Delivered during the MSU-SCHOLARS’ QUIZ SHOW by one of OXFORD 2002 Fellow and National Youth Parliament Alumnae Samira Gutoc opening ceremonies held July 23, 2005, 8 am at the Dimaporo gymnasium, MSU-Main, Marawi City

The information revolution is upon us. I used to write letters and wait weeks to get a response. But nowadays, it takes seconds to get answers and even get hooked on friendster, with a multiple message system. Your note gets read by tens of others and you get multiple feedback as well. Talk about the info-highway, text power, interactive TV, accelerating communications, creation of wealth , the flow of ideas. Dynasties are destroyed to favor people power. One day, cancer also will be cured all because of discovery and knowledge. Yep, knowledge is a commodity in this globalizing world. The question is are we prepared for it. Game ka na ba?

But let me first describe the man who changed history especially for us scholars.

This inventor who failed some math exams thus rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said “I was the ignorant freshman in the field” yet “ I didn’t rule anything out.” Jack Kilby, who had never much had formal physics training received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for the most valuable invention of the past half-century (guess what?) – the microchip. The tiny silicon chip at the heart of all digital devices has arguably become the most important industrial commodity since crude oil. How did Kilby do it? Eliminate the wires and carve all the circuit’s basic elements – silicon into a single slice of material. Then voila, a whole computer circuit could fit on a chip the size of a baby’s fingernail. Thanks Kilby for our mobile phones, pc’s, playstations, internet.

We are lucky (or are we?). We are touted the screenie generation – TV couch potatoes, with researches uploadable on our fingertips. We talk, dress, are influenced by what we see on TV. The young generation is the market of shampoo, music, telecom and the fashion industry. Mobile and techie, unfortunately there is a danger that they dictate our taste rather than we deciding for ourselves.. For instance, what if we are fed instead of Britney Spears or Kris or Wowowee, some ethnic songs from Hogey’s Band or this Quiz Show in Mindanao. Wouldn’t that also get audience coverage?

The info-revolution has more radical meanings. The Power-Shift tells us that wealth and opportunity can level the playing field, made more accessible (even as they say it is the equalizing factor) and even facilitate violence. How ? Because knowledge can be used for good or evil. 9-11, Abu Sayyaf attacks, MRT bombings are part of pre-meditated plans and they come from calculating minds with an agenda to kill.

Because crime and hatred have been common fodder, we may have been numbed. In our Philippine society, elections have bred many a

crime, we have lost voices of outrage. We know there was cheating in 2004 elections with “operators” in Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Maguindanao paying polling officials to turn the vote in favor of GMA. Have we heard any exposes? And we have heard of the ongoing corruption in our province and this coming ARMM elections with officials buying their way to power. Here in campus, do we have accountability over appropriations made by a state university. Where is our campus newspaper, better yet do you have your own personals bulletins posted. Do we investigate? Do we discuss? Do we debate? Do we make it public what is supposedly public information? Maybe knowledge has become materialistic that we have lost sense of truth, justice and love.

Truth is, we would rather stay in the boat than watch it sink. Like dumb citizens in the tale, “Emperor’s Clothes”, we would rather play the blind eye than lash with our tongue. We fear. We are cowards. This I think, ladies and gentleman makes the case for knowledge without humanity. If blind Helen Keller had a vision (had a vision to enable the disabled), we are worse because we have eyes but we don’t see. We have hands but we can’t write. We have voices but we can’t communicate. A scholar is not neutral. He is with power. He is an elite. What did Spiderman’s inaama say? With great power comes great responsibility. More than knowledge, your power is your freedom. Your freedom to ask. Your freedom to choose. Your freedom to act. Your freedom to travel. Your freedom to change this generation for the good.

The elite must counter his elitism for he knows the injustice. He must work to remove the inequality of knowledge by sharing knowledge. He must use his power to give others power. He must be a scholar so that others could also be scholars one day.

This is my challenge to us as we organize to elevate the discourse in campus. We not only practice team-building or professionalism. We strive to open minds and hopefully change attitudes.

Again I ask you, game ka na ba?