Memory Chip of 2006 (Part 5)

Just by the end of September, as Chairperson and Co-Chairperson of the Student Council, Michelle and I attended a conference of student leaders about managing time, leading effectively and conducting a meeting through parliamentary procedure. By the end of the conference, we started nominating and electing for the City Mayor, City Vice Mayor and City Councilors and Department heads for the Cebu City Government’s annual holding of a Cebu City Youth Government wherein student leaders from Cebu City will assume office for a day. I was nominated for City Mayor and I won the election. It was nerve-wracking. The thought of it made me (shiver, haha) worry a lot. What if I won’t do things as directed? What if someone’s better out there than me? Clearly there is, but why me? And on the day of our taking oath of office, I found out.

Directly after we were sworn into office (I’m sorry if I haven’t accounted the sequence of events as they happened, I just can’t remember clearly.), we were sent to the vice mayor’s office to talk about leadership, proper leadership. We wore barongs, some; suits and the girls wore their office attires and some, their Filipiniana outfits. The talk on the vice mayor’s office went from the formalities of leadership to the type of music the vice mayor likes.

Later that day, we were sent to the mayor’s office. I was nervous; I was to see my counterpart (as they call it). The mayor told us something that struck me and I directly identified it as the reason for my being here. He told us things about playing second best. “It is painful”, he said. He gave an example as to how this could be true. He asked us how many of the rivals of the Philippine presidents during their election period we knew. The answer was, not much. Clearly, we don’t get remembered when we are second best. The second on the list of the Presidency was ALMOST the president, but reality hurts, he never was! It’s not the recognition that did not come to us that troubles me the most but it is the fact that we don’t need to be twice better than them to win but just a little better than anybody to achieve victory, as for the case of the Abakada, as the director, I could have done better. Lesson number 7: Que se ra se ra. Whatever will be, will be. What does that mean? For me, it is just accepting what is set in front of you. Karma or ‘gaba’ or even blessings are what they are but what makes them pleasing or disturbing to you is how you accept things. Karma will never be labeled karma if you think of it as a blessing in disguise. A blessing will never be as such if you think you deserve it. Owning things that are not yours is called, theft. Accepting things that are given to you even though they are not yours is called, blessing. It is meant to be with you. There is a difference between accepting and owning, try comparing a stolen cell phone to a freely-given polvoron. Which is a blessing? Good luck!