Message from the President

This year’s graduation theme, “Rising Above Challenging Times,” has a special significance for me because I have always loved a good challenge. While some fear challenges and seek instead to create a life of ease and comfort, I have always subscribed to Theodore Roosevelt’s model of the strenuous life, one full of challenges and obstacles – and finding ways to overcome them – as the type worth living. If men and women had refused to take challenges head on and did not seek to create a better life for themselves, then humanity would have never progressed and we would still be living in caves and using stone tools. 

So never let others tell you that challenges of whatever nature - economic, social, familial, political, etc. – are bad for you or that you cannot achieve or, worse, you do not deserve to achieve your aspirations. The opposite is true, challenges are great for you; they make you stronger and better.  Challenges are the life application of the principle of resistance training for athletes – you have to increase the weight that you lift in order to get stronger and you have to face greater personal challenges to become a better person.

When I applied to take my Master’s in Law at Harvard Law School, many laughed at me behind my back because no Filipino Muslim had ever been accepted. I applied anyway and not only was I accepted but I was the commencement speaker of my graduating class. Similarly, when I took over as President of PLM in 2007, critics said I was too young, inexperienced, and unqualified to run the most prestigious local university in the Philippines. However, in the span of two years, on the academic side, we developed topnotchers in, among others, Nursing, Architecture, and Physical Therapy. We also established a free shuttle service for our employees, a fitness center, free internet stations for the students, a first-class air-conditioned cafeteria, and a modern gymnasium.

So do not let the global economic crisis and worries about finding a job plunge you into despair. Remember that by being a PLM graduate, you have a distinct advantage of obtaining education from the country’s premier local university. Also, don’t forget how hard it was to get accepted in PLM in the first place, we only get the top twenty five per cent or so, and how hard it was to maintain your grade point averages for you to stay in the University. You have been through tough times before and have risen above them. I know that you will also arise above the challenges of the times.

As a parting word, do not forget that your education is, in every sense of the word, a gift. In a country where only one out of ten grade school students finish college, your obtaining a tertiary education is a real privilege. So don’t squander it and do something good for your country. And doing good for the country should be the real challenge that we must seek to face.

My dearest graduates, I honor and congratulate you all.

Atty. ADEL A. TAMANO, A.B., J.D., MPA, LL.M.
University President, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
National President, Association of Local Colleges and Universities