By Beatriz Zamora and Mark Kevin Reginio | Special to the BusinessMirror
COMING from the sidelines of a Christian high school in Taytay, Rizal, 20-year-old Merla Nugas never expected to be where she is today.
The information-technology (IT) graduate from the University of the East-Manila (UE) campus delivered her speech as the sole summa cum laude awardee during the 19th Graduates’ Forum for Class 2017 Scholars.
“Let’s just say that anxiety turned into excitement when I shared my experiences and that I was somehow giving them inspiration,” she said in Filipino.
A total of 91 scholars under the Metrobank Foundation Scholarship Program concluded their journey as beneficiaries of the company, which Metrobank Foundation President Aniceto Sobrepeña cited as the biggest number of scholar graduates in a long time.
Among them were five magna cum laude and 15 cum laude honorees.
With a mind-boggling general weighted average of 1.13, her hard work paid off. Throughout her college years, Nugas went through many struggles—the greatest of them being a low self-esteem.
“I was not that confident to the point that I didn’t want to get involved in organizations,” she added.
However, receiving not only the Assistance for the Completion of College Education for Superior Students scholarship from Metrobank Foundation, but a full-tuition discount with stipend from UE propelled Nugas to overcome her anxiety of assertion.
Her passion for the digital arts pushed her to join the Computer Students’ Society in her university, ultimately achieving the position of vice president for internal affairs during her years of membership.
Multiple responsibilities took a heavy toll on Nugas, as her time was compromised by the times she had to traverse the traffic from her home in Pasig City to UE in Recto and back.
She said, “I was already juggling the multiple areas of my studies, add to that the organization work. It came to a point when my mother would reprimand me of coming home late on a regular basis.”
In the end, Nugas realized her priorities were her family and God. She thanked her technician father, housewife mother and younger sister for being her sources of strength.
Sobrepeña said in his opening speech that helping students, like Nugas, achieve education is an advocacy close to Metrobank founder and Chairman Dr. George SK Ty.
“The primary purpose of education is to learn how to conduct oneself in society, to be reasonable and be able to differentiate between right and wrong,” he said, quoting Ty. In the future, Nugas aspires to teach technological science at the collegiate level and to volunteer for groups which provide coding and programming techniques for children.
On the second day of the 19th Metrobank Foundation Graduates’ Forum, scholars were encouraged to give back to their family, community, the country and to God, as they begin their professional career.
“The second day’s focus is to impart to the participants the concept of paying it forward to [their] community whether in their locality and, of course, to concertize their community being members of the alumni relations,” Education Unit Senior Program Officer Dyan Tee said.
Around 60 graduate scholars gathered at the University of Santo Tomas auditorium on June 24 to participate in a series of team-building activities that would translate their cognitive knowledge to actual actions they could use in their respective places.
The foundation changed its theme this year from the usual “Celebrating Excellence” to a more challenging “#Payit4ward: Service to 4Cs [Creator, Clan, Community, Country]”.
“We changed our theme because we want to make it meaningful to them…What we want is to inculcate to them the knowledge that beyond self they should also think of our country, their community and, of course, the creator,” Assistant Program Officer Allan Reyes said in Taglish.
While serving the community and the country is the challenge among these scholars, for Rolyne Dominique Patron and Roland Gil Bilang, serving the people has been their responsibility since they started college.
For three years now, Patron, magna cum laude graduate of Ateneo De Zamboanga University, has been active in Operation Shoebox Campaign of Ateneo Centennial Scholars where she served as a president during her graduating year.
Under this project, organization members gather resources from different benefactors and companies to buy school supplies, which they put in colorful shoeboxes that will be given to students in their community.
They were able to produce 2,016 shoeboxes last year, which they gave to students all over Zamboanga Peninsula.
“There was this lack of fulfillment during my college years that I got in my organization,” Accounting major Patron said.
Meanwhile, Palawan State University graduate Bilang has been helping depressed local community thrive and succeed.
During his second year in petroleum engineering, with the help of a non-governmental organization, Bilang and his classmates conducted “Gamot na Natural, para sa Pamayanang Lokal”, where they started an herbal garden in a fire-displaced community in Bukana, Puerto Princesa.
Bilang is also active, as president, of a nationwide association of student leaders that advocates community volunteerism among student organizations.
“I always involve myself [to] something [that] really benefits the community,” he said.
Metrobank Foundation has been awarding financial grants to students since 1995 and has produced 986 graduates.
Image credits: MK Reginio