Joel Tabora, SJ Conclusion LET us work, understanding that all these will have its costs. It will cost us energy, time, dedication and resources, both institutional and personal. Let us work to sustain ourselves in our mission. The institution, in dialogue with the unions, will seek to provide salaries and benefits to the best of its ability. But if we face the challenges of our day, we will not be sustained by salaries and merit increases alone, but only by an alignment of our inner selves – our personal will – with the work that we do, that what we do is what we really want to do. We are sustained as well by the affirmation we receive from our students and alumni/ae, and the recognition we receive from our superiors, colleagues, families and friends, that what we do is meaningful and important. We are sustained by an inner peace. For this reason, even as the Duterte age dawns, we must anchor our hopes in realism, accepting our institutional and personal limitations, our multiple commitments not only to instruction, research and outreach, but to our families, our friends, our selves and our God. We must take care of ourselves. And one another. Perhaps, help each other with time management. Help each other to physical and spiritual health. Converse with one another. Celebrate each other’s achievements, each other’s insight, each other’s gifts. Encourage, rather than discourage; strengthen, rather than weaken; inspire, rather than tear down. In the richness of our lives, time is truly scarce. But when we have no time for one another, we are utterly impoverished. All this – with all of the deadlines for lesson plans, the submission of grades, the work in the field, the service of others, the reports on projects, the chores at liquidation – is part of the university community we ultimately want to be part of, want to be proud of, and want to make work. Last Tuesday, I went to Zamboangita, Bukidnon. It was fiesta there, the feast of Our Lady, Mediatrix of all Graces. The community there is very grateful for the many things ADDU has done for them. When they say ADDU they mean the institution certainly. But what they specifically mean are the ADDU volunteers who have shared with them of their time and talent, Engr. Richard Manapol who helped them with value engineering in the construction of the St. Isidore SHS, Karl Ebol who monitored the expenditures in its construction, the InDex volunteers, Batch II who immersed themselves in the Zamboangita community but helped it with its political discernment, the volunteers from UITO and Computer Studies, who brought and set up their computers, the Arrupe volunteers who with the School of Education helped in capacity building of teachers and who with the Samahan are now working on a year-long Pagbabahagi program to respond to the material needs of the school. Last Tuesday when all the thanks were being expressed to me representing the institution, I was grateful for and proud of our volunteers. As I am proud of all of you. For, considering the limitation of our remuneration, we are at core all volunteers. The root word for “volunteer”, you may recall, is the Latin, voluntas, meaning will. You are here at ADDU, and stay here, because you will to be here and will to stay here. In responding to the gratitude of Frs. Nilo Labra, mission superior, and Ernald Andal, SHS Director, I said, “You’re most welcome. We have the same mission!” Same mission. At Zamboangita, I asked Fr. Andal how he is able to sustain his teachers, to whom the school can only afford to pay some PHP 8,000 monthly, while public schools are paying PHP 18,000 to 20,000. He said he “smiles at them.” [The smile is worth PHP 10,000!] But beyond that, he helps his teachers improve in their teaching skills, and assures them that if they have to move on, they would have his respect, but at least they would move on as better teachers. In this context of trust, many of them coming themselves from the school and loving its mission, choose to stay. It’s where they will to be. They are the school’s core volunteers. As you are ADDU’s core volunteers, volunteers from the heart, if you are here not just because of your salaries and benefits considerably higher than P8,000 a month, but ultimately because you will to be here sharing the same mission as the teachers in St. Isidore, and because what you do is ultimately aligned with your heart. The service asked of us as ADDU under the Duterte administration is ultimately what we volunteer to do, what we will do. Even if it means transcending limitations: by re-organising ourselves to maximise our strengths and overcome our weaknesses, by working at the professional studies, by finding the quiet for more reading and writing, by learning to better communicate our convictions and concerns, by being willing to understand, discuss and debate the pros and cons of the death penalty or of federalism or of constitutional change or of the use of drugs by our students. We transcend limitations by re-entering ourselves in reflection, thought and prayer, and finding the courage for the