Here is a transcript of DLSP President Br. Armin Luistro's closing remarks during the launching of Philippine Union of Lasallian Organizations (PULSO) at the Severino delas Alas Hall, De La Salle University-Dasmariñas last 25 January 2008
A Lasallian as President?
One of my real, real dreams is that in this school, among the Lasallian student leaders who attended the soft launching of PULSO, there will be one among you who will be the President of the Republic of the Philippines. Look around you, look around amongst you.
This is a dream as well as a creation—the last time I made a prediction was in a graduation speech last year before three thousand students, parents, and guests where I said that we will be the UAAP champions. A few years from now I want one in this room to be the president of the Republic of the Philippines.
Alam ninyo wala pang nagiging presidenteng Lasalista kaya nagkakaganito ang bayan natin. I am serious of my first prediction because, as what our host said earlier, leaders are created. Leadership is something that we aim for and leadership is not something that we aspire for to fulfill our needs and deficiencies. It is a function that we aim for only because we want to serve.
I will pray, beginning tonight, that in a few years time there will be at least one Lasallian who will respond to the call to be a leader in the truest sense of the word and I want that leader to come from this school.
This is a dream as well as a creation—the last time I made a prediction was in a graduation speech last year before three thousand students, parents, and guests where I said that we will be the UAAP champions. A few years from now I want one in this room to be the president of the Republic of the Philippines.
Alam ninyo wala pang nagiging presidenteng Lasalista kaya nagkakaganito ang bayan natin. I am serious of my first prediction because, as what our host said earlier, leaders are created. Leadership is something that we aim for and leadership is not something that we aspire for to fulfill our needs and deficiencies. It is a function that we aim for only because we want to serve.
I will pray, beginning tonight, that in a few years time there will be at least one Lasallian who will respond to the call to be a leader in the truest sense of the word and I want that leader to come from this school.
Synergy of Students
I can die now because one of my personal dreams, when we started to talk about De La Salle Philippines, is that we will be able to bring together all the schools and, at one stage, there will be a nationwide association of all the student and youth groups.
That was what’s at the back of my mind. What I was also happy about this year is that without my prompting and only through the initiative of the students themselves, PULSO was born. And to me, more than any other organization under De La Salle Philippines, I would consider PULSO as the bedrock of what One La Salle is all about.
Believe me when I say that I am not just elated but I am very, very convinced that this group gathered here today will be the group that will make a difference in all the La Salle schools and will make a difference even outside of La Salle schools.
De La Salle Philippines for the students
I felt proud when I listened to the questions that were asked earlier. I don’t think you got all the answers but that does not diminish my appreciation of the fact that you ask the right questions.
My biggest conviction in life is that those who ask the right questions will get the answers they want. And those answers are answers you will have to create. With that I would like to offer the office of De La Salle Philippines on the 20th floor of Br. Andrew Gonzales FSC Hall, which is the tallest university building in the whole country, to be a place and an office for PULSO.
I would like to extend my personal welcome to each one of you, the De La Salle Philippines office is an office for you. When we started I said I don’t want the DLSP office to be just an office. And one of the real challenges for us was to make sure there were students, young faces who work at De La Salle Philippines.
So, instead of hiring graduates to work with us, we have student interns from various schools. But more than just the interns I would really, really like to invite you to look at and visit De La Salle Philippines, we are just on the 20th floor of Andrew Hall. Once we have the database of your names I hope one of your projects would be to have an ID that can be like a common ID that will allow us to go to other Lasallian institutions and not have to say “I am from Dasmariñas or Canlubang or Lipa.”
I hope that at some stage you can have an ID and say “I am a Lasaliian” and that’s all that matters. If you cannot visit Andrew Hall in the next few weeks or months please do visit us virtually at www.delasalle.ph.
What we would like to offer for all Lasallians, and I’d like to say beginning with the members of PULSO, is a free email service. You can have your name@delasalle.ph forever as long as you consider yourself a Lasallian, even after you graduate. We have worked out a partnership with Google so that you can have this free email service.
We would like to offer this first to the active members of PULSO. Hopefully, this would be a way whereby you could connect with each other. And through the help of the De La Salle Philippines website, hopefully there could be more communications and connectivity among all the student organizations.
I have many more things to say but I will end with two small projects that are not supposed to be just for De La Salle Philippines office and perhaps a little response to the questions that were asked earlier. One is the One Million Trees project. One of my other dreams is that Lasallians will be able to make the Philippines a little greener. Last year, we invited different groups to do one small thing that will help make large scale impact. And we thought of just one small thing: that Lasallians plant little trees in the next five years. There are around 200,000 Lasallians in the Philippines and if everyone just planted one or two trees in the next five years we will have one million.
When we counted the number of trees, through GPS, that were planted and documented by the end of December last year, we found out that we have already planted 70,000 trees. I shared this because this is one way whereby you can do something small but with a big impact. And hopefully you can creatively think of other such projects.
