth.
This means that definitions determine the truth. If, let us say, the handbook defines abuse as undue influence over another, then the simple gesture of placing a hand on a shoulder can be construed as an abuse—physical no less, but here is where it gets a little bit tricky.
If I placed my hand on the administrator’s shoulder, I could get accused and possibly convicted, just as what I believe happened to my friend; but if he placed his hand on mine, I could never accuse him of an abuse. Well, I could, but that would never amount to anything.
This, however, does not explain why I am estopped from denying my statement. The issue goes beyond the statement and the case. It is about not having the balls to look deeper into the case; it is about the culture of complacency.
I claimed that members of the DLSU community will not stop at a “no”, and do everything for a right and for their belief; but why has this leader succumbed to settling for the rules simply because it is easier?
Rules are there to guide us, but rules should never lead us. We make handbook revisions regularly specifically because we acknowledge that some of the provisions “need improvement,” which in a more blunt phrasing means “imperfect”.
Are there no exceptions to the rule except for those who govern them?
In all honesty, this reasoning is a complacent one. It is one for the lazy—for those who will accept everything that comes to others so long as they are not affected. It is apathetic.
This is not a system that promotes critical thinking, and promoting this kind of ideology will not make Lasallian leaders. Well, at least in my view.
Ask: do we want business leaders who will choose to be employed because they do not want to put in the extra effort to start a business? Do we want graduates who will bow down to corruption because it is an easier way of doing business?
Putting it in a larger perspective, do we want Lasallians to be branded as people who will bow before everything, including ideas and beliefs they know are wrong?
Think of our Lasallian doctors. Will they always misdiagnose because they do not want to take the extra step in determining a person’s real disease? And what of our lawyers? They might just yield to the large firms simply because they do not have the initiative to fight back.
I hope not, and while I think that everyone has succumbed to this ideology, I believe this complacency is something we should all be wary of.
Because if this is really happening, then those who asked me about DLSU can consider me estopped, lock me away, and throw away the key, because I am then truly guilty.
