Killing a Jejemon

by Joel Magturo

We contribute to the death of the other. This line struck me last Tuesday in our Philosophy class. How can we contribute to their death even if we do not know them? Then one experience comes into my mind.

Last week I watched the Men’s Volleyball Finals. After Ateneo lost to NU, I was still in shock so I was still standing to look at my fallen friends. In that moment a person called my attention. She was not from Ateneo but she was wearing an Ateneo T-shirt. I knew this because her group of friends were wearing different UAAP school shirt. She shouted, “Kuya, kuya, hindi ka ba makaover, umupo ka naman wala kami makita.”Inside me I thought, “Ano ba yang mga JEJEMON fans na to oh EPAL.” I ignored her for 5 minutes but she was persistent. “Kuya, kuya nagbayad kami dito, ano ba yan di makaover,” she said. I almost snapped but then I realized that it was inappropriate to curse them since I was wearing an Ateneo shirt. Then, my friend and I just walked away but I was so pissed. I said to my friend, “Ano ba naman yang Jeje fans na yan, makikinood na nga lang eepal pa. Bilin ko sila eh. Mahirap lang naman mga yan eh,” I said to my friend and then we laughed.

Every day we encounter people we do not like. We judge them and make stereotypes. We forget to look at them with their faces and reduce them to what they stereotype and hastily avoid interaction with them. We neglect the fact that they have their own experiences, dimensions and stories behind them. I realize with my experience in the game, I was contributing to the death of the “other”. For simple things like standing in front of them, I kill them for not allowing them to see the court. My selfishness makes them lose their money’s worth that could have been bought for food or other things they need or maybe lose their chance to experience the game. Maybe it was a chance for them to relax and be away from all the stress but I deprived them of that. My thoughts of them as poor people and jejemon are not being responsible for the other. I totalize them belittling them. I realized that this is not being responsible for them and further contributing to their death. I thought of them as someone who I can easily break and step on but that is not the case. They are still human and they have their own dimensions.


In order to be responsible for the “other,” we must be open. We must not make hasty stereotypes even though we hate the person. We should know beyond their outside appearances that they have their own experiences in life. We must remember that as humans we have responsibility for others and not contribute to their deaths.

Yes or No?

by Kyla Relucio

In recent classes we’ve had in Philosophy, we’ve been talking about a Philosophy of Yes, “saying no to saying no”. Life will always be full of surprises. Sometimes these surprises make me realize how lucky and blessed I am. Yet other times, these surprises leave me feeling stuck, feeling the difficulty of being. When this happens, this whole idea of “saying no to saying no” becomes more than just a concept we are enlightened with in class. It becomes the challenge. It becomes my goal.

I am a Taekwondo jin and last Wednesday was the last day of UAAP Season 76 for Taekwondo. Let me begin by saying it did not end the way I wanted it to. Although the women’s team was able to rise from 7th place to 5th place, I expected more from myself.  My matches were all close fights, just a point or two away from winning but for some reason I faced defeat. For some reason, that ideal game I had in mind did not transpire. There it was, the gap between what I would like to do and what I have done. I hate it. It hurts. I’ve asked myself again and again why this has to exist? And even until now, there are no answers.
I believe that it is in this point of our lives, when we are feeling stuck that we are most challenged to “say no to saying no”. It is when we feel this gap the most that we must try our hardest not to give up. For some this challenge exists everyday but for some it may come only occasionally. If you ask me, this challenge continually and consistently arises in our lives but we are unaware of this. Everyday, we must decide, will it be a “yes” or will it be a “no”. However, it is only when it is most difficult to decide do we become conscious of that freedom we have to choose.

Hence, I would like to propose that despite not knowing why this gap exists, we must always try our best to understand how we could confront this prevailing gap in our lives.

First. We need to be aware that we have ALWAYS had the choice. We need stop taking this freedom to choose for granted. We need to be conscious of the fact that ever day we are bombarded with opportunities to say yes or to say no. If we are more aware of this fact, it would be easier to understand the consequences and the ripple effects of our choices, making it easier for us to see what we can gain or lose from our yes or no, making it easier to see that it is absolutely up to us to close the void between what we want to be and who we currently are.

Second. Do not make saying no a habit. Believe it or not our decision today will most likely be similar to our decisions tomorrow. The exception however is if we make the extra effort to change the way we decide and the way we choose. If we wake up in the morning and say “yes, I will make sure that today will be better,” chances are today will really be better and this will most likely be the same if you wake up the same way every single day. On the other hand, if you say no once, what makes you think you wont say no again? When we are faced with various opportunities every day, and we immediately say no to these chances we are given, it wont be so difficult to say no again. Once this becomes a habit, we miss out on an opportunity to learn, to grow, to become better.

Lastly, We need to try our best to finish what we started. Sometimes we are on track with our lives. We are on the way to being able to be what we want to be. This track however isn’t always easy. Sometimes we need to face difficulties but these difficulties must not stop us and make us turn back. These difficulties must push us harder and motivate us to just keep going. We need to be strong, brave and tough. We need to consistently say yes to the yes we committed to in the very start because only by doing this will we be able to slowly fill the void between what we want to be and who we are.