The other thing is the 20% scholarships. If you are a daughter of a father who earns P300,000/month and your seatmate is a son of a laundry woman who receives P7,000/month, both of you since you are both Filipinos should be able to access the same educational opportunities. Regardless of whether your father earns P300,000 or your mother earns P7,000/month.
Part of our dream is that all La Salle schools should be accessible to any Filipino, as long as you pass our entrance tests, and money should not be a problem. We started the program to build P1 billion so that 20% of our schools will be on full scholarships. Student like you are supposed to be beneficiaries of that but I’d like to challenge you, your student organizations, the student councils you belong to, instead of being beneficiaries of our scholarships, to also have scholars themselves.
All you have to do is be very creative. How will you do it? I don’t know but that’s part of the challenge I propose to the group.
What I will end with this afternoon is a congratulatory greeting to all of you, a welcome to De La Salle Philippines, and a sincere prayer that we will be able to work together until we can discover and identify one among you who will serve and become the President of the Republic of the Philippines and solve many of our problems.
Maraming salamat!
Recorded by JE Ramos, DLSP Media Bureau Correspondent
That was what’s at the back of my mind. What I was also happy about this year is that without my prompting and only through the initiative of the students themselves, PULSO was born. And to me, more than any other organization under De La Salle Philippines, I would consider PULSO as the bedrock of what One La Salle is all about.
Believe me when I say that I am not just elated but I am very, very convinced that this group gathered here today will be the group that will make a difference in all the La Salle schools and will make a difference even outside of La Salle schools.
De La Salle Philippines for the students
I felt proud when I listened to the questions that were asked earlier. I don’t think you got all the answers but that does not diminish my appreciation of the fact that you ask the right questions.
My biggest conviction in life is that those who ask the right questions will get the answers they want. And those answers are answers you will have to create. With that I would like to offer the office of De La Salle Philippines on the 20th floor of Br. Andrew Gonzales FSC Hall, which is the tallest university building in the whole country, to be a place and an office for PULSO.
I would like to extend my personal welcome to each one of you, the De La Salle Philippines office is an office for you. When we started I said I don’t want the DLSP office to be just an office. And one of the real challenges for us was to make sure there were students, young faces who work at De La Salle Philippines.
So, instead of hiring graduates to work with us, we have student interns from various schools. But more than just the interns I would really, really like to invite you to look at and visit De La Salle Philippines, we are just on the 20th floor of Andrew Hall. Once we have the database of your names I hope one of your projects would be to have an ID that can be like a common ID that will allow us to go to other Lasallian institutions and not have to say “I am from Dasmariñas or Canlubang or Lipa.”
I hope that at some stage you can have an ID and say “I am a Lasaliian” and that’s all that matters. If you cannot visit Andrew Hall in the next few weeks or months please do visit us virtually at www.delasalle.ph.
What we would like to offer for all Lasallians, and I’d like to say beginning with the members of PULSO, is a free email service. You can have your name@delasalle.ph forever as long as you consider yourself a Lasallian, even after you graduate. We have worked out a partnership with Google so that you can have this free email service.
We would like to offer this first to the active members of PULSO. Hopefully, this would be a way whereby you could connect with each other. And through the help of the De La Salle Philippines website, hopefully there could be more communications and connectivity among all the student organizations.
I have many more things to say but I will end with two small projects that are not supposed to be just for De La Salle Philippines office and perhaps a little response to the questions that were asked earlier. One is the One Million Trees project. One of my other dreams is that Lasallians will be able to make the Philippines a little greener. Last year, we invited different groups to do one small thing that will help make large scale impact. And we thought of just one small thing: that Lasallians plant little trees in the next five years. There are around 200,000 Lasallians in the Philippines and if everyone just planted one or two trees in the next five years we will have one million.
When we counted the number of trees, through GPS, that were planted and documented by the end of December last year, we found out that we have already planted 70,000 trees. I shared this because this is one way whereby you can do something small but with a big impact. And hopefully you can creatively think of other such projects.
The other thing is the 20% scholarships. If you are a daughter of a father who earns P300,000/month and your seatmate is a son of a laundry woman who receives P7,000/month, both of you since you are both Filipinos should be able to access the same educational opportunities. Regardless of whether your father earns P300,000 or your mother earns P7,000/month.
Part of our dream is that all La Salle schools should be accessible to any Filipino, as long as you pass our entrance tests, and money should not be a problem. We started the program to build P1 billion so that 20% of our schools will be on full scholarships. Student like you are supposed to be beneficiaries of that but I’d like to challenge you, your student organizations, the student councils you belong to, instead of being beneficiaries of our scholarships, to also have scholars themselves.
All you have to do is be very creative. How will you do it? I don’t know but that’s part of the challenge I propose to the group.
What I will end with this afternoon is a congratulatory greeting to all of you, a welcome to De La Salle Philippines, and a sincere prayer that we will be able to work together until we can discover and identify one among you who will serve and become the President of the Republic of the Philippines and solve many of our problems.
Maraming salamat!
Recorded by JE Ramos, DLSP Media Bureau Correspondent
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