|
Greetings:
The Honorable Board of Regents headed by one
of the most brilliant and respected Senators
that our country has ever produced, Chairman
Wigberto E. Tañada; the University
President, Atty. Eduardo D. De Los Angeles,
the Deans, Faculty and Staff, the Members of
the Graduating Class and their parents and
families, Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, GOOD
AFTERNOON.
Whenever I am asked to address occasions
that recognize achievements, like a
Graduation Ceremony that we are witnessing
today, the 63rd Commencement Exercises of
the MANUEL L. QUEZON UNIVERSITY, our beloved
Alma Mater, I am always reminded of how
Japanese employers would celebrate the
success of employees who were promoted in
their companies. In Japan, the way they do
it is unique. It is not the employee who is
the honoree and lavished with praises for a
doing good and successful job, but the focus
of everybody's attention is his superior or
"boss", who patiently and tirelessly taught,
trained, supervised, and sacrificed for him,
who is given the highest accolades and
commendation for his employees' success.
Personally, I feel that there is a good
sense in doing the honors and giving them to
the right persons using the Japanese way.
And so, on this special and memorable
occasion, allow me to give the highest
honors and praise, first, to the Highest
boss and superior that we all could ever
have, the Almighty God whose lordship and
sovereignty over all creations make every
success possible. Second, I give honors and
respect to the ever-sacrificing parents,
whose dream and wish is to give all their
children brighter future and the best in
life that they could afford, probably
something that they themselves missed in
their own personal lives. Third, my sincere
commendation to the ever-devoted teachers,
mentors, and educators and the staff of this
institution, whose hard work and patience
help in molding you in to who you are and
what you have become today.
But of course, we will still insist to do
the Filipino traditional way of saluting the
Members of the Graduating Class, and to all
of you, my heartfelt congratulations for a
job well-done. You all deserve the diplomas
that you will be receiving today your
"passport" to the first step in your chosen
professional career.
I will be brief and straight to the point in
the message that I would like to share with
you. There are only four practical and
inspiring lessons in life that I, myself,
have learned which may help you prepare for
the big and exciting challenges ahead.
First,
remember to strive for excellence always.
We live in a global world and Filipinos are
global people. We are present in more than
190 countries around the globe and we are
out there competing with citizens of nations
of various origins, races and culture. Hence
at home, Filipino-owned companies and their
workers also face stiff competition against
multinational firms and their workers in a
highly competitive business environment. The
realities of the global labor market compel
us to think global and do things the global
way. That way is none other than what I
call, "the way of excellence". It is the
only way to compete and survive globally,
whether you work here in the Philippines or
abroad.
Dear Graduates, excellence should not scare
you and me. Neither should it be a rare
thing for anyone of us to do. Excellence has
been defined by one author to simply mean
"doing a common thing in an uncommon way".
Put it another way, "It is doing ordinary
things in extraordinary way". To excel is to
recognize, among others, that your first
competitor is none other than yourself. The
influence that you can exert in your
workplace can only equal with the excellence
that you display in terms of the passion,
creativity and innovation that you put into
your job. That is the mark that will
distinguish you from the rest and will make
you a "winner" in your workplaces.
You may ask yourselves then: "How will I
know that I am doing an excellent job?" The
ever famous Martin Luther King, Jr., 1694
Nobel Peace Prize Winner and known to be the
Father of American civil rights movement,
has something to reply to this query. He
said: "No work is insignificant. If a man in
called to be street sweeper, he should sweep
streets even as Michelangelo painted, or
Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare
wrote poetry. He should sweep street so well
that all the hosts of heaven and earth will
pause to say, "Here lived a great street
sweeper who did his job well". In other
words, Martin Luther King, Jr. is telling us
that whatever our life's work is, we should
do it well. A man should do his job so well
that the living, the dead, and the unborn
could do it no better.
You may want to ask yourselves again, how
will this life principle apply to me? The
answer in simple. It is not really the kind
of job that you do that counts the most. It
is how you do your job that makes the big
difference and makes you excel above the
rest. It is the display of passion that
people see when you do your job and look at
the finished product. It stands out from the
rest because there is a distinct value added
that makes it unique. In terms of attitude,
it is always your willingness to "go the
extra mile," to exceed the quota, and give
back more than what you receive. When Irwin
Field was put in Who's Who in America and
was asked for a quotation to go with his
biographical sketch, he wrote, "I have
found out that if you give the public more
than their money's worth while maintaining a
high standard of quality, they will respond
fully with their support. I have always
insisted on giving the paying public more
than they expect." That same positive and
healthy attitude augurs well for good
employer-employee relations.
