The University of the Philippines welcomed this year’s batch of freshmen, transferees, shiftees, and foreign exchange students in UP Diliman through a rousing program, this year’s University Welcome Assembly (UWA), on September 18, 2023 at the UP Theater.
The UP president and the UP Diliman chancellor, college deans, and secretaries briefed the audience on what to expect from their college, campus, and university; and on their life as UP students.
Hearing UP President Angelo Jimenez for probably the first time, the audience appeared to warm up to him as he did a roll call of the crowd by geographical origin. They also cheered most of the what he pointed to.
Jimenez briefed the students on the stereotypes.
“Aktibista daw ang mga taga-UP. Natural. We encourage activism. . . because we care. You care [about] what’s happening to your community, your society, your country, to the world. . . . You see something that needs to be changed, you do something to change it,” he said.
“They say you are radicals. Radical is root, di ba? Because you will be trained to look at the cause of the cause. . . until your mind is able to grasp the root causes,” he added.
But Jimenez also gave the students an early reality check.
“This University was really created to produce leaders of a very young nation over a hundred years ago. We succeeded so much. But after a hundred years, our society is still among the most unequal in the world. In Southeast Asia, we’re second most unequal. . . .
“That is the first great moral paradox of our existence,” he said, encouraging the students to think as early as now how to turn things around for the University whose mission beyond honor and excellence was to serve the country.
Jimenez further emphasized the value of their education, “With the kind of inequality we’re experiencing today, your education is not a right, it is a privilege.”
“Study,” he told them. “And think about those other people who have to have less so that you could have this great opportunity,” Jimenez added, referring to the resources being spent for the students’ education. “Serve the people.”
“I would like your generation to replicate themselves to the idea of the University which shall embrace the highest hopes of our people, their deepest devotions, their most serious aspirations,” he said.
The students got to know the diverse backgrounds of the University’s top leaders: Jimenez as a Student Regent and Student Council Chair; UP Diliman Chancellor Edgardo Carlo Vistan as a Law student with a Microbiology undergraduate degree; and Admissions Director Francisco delos Reyes as a statistician who rose above the poverty of his family through a UP education.
Performances were rendered by KontraGaPi, the UP Concert Chorus, the ConChords, the UP Streetdance Club, and Legato Visual Performing Arts Group. The UP Pep Squad taught the UP cheers. There were also random live interviews with members of the audience conducted by the masters of ceremonies, Jose Monfred Sy and Christine Joy Magpayo, both of the College of Arts and Letters.
