In our culture where the trait of pakikisama is strong, classmates or contemporaries in school are expected to support one another. This is especially true in educational institutions where the value of solidarity among batchmates has been instilled from the very first day of being together.
Thus, when someone runs for public office, schoolmates often form campaign teams. If the candidate wins, he or she is expected to appoint those friends from school. Take the case of former President Rodrigo Duterte. He appointed classmates or schoolmates from San Beda College of Law. Among them were Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, Transportation Secretary Art Tugade, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea who accompanied him to The Hague, and Supreme Court Associate Justice Noel Tijam who penned the decision that removed Maria Lourdes Sereno as Chief Justice. President Noynoy Aquino appointed Rene Almendras in various capacities in his cabinet; they were classmates and close friends in Ateneo de Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. appointed some batchmates from UP College of Law to the Supreme Court, like Ramon Aquino, Felix Makasiar, and Ramon Fernandez. These justices always ruled in favor of their batchmate.
Indeed, it is almost an expectation that friends from school will benefit if someone from their batch occupies a high office with appointing powers. This trait can easily be abused when the good of the batch is equated with the common good.
I mention this trait in our culture because there are happy developments in the political scene that go against the trend. The classmates of Senator Allan Peter Cayetano have issued a strongly worded statement entitled “Call for Integrity and the Observance of the Rule of Law.” It is a stinging rebuke against their former classmate. It states that “the Senate has clearly gone beyond its powers, arrogated powers reserved for the two other departments.” It then continues, “Regrettably, at the helm of this crisis is a member of Ateneo Class of 1997. We therefore appeal to our batchmate Senate President Allan P. Cayetano to remember what we were taught in the Ateneo and to adhere to our oath as lawyers and officers of the court.” It more specifically urges the Senate President that, “in making pronouncements, keep only to the known facts and avoid interpretations for convenience and accommodations.” The batchmates remind Cayetano that “custody means that you are responsible to produce the person under your protection when so required by the Executive or the Judiciary.”
While the statement of his batchmates was in the form of an appeal, more than a hundred former leaders of rival student associations, SAMASA and Nagkakaisang Tugon, called for his resignation. It is important to point out that Cayetano was once a student leader of Tugon. The statement bluntly tells Cayetano, “…you are no longer defending institutions or rule of law. You are actively undermining them.”
It is not just Cayetano who is facing the ire of schoolmates. So is Senator Loren Legarda. The student council of the school where she finished her elementary and secondary educations, Assumption College San Lorenzo, supported the petition to remove her picture from the wall of empowered women. The student council calls on Legarda to “reflect on the principles she once upheld as a student and as a public servant.” Essentially the same call for reflection can be read in the statement of the University of the Philippines Broadcasting Association, which Legarda used to head. The statement admonishes the senator, stating that her choices “stand in contradiction with the principles of accountability, public service and democratic responsibility that UP students are taught to uphold.”
The case of Senator Bato de la Rosa is different. There are pressures for his classmates to issue a statement of support for the senator in the name of their brotherhood. But his own batchmate Allan Cusi warned his mistahs, “brotherhood should never compel a man to surrender his conscience, independent judgment, or fidelity to the constitution merely to prove loyalty.” Repudiation by former classmates, alumni associations, and the alma mater itself cannot be a small matter. Do we not feel the desire to be recognized as an outstanding alumnus or alumna of our alma mater? Instead, we are practically disowned.