Dear Graduates, the attitude of doing what
is more than expected enables you to be
creative and innovative. It avoids the
perennial problem of monotony and boredom in
our work. It helps you discover your hidden
talents and potentials in doing things that
you have never done before. By giving the
best of ourselves to our job, it earns you
self-respect and self worth and adds dignity
and honor to your person and your job. One
author says it all: "Every job is a
self-portrait of the person who did it."
Surely, you do not want to be identified
with work that is mediocre and half-done,
but with something that is excellent and
which you can be proud of.
One noticeable mark of an excellent worker
is how he makes his time productive and
profitable. J. Willard Marriot, founder of
the Marriott Corporation and owner of the
Marriott chain of hotels, is known to work,
not eight or ten or twelve but eighteen
hours a day for many years. He said: "No
person can get very far in this life on a
forty-hour week." Going beyond the normal
working hours, when there is work that has
yet to be done, is a noticeable mark of a
person who has developed passion for
excellence in his work. He learns to value
time just as he values life. Benjamin
Franklin once said: "Dost thou love life?
Then do not squander time, for that is the
stuff life is made of." Someone also said:
"Waste your money and you're only out of
money, but waste your time and you've lost
part of your life". Even Henry Ford has also
said this: "It has been my observation that
most people get ahead during the time that
others waste." That is how excellent people
value time and stay ahead of the rest.
Second, remember
that education is a life-long process of
learning, unlearning, and relearning.
Completing your course and receiving your
diploma today is not the end of it. The
person who graduates today and stops
learning tomorrow is uneducated the day
after. You must therefore enroll yourselves
in a lifetime self-improvement program to
continuously add to your knowledge, hone
your skills, and build on the values and
character that you want to be reflected into
your own job. You must seek out new and
additional information all the time. You owe
it to yourselves to regularly read
magazines, attend seminars, join study
tours, surf the internet, visit the library,
and read good books that will keep you
updated of current issues and developments,
especially in your chosen career. In this
time and age of information technology, you
must remember that knowledge is power. It is
influence. It is money. And that is why
knowledge is worth everything it may cost
you to obtain it.
A story was told that in a business class at
the University of Wisconsin, USA, the
students had to interview a number of local
people and write a report. One student
thought the assignment was a waste of time
until he spoke with a 78 year old farmer. He
asked the old man, "How much education do
you have?" The farmer answered, "Six years
of schooling and seventy two years of
learning." Will Durant also said: "Sixty
years ago, I knew everything; now I know
nothing. Education is a progressive
discovery of our own ignorance."
Dear Graduates, it is definitely also a
unlearning process as we discard what has
been rendered obsolete and relearn as we
acquire new ways of thinking and doing.
There is indeed no end to education for a
long as you are willing to learn.
Third, remember that it is practical to
accept the first available job and get the
needed experience. In
addition to your diploma, gaining experience
is a "must" to your employability and
marketability. When you first apply for a
job, do not be choosy for as long as that it
is within your field of study. It is
practical and wise to accept the first
available job where you qualify, not
necessarily for the money or salary that it
pays but for the experience that you need.
Later, with the skills and added
competencies that you get out of your
experience, you will be ready to demand and
negotiate for better and higher paying job.
For now, you must be fully aware that what
you need is work experience and a good
employer who is willing to give you the
chance to apply what you learn inside the
classrooms. You are all familiar with the
saying that experience is the best teacher,
meaning, what you learn inside the
classrooms has to be tested in the best
school of experience. The Farmer's Almanac
says: "Experience does all her teaching
backwards; she gives a test before
explaining the lesson."
Even in my present work, as Secretary of
Labor and Employment, I advise job seekers
that after graduation, they should not be
very choosy and they should look first for
jobs in the domestic labor market, not in
overseas markets. Don't be lured by illegal
recruiters who will offer you jobs overseas
because it takes at least two yers work
experience before you can land a good and
decent job overseas. The objective in
looking for a job locally is not to earn a
living, but to gain experience for any first
timer or new entrants in the labor force.
Dear Graduates, you may be asking now
probably the most important question that
you have ever asked yourself and that isZ:
"What jobs are out there in the labor market
that would fit my qualifications and will
suit my needs or my wants? I want to assure
you that there are job vacancies. For
example, just access our Philjobnet which is
the government online job and skill portal
and you will find more than 60,000 vacancies
logged by the employers themselves. These
include job that will be in demand for the
next 10 years based on our labor market
study called JobsFit 2020 that identifies
the following industries as key employment
generators - agribusiness, cyber-services,
health and wellness, hotel and restaurant,
tourism, mining, construction, banking and
finance, manufacturing, ownership, dwelling
and real estate, transport and logistics,
and wholesale and retail trade. There are
also four emerging industries identified in
the study - creative industries,
diversified/strategic farming and fishing,
power and utilities, and renewable energy.
