STUDENTS of the University of the Philippines, being a state-funded institution, are called “Iskolar ng Bayan” or People’s Scholars.
The description gained political weight during the First Quarter Storm (FQS), a time of discontent by a generation of Baby Boomers. The description also carried with it the aphorism “Serve the people,” which Lakan Umali told the BusinessMirror should also characterize the life of millennials today.
“Since they have invested so much in our education [through taxes], we must, therefore, fulfil our mandate in nation-building and serving all those who are marginalized and oppressed,” the 20-year-old Umali said.
Umali added that his awareness beyond himself developed through participating in discussion in schools with fellow students, joining protest rallies and in activities of the Student Council.
Although the current environment in the Diliman campus is not as exciting in the 1970s during the FQS, Umali said he remains optimistic the campus is still a center of activism and help mold more socially aware students like him.
Still, the Anthropology student points out militant tradition that has produced the likes of Enrique Voltaire Garcia in the 1960s to Lean Alejandro in the 1980s must be carried on by the succeeding generations.
“We UP students must always remember that activism must first and foremost be militant,” he said, explaining that activism means exhausting “all avenues to voice out one’s demands for justice.”
“An activist can never be truly happy so long as there is still structural inequality in society.”
Umali believes the main problem of Philippine society right now is that the government sacrifices the access to food, education, health-care and other basic rights of the people in favor of allowing the elite to make a profit.
He advocates free schooling and is against the imposition of martial law.
Although information and communications technology has become a pervasive element in the current realm, Umali points out how much structural inequality has worsened, “even when there is the immense potential for human growth and development.”
According to Umali, a millennial activist is someone who looks at the contemporary context they are in to be able to find the present inequality around them.
“Yet, the millennial activist must also realize that much of these social inequalities are rooted in structures that go way beyond the individual, and teach deep into history,” he says.