prophetic declaration. We transcend limitations by re-discovering ourselves in service. ADDU has long traditions of volunteer work. We are formed in freedom through volunteer work. In disasters we call for volunteers, our psychologists from COPERS are always among the first responders, during elections we depend on volunteers, in reaching out to the poor, we volunteer. The partnership we have forged with the DepEd in contributing to the Tboli culture-appropriate Senior High School is based on the volunteer work of our anthropologists and education specialists, of our architects and engineers. The work that we have done with the St. Aloysius Gonzaga Institute in Taungyi, Myanmar is based on volunteer work originally from our Department of Education. You also know that ADDU has been working through the CEAP to send volunteers to teach in Islamic Schools of Bangsamoro areas; we have just sent out the second batch of the Madaris Volunteer Program (MVP). Recently, we started the ADDU Cardoner Volunteer Program, a year-long volunteer-service program offered to graduates and faculty members of ADDU. The program recalls that by the Cardoner River, St. Ignatius was overpowered by a mystical experience through which, in the words of his Autobiography, “the eyes of his understanding began to be opened; though he did not see any vision, he understood and knew many things, both spiritual things and matters of faith and learning, and this was with so great an enlightenment that everything seemed new to him. It was as if he were a new man, with a new intellect.” Through the new program, the hope is that such an experience be given to the volunteers. In this first batch of Cardoner Volunteers, we are sending volunteers to the Bangsamoro areas, Lake Sebu, and Taunggyi, Myanmar. Those who go on these programs don’t get paid salaries. They just go. They go because they want to go. For St. Ignatius it was very important for us to be in touch with “that which I desire,” id quod volo, that which I will. In the Spiritual Exercises, asking, stating, begging for what I want precedes every prayer in which ultimately we ask God what he wills. As President-elect Duterte is about to take cudgels for national leadership, as change is coming, and you are here, what is it that you want? Let me end by recalling to you the meditation on the Kingdom – which spans the first and second week of the Spiritual Exercises. It spans the experience of the forgiven penitent with the experience of the missioned disciple. St. Ignatius asks us to meditate on an earthly king who invites his supporters to work with him on his mission. “Whoever wishes to come with me must be content to eat as I eat, drink as I drink, dress as I dress, etc. He must be willing to work day and night, so that sharing in toils, he may share in my victory.” The earthly king could be Leni Robredo; it could be Rodrigo Duterte. St Ignatius invites us to consider that the normal subject would say yes, since the king is a good person, or be considered weird. But St. Ignatius then invites us to consider that Jesus calls – Jesus who proclaimed the Kingdom of God and on the Cross became himself the unlikely King. We are asked to consider our logic in saying yes to an earthly king. Wouldn’t all who have judgment and reason necessarily say yes to the Eternal King? “Follow me,” he said. “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Say yes to this King. Volunteer. In this context, we ask how are we to be a Jesuit, Catholic and Filipino University as Mr. Duterte takes the reigns of government. I think, we must understand that which we want – before the earthly President, then before the Eternal King.   Be part of the change. Be a channel of His grace. We must listen, discern, and serve. Volunteer. As an excellent teacher, a compassionate counselor, an ardent researcher, a courageous defender of human rights, an ardent advocate of the common good, a staunch defender of the environment, an advocate of educational reform. Finally, allow me to remind you. In the meditation on the Kingdom, when the disciple considers how one can distinguish oneself in following the Lord, Ignatius does not point to getting honors or winning merit points or advancing in academic rank or publishing in refereed journals or building schools for the indigenous peoples. Instead, he counsels “working against one’s sensuality and carnal and worldly love” and volunteering to be like Jesus who “emptied himself… being obedient to death, even death on the cross” (Phil 2:7). For this purpose, peering into the eyes of the Crucified Lord in our Assumption Chapel and letting him peer into yours may be helpful. We have a new President of the Philippines. But we have an Eternal King. His name is Jesus Christ. And he is ours. (Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ is president of the Ateneo de Davao University. He is also Vice President of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines and chair of its Advocacy Committee, and President of the Ceap in Region 11. Reprinted with permission.--Mindanews)