NOT ALL graduation speeches shout. Some speak in quiet truths. And this year, those truths echoed all over the country—of hardship, survival, and questions that do not end with a diploma. Valedictorians gave us a picture of success with cracks in it, asking, “What does winning mean if you barely survived the race?”
At UPLB, summa cum laude Helbert Paat took the stage with a steady but heavy voice. He was not there for applause. He was there to tell a story—one of growing up with little and seeing how poverty is not just about money. It is also about what we do not learn, what we ignore, and what we allow. His speech was a call: this cap and gown are not the prize—they are just tools. Now, what will you do with them? His speech was not sterile motivational fluff. It was a litany of questions we would rather not ask. Who gets left behind while we rise? Who gets crushed when systems reward a few and spit out the rest?
Then there was the understated grace of Tricia Ann Anda of University of St. La Salle (USLS)-Bacolod, who took her summa medal and tried to give it away—to classmates juggling part-time gigs, cracked devices, and silent battles. Her speech did not shout; it whispered courage. In her words, hardship was not a sob story but a slow transformation, likened to a chrysalis, a quiescent insect pupa like that of a butterfly, where no one watches, and no one claps. Her metaphor of growing wings in silence struck a chord with those who know that resilience is often built offstage. You could imagine the room hold its breath when she honored her overseas mom and said, “What you gave was not absence—it was love in its bravest, quietest form.” That line alone deserved a standing ovation.
Over in Baguio, PMA valedictorian Jessie Ticar Jr. marched past expectations and into the nation’s consciousness. His story was not only of drills and discipline but of a mother who sold pens in city hall to raise a future soldier. His father, once a taxi driver, had a stroke before he entered the Academy. But Jessie did not frame his story as a triumph of the self. He anchored it in community, family, and duty. “In a world trying to change us,” he said, “may we stand firm and change the world instead.” It was a line that earned him the nation’s applause, but also its challenge.
And while many speeches aimed for dignity, some aimed for disruption. At UP Diliman, Val Llamelo warned his listeners early on: if you want to be inspired, scroll elsewhere. Instead, he launched into a hard critique of structural inequity. He questioned why a poor working student graduating summa cum laude remains an anomaly, a “headline,” when it should be the norm. Rather than framing his achievement as proof of “making it,” he called it evidence that the system makes it hard for most. His rhetoric refused to be ornamental. It was a wake-up call disguised as a farewell. And the applause that followed? It was slow, hesitant—but real.
Over at Ateneo de Manila, another valedictorian, Robert Nelson Leung, stepped up with a speech that fused absurdity with depth. Having won a world championship in debate, he knew the weight of words—but he also knew their limits. “A thousand speeches make nothing happen,” he confessed. Then he spun magic, reminding everyone that Magis—the pursuit of more—is not about doing, but becoming. Not just about being right, but about being whole. And it was not just rhetoric. His examples were hilariously grounded: moldy benches in debate rooms, debates with imaginary enemies in the shower, random trips to Divisoria for medals. Sure, his punchlines made them laugh—but his real point was clear: greatness without heart is just noise, and all that discipline turns cruel if it forgets what it is for. (To be continued)/PN
