Sa ating tagapagsalita, former Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, 

Ang pangulo ng ating unibersidad, Kgg. Angelo A. Jimenez; 

Ang tagapangulo ng Lupon ng mga Rehente, Kgg. J. Prospero E. de Vera III, Chair of the Commission on Higher Education; 

mga kasapi ng Lupon ng mga Rehente; 

mga miyembro ng diplomatic corps; 

mga pangalawang pangulo at iba pang opisyal ng UP System; 

mga opisyal ng ibang kasaping unibersidad; 

mga bise tsanselor, dekano, direktor, at iba pang opisyal ng UP Diliman; 

mga opisyal mula sa iba’t ibang pamantasan; 

ang ating kaguruan, mga REPS, at mga kawani; 

mga magulang, mga mahal sa buhay, mga kaibigan at iba pang mga panauhin ng ating mga mag-aaral; 

at higit sa lahat, sa mga magsisipagtapos, magandang umaga sa inyong lahat at isang maalab na pagtanggap ang salubong namin sa inyo rito sa UP Diliman!

Sa pagbubukas nitong ika-isang daan at labing tatlong (113) Pangkalahatang Pagtatapos ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas Diliman, una ko nang babatiin ang ating mga magsisipagtapos ng isang mainit na pagpugay dahil sa tagumpay ninyong lahat dito sa ating Pamantasan. Before this 2024 UP Diliman General Commencement Exercises is over, you would be officially declared as graduates of the University of the Philippines – the realization of your aspirations of the past years as well as the aspirations of your family and community. 

To the parents, siblings, relatives, friends, and loved ones of our graduating students, congratulations as well and thank you for supporting our graduates during these past years of unprecedented hardships and uncertainties on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and violent geo-political conflict in various parts of the globe.  The adage “it takes a village to raise a child” resonates in Filipino culture, as evidenced by our gathering here today as a large and diverse community in these hallowed grounds of the Amphitheater of Quezon Hall to celebrate the important milestone that this day represents for our graduating students, a milestone to which each one of us here had somehow contributed.  

This year, UP Diliman is commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the relocation of the University’s academic core from the erstwhile campus in Padre Faura, Manila to this present site of the UP Diliman campus in Quezon City.  If you can imagine that seventy-five (75) years ago, it was only the bare beginnings of this building where I am speaking from and which we now call Quezon Hall that can be seen in this area, and compare that picture with the beautiful scenery of several classic buildings and lush greenery that you see today, you would agree with me that UP Diliman has come a long way since that fateful exodus from old Manila to this veritable new world of Quezon City.

In those seventy-five (75) years, however, the University built more than just a beautiful campus here. UP Diliman made itself into a premiere academic and research institution that produced generation after generation of this country’s leaders and change-makers.

This successful becoming of UP Diliman, this blossoming of our University after a fateful decision to relocate is very similar to what we wish for all our graduates.  Hence, the theme of this year’s graduation – “SIMULAIN.”

Multiple meanings can be attached to the word “SIMULAIN,” the most obvious of which for this occasion is its similarity, if not identity, with the idea of “commencement” that we oddly attach to the successful culmination of a student’s sojourn in an educational institution, the choice made being to highlight the transition to a new phase of the student’s life.   

For this opening message, I choose to highlight a dimension of “SIMULAIN,” of “BEGINNINGS,” that may escape many of you, our dear graduates, and this is “OPPORTUNITY.” As we recognize your achievements at the end of your recent voyage in our University, as you heave a sigh of jubilant relief as you bid goodbye to the schoolwork and stress that tormented you as you worked hard to reach this point – in other words, as we celebrate your completion of your degrees – it may easily escape you that the transition or new beginnings we mark today is actually an opportunity for each and everyone of you.  This milestone marks an opportunity to do better in life with the knowledge and experience you gained from this University, an opportunity to make use of the talents you honed with the help of the Filipino people to give back and help our countrymen, and more importantly, I believe, an opportunity to imagine what you want to make of yourselves and to take concrete steps toward this vision.

Seventy-five (75) years ago, the country’s and the University’s leaders saw an opportunity to build something great when they made the decision to locate the University here in Diliman, Quezon City. Part of their vision, their dream, was for this place, this campus where you are standing now, to nurture future generations of this country’s leaders.  

The fact that you stand here now at the cusp of such leadership roles, like many others before you who also stood here during their graduation, tell us that the decision to build UP Diliman here – that leap of fate – paid off marvelously.  Now it’s your turn to see or realize the opportunities you have and to make your own leap of faith, now it’s your turn to begin charting and building your own path to relevance, if not greatness.  

Again, congratulations to our graduating class of 2024!  Mabuhay kayong lahat! Mabuhay ang UP Diliman!