AN OPEN LETTER TO STUDENT POLITICAL PARTY LEADERS, CANDIDATES, AND INCUMBENT STUDENT GOVERNMENT OFFICERS

If speech mirrors thought, and thought molds action, then it makes sense to say that one's way with words gives a preview of that person's performance in work. my humble perspective as an individual who is entitled to his own opinion, as I feel compelled by the need to protest against certain practices we have been used to, is that our courageous student political parties tend to indulge in their own excesses and effects. The lack of composure during formal debate, circular arguments and question evasion in the open forum, replies entirely lacking in significance, overblown assertions about the status quo, the kilometric and grossly irrelevant list of credentials passing itself of as evidence of leadership excellence, sententious lines delivered with exhausting regularity - these are only few of the qualities, shared by both parties, that spoil substance for the sake of style.

Whatever permutation of winners the election would determine, this general practice portends a bleak continuity of the student government's futile existence, for it is embedded in the culture of our student political parties - perhaps unconsciously - to replicate the system it opposes. Every candidate clamors for a free and progressive citizenry in the classroom, but do they see themselves reflected in the eyes of their observers, do they hear themselves speak, and realize that they are eerily embodying and echoing our country's array of social tormentors and tyrants who carry exactly the same set of dazzling ornaments in their speech?
Or is it unfair to judge the very being, the very life, of the political parties and the type of student government they produce in the sole light of their approach to publicity? Of course, and I believe that there is much more to be seen than what is presented to us during campaign - except that the evidence of ineffectuality and senseless leadership in the set policies and projects being proposed are very apparent. Every year, something is said about "unfair rules" trampling the "rights" of students, yet the methods employed to "liberate" them from such "repression" by the "administration" propagate the same culture that ostensibly represses them in the first place. In the words of Don Creamer in Alternatives To Tradition Student Government (Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 52, No. 2), "Why create more of the thing currently strangling us?" That is to say, by fighting bureaucracy with bureaucracy, of course the net effect is more bureaucracy!
This pattern of governance offers certain oddities which, if heard from afar, sound introspective, but in reality are just hypotheses resulting from hunch and blind suspicion. Thus, we have a line up of leaders Easter-egg-hunting for issues they viciously magnify into a controversy, issues where they can throw in their platform to sustain their reputation as "activists" and "initiators of change in society", while employing ambiguous messages, vague claims and pompous oratory.

Why is this dangerous? Though my view on these matters does not necessarily represent the unit in which I hold a certain position, I must invoke my background in the student publications. According to Wolfgang Clemen, "a general saying carries no sense of personal obligation." Hence, the politicians' love for cliches, maxims, and other sweeping statements and banalities in speech confirms a flight from responsibility, because the person has not sealed the promise with the audacity and sincerity of using his or her own word.
That being said, the only things I would demand from our student leaders (as they demand from our administrators) are integrity and wisdom in their office. And since I have mentioned the operative word demand, I suppose that I would confront the following question from the addressee: "What about you? What are you doing to mitigate this problem as you write these unfavorable judgments about us?", for it is but natural to return the burden of giving an answer to a difficult question raised by the speaker. Here, let me invoke the essence that is symbolized by our ballots, which really hold the answer.
I would like to state the purpose of this letter is merely to set in stone certain notions that had already been said, and which may not pass your hearing, for your appropriate action. With this, I leave you with a passage from one of the great tragedies of William Shakespeare, where Hamlet tells Gertrude:

Come, come, and sit you down[...]
You go not till I set you at a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you!

Yours,
Russel Stanley Q. Geronimo (Sgd.)
Editor-in-chief, Malate Literary Folio