In terms of employment opportunities,
graduates are likely to find available jobs
like animators, computer programmers,
software engineers and web developers, MIS
developer, platform engineer, civil,
electrical, industrial, and computer
engineering, CAD operators, accountants,
bank tellers and managers, call center
agents, telemarketers, transcriptionists,
and architects, by way of examples, They are
categorized as "hot" jobs that are in demand
both here in our country and abroad. Sadly,
many of the vacancies remain unfilled for 4
months and we have to delete them from the
active list despite many jobseekers who
apply online and for some reasons. One, they
do not have the skills that match the jobs
and they will still need training to qualify
for the jobs. Bridging courses that address
the gaps will be needed ad there are
government and private scholarships that
offer trainings for work programs. Two, they
look for high paying jobs for which they do
not qualify. And three, they are simply too
lazy and don not look for jobs at all. I
hope not any one of the graduate here today
would fall under the third category of
reasons I just mentioned.
But for those who will land in your first
job sooner than you expected, remember that
as you progress in your career, it is good
to know this early that there is hardly
nowadays such things as lifetime employment.
Workers move from one job to another because
they are multi-skilled and can have multiple
careers and multiple employers. These can
shield them from unemployment brought about
by sudden shocks like natural and man-made
calamities, disasters and emergencies, such
as the one we are witnessing in Libya, the
Middle East and Japan. The global world of
work has entered the era when what matters
most to workers is employment security and
not job security. Or better still, why don't
you consider becoming employers yourselves?
You can start as micro-entrepreneurs, given
that micro, small and medium enterprises
serve as the backbone of the country's
economy. Instead of wage-earners, you become
job providers.
While career decisions are personal
decisions and I do not have the right to
pass judgment, there are those who would
value more the immediate gratification that
money can give than the honors and the
dignity of the profession that they need to
preserved. Actually, in any issue of life,
the choice is not a question of money. It is
more of the principles and character that
make a person who he is and what he
becomes. One author says very aptly, "The
highest reward for a man's toil is not what
he gets from it, but what he becomes by it".
More than the academic achievements and the
material rewards that go with success, the
enriching inter-personal relations and the
good character and reputation of a person
for honesty, integrity, loyalty, hard work
and perseverance, or the so-called "soft
skills", remain the key to real success in
life. John Henry Jowett says: "the real
measure of our wealth is how much we'd be
worth if we lost all our money."
Fourth, and the
most important, remember that work is a gift
from God to His children. It
is intended to served the good of others,
the community and our nation and country as
a whole. Many times, I wonder why people
have to say: “Thank God, it’s Friday.” Could
it be that work to them is more of a burden
and not a gift that brings enjoyment,
satisfaction and fulfillment in life? It’s a
good a question to ask you about.
But truth is, GOD is the model worker and He
gives work as a gift. As the giver GOD is
our true employer. We work to praise GOD and
not to please men. When we serve others, we
serve wholeheartedly as if we are serving
GOD, not men. That is the right perspective
and the right priority to follow and
observe. It is looking at work from its
spiritual dimension. That is why we, who
professed to know GOD, are expected to be
excellent workers in the chosen field where
GOD has called us to be. Filipinos as a
Christian nation and people are called to
excellence and our country or abroad, and
whether we are sweeping streets, or washing
dishes, or managing a multi-million peso
business, or working as a clerk or head of a
government agency, we always give the best
of ourselves to our job because no work is
insignificant to excel in doing it. We offer
our work and labor back to God as our
spiritual act of worship, holy and pleasing
to Him. We, Filipinos as a race should be
known by the excellent work that we do as
the best way of honoring our God and our
country, our Motherland.
These are principles and lessons that I
learned and have inspired me in my daily
life. They help me grow and mature in my
inner person and enable me to strive
continuously to be the kind of person God
wants me to be. They will help you to how to
be a winner in the workplace and a real
champion in life.
Dear Graduates, I am certain that in this
academic institution, our beloved Alma
Mater, the right foundation for lifelong
education has been laid down in our minds
and in our hearts, the way John Harvard,
whose bequests endowed Harvard University,
understood it when he said in 1636, “Let
every student be plainly instructed and
earnestly pressed to lay Christ in the
bottom as the only foundation of all
knowledge and learning.
On this note, I extend once again my
heartfelt congratulations to the graduates,
to their parents and to the founders and all
the men and women behind the Manuel L.
Quezon University, on its 63rd
Commencement Exercises. I will always look
back, with pride and fond memories, to MLQU,
my home for more than eight years of my
Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees
and even my Pre-Bar Review, concrete proof
my devotion and loyalty to my dear Alma
Mater and deep in my heart, I will always
say, “I am proud to be a Quezonian”.
Thank you and God bless us all. |
