THE MOUNTAINEER

Congratulations graduates!
EDISON L. BADDAL

BONTOC, Mountain Province – It’s March once again and the weather is hot and humid in conjunction with the pronouncements of the PAG-ASA. The heat has been bearing upon us since the Ides of March when the cold winds seemed to have been swept away. Just like the rest of the months, some celebrations which involve a frenzy of activities, is associated with the month. For March, it is connected with the celebration of fire prevention month, Women’s Month but most significantly, it is also a graduation month. The graduation of students include those at the elementary, secondary, tertiary, let alone, postgraduate levels.
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The hot and humid weather at this period of the month goes well with the sultry, celebratory mood in tandem with the euphoric feelings of victory of the graduates. The diploma, that piece of folded paper tied with a special cord, is the main cause of it all. For it not only signifies academic achievement and satisfactory completion of all required courses but also a significant token of the best efforts that have been invested by the graduates to successfully hurdle all obstacles to qualify for graduation.
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For a graduate, the long, eager and expectant wait to hold the diploma constitutes expectation and hope. This is nothing to say of the bated breath that the prospective feels as the graduation day, the D-Day of a student’s life, drew closer. All told, the receipt of the diploma constitutes a dream come true for him as a brave, new world is manifested in his milieu.

Hence, the world seems to have stopped for one brief, wondrous and ravishing moment for his sake. On the sidelight, the stuffiness inside the packed graduation hall does not matter as nothing matters more than a the diploma in the graduate’s hand as it holds the key to the future and a gate pass for entry into a better world. Ultimately, the diploma is a glorious finis for a student’s stay, extensive training, refinement and sharpening of his inherent talents, potentials and mettle in his alma mater.
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The strains of the deathless graduation march, a masterpiece cut, developed, refined and perfected from the musical genius of Felix Mendelsohn, always reverberates loud and melodiously during graduation rites. It describes expressively in somber manner the gamut of emotions going on in the psyche of the graduate. Its strains are incomparably delightful to the ears within which the struggles and woes that the graduate underwent prior to the glorious day is being recalled. The strains, nondescript and buoyant, seem to issue forth from a heavenly choir of angels as it wafts in the air.

But if one listens carefully to the sounds of the strain, there seem to be a mysterious sound emanating from it. Bizarre though it is, the melody is also indicative of the forthcoming struggles and woebegone days that will characterize a graduate’s days outside the portal of the school. This is subtly hidden between the strains in which while it serenade’s a graduate’s success it is also warning him of the trials, tribulations, let alone turbulence, that will color his life ahead of him. This negative counterpart is never underscored and syncopated so as not to spoil the day for the graduate.
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This is not to play killjoy for the graduates’ academic victory but just a slice of thought on the matter of graduation as there are always two sides of anything as exemplified by a coin. Anyway, the graduates of 2008 are considered lucky as they are ushered into the real world at this time when the country is being touted to be on the road to economic recovery. This is against the backdrop of a political milieu that is sizzling with strings of scandals with the administration in a constant tussle with squawking opposition. The opposition is trying by all means to belittle the government’s achievements in order to enhance its own hidden agenda. Under such environment, nothing much is in store for the graduates of the year in the same way with those of the previous years.
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So another hundreds of thousands are added to the labor force for the year as they are within the age bracket of 15-64 years which is age for the productively working population. They will be among those who will be knocking on the doors of offices and companies for jobs to keep body and soul. According to statistics, there is an increase in unemployment even with the much-ballyhooed high growth rate. So that the growth failed to create jobs for the labor force even as it fails to seep into the nooks and crannies of the country. In the Cordillera, the National Statistics Coordinating Board declared that the number of poor families in the Cordillera increased from “72,040 in 2003 to 87,050 in 2006.