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My transformative experience as a college junior is a bit different. This was when the pandemic was heavily onset and the Philippines is experiencing a surge of sequential typhoons alongside each other. During November of 2020, I was stuck in Tuguegarao, Cagayan – the city arguably worst hit by the deadly Typhoon Ulysses. It was reported that about fifteen people died (if I remember correctly), and there was extreme resource scarcity as the mayor of the city was nowhere to be found. It was left up to citizens themselves to create makeshift institutions (soup kitchens, clinics, delivery systems, etc.) in order to help those severely affected.

Me and my friends in Tuguegarao decided to create a makeshift soup kitchen, sourced from donations from my Lasallian and non-Lasallian debate friends. We went to the farthest-flung communities such as Alcala, who had no electricity for about a month, to deliver hot meals, water, and livelihood packages. I left all my academics on hold (fortunately enough, La Salle suspended two weeks of school due to the typhoon), and even spent my birthday in an outreach, to help my fellow Cagayanons.

It was a truly humbling and eye-opening experience to witness the incompetence of the Philippine national and local government units unfold before me. We were witness to officials who were slow to move, unreasonable, corrupt, and annoyingly political in the face of a humanitarian crisis. This has made my advocacies to help the poor much more strengthened, but to prioritize holding government officials accountable. This was also the time of ABS-CBN's shutdown, which was unfortunately felt by people who were barely prepared for the storm's surge, given that the main channel of their news consumption has been cut off the air due to politics.

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As a college freshman, I was sent to Thailand along with two of my orgmates to represent the Philippines in the ASEAN Commission on Human Rights Youth Debates, where we met students from different ASEAN states and debated on relevant and pressing human rights issues that plague the region, such as lowering the age of criminal liability, the vulnerability of tourism as livelihood, wars on drugs, water scarcity, and more. This event is easily one of the highlights of my debating career and Lasallian journey at large, for it was eye-opening to hear unique and visceral struggles of specific communities in our neighboring countries that had seem so foreign and little to me. This has transformed me to become not just a citizen of my nation, but of the world. As an aspiring lawyer and an activist of some sorts, this experience has lit a fire in me to deepen my advocacies for justice and better institutions, especially for the ASEAN region plagued with similar constraints as the Philippines – human rights abuses, dictatorial regimes, a pandemic of misinformation, and ruthless poverty.

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Hosting a Debate Workshop in Ozamiz, Misamis Occidental

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Hosting a Debate Workshop in Ozamiz, Misamis Occidental

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As a college sophomore, I was honored and fortunate enough to be sent to a Lasallian school in Ozamiz to deliver a basics of debating workshop to high school children who have passion for, but have yet to experience a, debate.

Much like the ASEAN Youth Debates highlight, this event holds a special place in the construction of my advocacies as this exposed me to the realities of rural communities. Much more than the evident inaccessible debate education in the school, Ozamiz city at large was a very vibrant, yet poor community. I was moved and disturbed by the haunting stories of rotational blackouts, military encroachment, water and food scarcity, as well as endemic corruption in the area. This was reported to me by students who are considered better off than the average person in the region (as they were studying in a Lasallian institution). One can only imagine the worse for those who live in the fringes of such a fringe society.

This event was crucial in deepening my advocacy of decent work and opportunities for our fellow countrymen. As an economics student, seeing Ozamiz grounded all my discussions on macroeconomics and development, and gave me a good picture of where I can start to visualize and craft solutions for people on the ground. This event singlehandedly made me passionate for policy work, especially in labor economics (as what I am currently working on in my thesis).