The President’s
call to the youth

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

That was sound advice that President Benigno Aquino III gave to new college graduates and jobseekers recently. He asked them to consider working for the government and not be drawn only to better paying jobs in the private sector.

This is now the month of graduations and the Philippines expects to see some 500,000 winding up their college courses these days. These have gone through intensive trainings in various areas in preparation for professions that they hope to make their lifetime careers.

Not all these professions and courses they have completed will assure them of private practice, as in the case of those who took up medicine, law, education, business, and similar studies. The rest will have to settle for employment in private corporations and industries, and become wage-earners. There will be a rush for the better paying jobs in the more attractive areas, but, there is good sense in what the President has said when he called for the young graduates to think seriously about working for the government. There is, indeed, a need for them and their youthful enthusiasm and energy in this area that had somehow become unpopular with jobseekers because of the less attractive remuneration.

But the idealistic ones should think of how much they can help turn their country’s manpower to the right direction. Lamentably, many of those who have been in the service for so long have become jaded, and are no longer able, or willing to go the extra mile as far as delivering the service they are supposed to be paid for. It is shameful to admit it, but it is a fact that some have already lost their sense of honesty, patriotism and honor, and may even have become susceptible to corruption, as well.

Our national hero, Jose Rizal, had called the youth the hope of the Fatherland. That could still be true today, especially because our new administration is so bent on cleansing our bureaucracy and the attitude of those who compose our communities. Perhaps this is where the youth could lead the way.*