As human beings, our being finite is not an indication that we cannot do everything. It is not an indication of our weakness and possible shortcomings. In my opinion, our finitude signifies our capacity to overcome life Being human is about being able to stand up no matter how badly we’ve fallen down. Being human is about waking up every morning with the urge to say yes despite how painful it can be, in the hopes that even just for a while our fumbling human ways have helped fill that void in our lives, that gap between who we want to be and who we already are.


As I face the last few days of this semester, I dedicate and offer myself to the commitment of “saying no to saying no”.

The Ateneo vs. La Salle

by Pax Aranas

4 July 2013
Discussed Text: Garcia, "The Promotion of Responsibility and Hope"

With just a few more days until the ultimate rivalry in collegiate basketball, it is not surprising that there would be uproar of news and tweets from both perspectives from the day they start selling tickets to a few days after the match day itself, and I would not veer away from this as well. What makes this on court rivalry so interesting is that it deals with people coming from different backgrounds per se.

Comparing the teaching styles of both schools might prove the point regarding the different backgrounds. Looking at the "Green and white" side of things we see a school structured in a way that it encompasses all their subjects within the 3 year, trimester schedule of it all. In the "Blue and white" side of the coin we then see the Ateneo education structured in such a way that it is made to be finished within 4 years, in which some may feel like a trimester due to required summer classes, but more often than not a semestral curriculum.
What then is the difference? Some people would argue that a La Sallian education brings about what is more necessary for the course. It puts emphasis on teaching the majors early on and while doing so incorporating the ideas and structures of the real world at an earlier stage. While on the fields of Ateneo, we are told that we should learn more in a “holistic” way. We take up multiple classes in the different social sciences classes that for some may be too much. Putting it into the context of Philosophy, we are like the open fan, we cover up a lot of things that deal with the social sciences and other sciences as well, we "spread our wings" into different aspects and perspectives. I am not saying that a LaSallian education would not do so, but it will give a brief overview of these subjects given the number of units given per subject. Both schools have open Fans; the width of the fan though might have some differences.

Let me clear things out, I am not in any way saying that the curriculum of one is better than the other, or that one school is better than the other. Both schools are of good stature in terms of ranking, consistently making the top 3 rank of best schools in the country alongside UP is not a small task. Both schools are good at what they do. Both excel in the fields they take on. Both schools have graduates of grand standings. The question though is, do these graduates take on the concept of being after college? Do La Salle Graduates end up becoming true La Sallians in the future, or do Ateneo Grads end up being Ateneans in the future? The question of being must be asked because it is in this way that we see whether or not a school has impacted a person enough. An Ateneo graduate may move on with his/her life forgetting the values of the school, forgetting what it is to be an Atenean. A LaSalle graduate might also just move on after college bringing about a new perspective and loosing the LaSallian in him/her. It all boils down to this, as we see ourselves in the bleachers and stands of whatever coliseum or gym it might be, wearing the blue or the green, do we see ourselves as the Ateneans or the LaSallians, or do we just wear a colour and stand and cheer for a school we once were in? It’s a question of being, and a question of faith in our traditions of both Ateneo and LaSalle.

Experience and Essence

by Rob Roa

15 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy," Ethics and Infinity


Experience is a vague word. Sometimes you don’t have experience if all you’ve ever known is “true blue Ateneo”. Others will say you lack experience even if you’ve been around the world contracting business affairs. For some, one game in the UAAP is enough to call experience, where for others, a player needs four years to be called experienced.

Obviously it is true when we call experience “the world of more meanings”. Meaning is essence, and therefore experience is part of the world of more essence. Does this mean the more we experience, the more we discover the essence of the world? Or do we discover the essence of ourselves?

In experience, we cannot separate ourselves from the world, as we are experiencing it, so therefore the essence of the world, is a part of our own essence. What we have experienced of the world, each moment of action that we can be consciously aware of, makes up our own essence. Our own meaning.
At one point in my life, I was a server (a more fancy term for waiter) at an acceptably high class restaurant back home before I came to the Ateneo. In serving food, I was a server. I was being a server. I was experiencing the world of serving and working (almost full time), and because I was immersed in that world, I was discovering my essence, as a person being the server.

Or even more reflective; I came to the Philippines thinking it would be a “good experience for me” and it has turned out to be just that. So as I experienced the Philippines, I was discovering the essence of the Philippines, but at the same time I was discovering the essence of being Filipino.  Now does this mean before I arrived in Manila, I wasn’t a Filipino? Not necessarily, but when you can finally experience the land of your parents birth, there is more essence to be conscious of.

There is just more to experience. Or more to the world of more meanings. More to the world of more essence. Experience is a never-ending chase to know everything, but of course we must pick and choose what we want to be part of our essence. We can’t have it all, nor do we want it all, but there is always an experience that calls us and is ready to become a part of us.

One last question: when we experience more essence, are we simply discovering it in ourselves? Or allowing some essence of the world to become part of what we are being? Or maybe do we just become aware, or conscious of something else in the world, which changes our own essence, or meaning.