In a speech that highlights the essence of Jesuit education philosophy, incoming president of the Ateneo de Davao University Fr Joel Tabora SJ has called for universities to form students to respond to the ills in society with moral outrage and the desire to work for change, rather than apathy or fatalism.
In his keynote speech at the Davao Colloquium themed “Beyond Fighting Corruption, Fr Tabora said “The university must make its contribution against corruption first and foremost in the products that the university produces. And here my brothers and sisters we have not done well enough.”
“All universities of worth regardless of their religion or mission,” he said, have three major functions: instruction, research and service to the community. “If you only have one, you do not have a university,’ said Fr Tabora.
The university has a “much larger and possibly much more fundamental role” beyond the professional formation of lawyers, accountants, business people, entrepreneurs, and others.
“The problems we are confronting in fighting corruption needs to be worked out at the tertiary level. Issues of violence against women, landgrabbing with murder, rape and incest, these issues need to reach the classrooms,” he said.
“Issues of the NGOs need to reach the core of the university,” said Fr Tabora who called for universities to partner with NGOs. “Students must be formed to respond to these ills with indignation, with disgust, with anger, with moral outrage, forming in the student his or her commitment to change. It is the role of the university to engage itself in moral development not just in abstract.”
Fr Tabora said that the university “must be involved in very serious moral developments” so that when students hear of issues, they will not say, “ahh, squatters? That’s God’s will” or when someone says “Look what’s going on in that kingdom,” the student won’t just say, “he’s god, is he not?”
“There has to be a way to get people angry about this, enraged about this, and that has to proceed from the central teachings of our university,” he said.
But, he stressed, the response to what’s going on around us must be rational.
“Alright, we’re angry. Let’s do it rationally. Let’s plan so that our response must be rational. It is not just an appeal, not just a prayer. Many of us, we see evil, we see what’s wrong, okay we’ll pray for you. It is not just prayer, not just appeal, not just feeling out of a sense of panic. Response must be informed.”
Fr Tabora said that it is important to proceed from recommendations that are appropriate and immediate, and it is research that brings rationality to the response.
“What is the problem really? What is the case clearly? What is the problem as seen from various disciplines we have in the university, on the level of various disciplines interacting with one another, what is it that can and ought to be done about impunity, for transgressors of the law?” he asked.
Fr Tabora believes that the success of the university lies in its graduates and the quality of the individuals they are and sees the need to do better in this.
“There is such a thing as individual human freedom but we have to be perplexed, to be disturbed that so many of these people are coming from our schools. We have to undergo a reexamination about the way we teach and the way we try to form people.”
“Hopefully the university does not belong to and does not abet the kakistocracy. Hopefully this university will help to destroy it through the production of principled leaders for a humane Filipino society,” he said.
To read theMindaNews article on Fr Joel’s keynote speech, click here.