“Wealth and power” - Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin SJ's Commencement speech for AGSB and ASOG
It is good to begin at the end. Magandang magsimula sa kadulu-dulohan. I know this is a commencement, a beginning, but beginnings are only meaningful when the end is in view of what you're starting today.
If the end you have in mind are the classes and papers you've passed, you are mistaken. If your end is retirement, you're wrong. If you think everything ends with your funeral, you are mistaken. You are just beginning with your dying.
St Ignatius Loyola liked to frame the management or governance or running of your life with the end always in view. He would have us contemplate, for instance, our own funeral and have us imagine what people are saying about us. In another exercise, he would have us imagine ourselves standing before the entire heavenly court. You see, for Loyola, it was important to always have before you this thing called destiny. And he was convinced that the end and very purpose of our life is to live with God forever.
Forever. Eternity. That is the frame that should shape and compose your life.
I know, I know. That is the ultra long term view of things. We've been taught to frame our goals with much shorter time horizons. But you are of the Ateneo now, and here at the Ateneo, in our alma mater song, we sing about our standing on a hill, between the earth and sky. When you stand in between world and heaven, your watch must not just log the turning of the earth on itself or around the sun. Your clock should also time the turning of your soul, and watch for the revolutions of the souls you have turned with your life.
I do not know if RPM (revolutions per minute) is a key result area or a performance indicator, but I hope at the very least that the Ateneo has dislodged you somewhat from your previous orbits, and brought you closer to the true center of who you are, which, by the way, may not be very far from the very center of our Universe.
This is not a retreat. This is not Holy Week. I am only giving you a frame for your diploma, for you to hang on the wall of your life, if not, your facebook page. I am only giving you a frame for your degree (MBA or MPM or MS IT or M Entrepreneurship) and for whatever it is you will surely accomplish with your life after Ateneo. That frame or horizon is eternity, is forever, is living with God for good, world without end, amen.
You see, when placed in a world that does not end, many real things (trophies, taxes, tears, for example) acquire different meaning and value. Set against the horizon of life forever, two realities in particular change shape and color. These are the two realities of wealth and power.
Ito pa naman ang inyong pinagkakaabalahan nitong mga panahong nasa Ateneo kayo. These are the two realities that you have wrestled with in your study of management and governance. Seen against the horizon of living “happily ever after,” wealth and power acquire different meaning and purpose. When you stand on the heights of Loyola, between the earth and sky, you see wealth and power differently.
If you think that I'm trying to sell you the idea that wealth and power are bad when viewed through the lens of eternity, you are wrong. If you think that I'm trying to convince you that money is the root of all evil or that power corrupts, then you do not know the Jesuits.
If there is one thing you should know about us Jesuits, it is that we are not afraid of the dark side. We have been schooled to discern the shadows that lurk mysteriously, surreptitiously in our lives; and we have been trained to name them when we can in freedom and in all honesty.
In freedom and in all honesty, we know that wealth and power can impair freedom and all honesty. After all, these are levers wielded by broken hands. But in freedom and all honesty, we also know that wealth and power can strengthen freedom and honesty. These after all are levers wielded by hands that also heal by the action and grace of God. If we did not believe this, then the Ateneo has no business running a business school or school of government. If we did not believe in the force of wealth and power to do good and to do what is greater, there would be no diplomas to dispense. If we did not cultivate this discerning hope in the apostolic dividends of wealth and power, you would not be here.
Apostolic dividend. That itself could be an oxymoron. Apostles don't get dividends. They get sold on bargain basement prices. Apostles get the short end of the stick. They get crucified. But apostles too have been given talents and we know what happens to those who just bury their talents out of fear or apathy or ignorance. Apostles too have been branded salt of the earth, and as light for the world. And we know how God feels when saltiness is lost irretrievably or when light is kept hidden from the dark.
Our dear graduates, inscribed on our school seal are the words, “lux in Domino,” light in the Lord. Take this to heart. Dibdibin ninyo ang inyong pagka-lux, pagka-liwanag. Whether Ateneans find themselves in grassroots communities or along the corridors of wealth and power, they are to let their light shine. Because the light that shines in them (whether they know it or not) is also the same eternal, endless light that shines in the darkness, which darkness will never overcome.
I challenge you then, you salts of the earth to give wealth and power their proper seasoning and taste. I challenge you then, you lights in the Lord to dispel the shadows that disable us from seeing the true meaning of wealth and power (i.e. from knowing what or who the wealth and power are for). To this challenge, I ask four things you can do with wealth and power, four verbs: create, multiply, distribute, and direct that wealth and power.
Create. Unless you're God, you don't do this ex nihilo, out of nothing. Resources are taken and transformed to produce wealth and power, to develop assets and create capital, so to speak. Be mindful of the resources that you take and exchange for the wealth and power you create.
To create, you need to look at, look to, and look after your people. This means that to produce wealth and power, you need to invest much in your people, providing them with the right education and proper formation.
You need innovation and an enterprising spirit to create wealth and power. If you're in business, you need some imagination and daring to create jobs, which increase the capacity of people, which then strengthens your enterprise. If you're in government, you need some ingenuity and guts to get good governance going to create the environment or ambience in which people and enterprises can grow. I can only imagine what wealth and power dividends can be reaped from a vibrant partnership between business and government.
Multiply. With God's blessing (I guess), you can multiply the wealth and the power, even with a startup of five loaves and two fish. One of the things that fascinate me in nature is the exponential, the geometric way things grow. That is, the more you have of something now, the greater the increment of that something tomorrow. It has something to do with that mysterious number “e”. You see that in feedback, in things that go viral on social networks, in cancer, in your savings account, even in political power. Decay also seems to follow that pattern, as you see in nuclear energy, the financial crisis, or even the loss of political power. It starts out with a steep crash then tapers out in the end.
To multiply then, you need to look at the conditions for the possibility of such geometric growth. I do not pretend to know these conditions but one thing I do know is that things grow on the substrate of trust. Politicians and banks and businesses know this. Sometimes they call this social capital. And for trust to grow sustainably, you need to grow its roots in the deeper ground of goodness (kabutihan).
Distribute. If you believe in the prophetic rage of God, or if you are simply a decent person, you will do well to distribute that multiplied wealth and power. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to see that the consequence of the exponential is to make things uneven. Those with more will get more and those with less, much less. Left to themselves (or to market forces, if you will, which I hope to God you are wise enough never to idealize), wealth and power defy gravity and concentrate upwards, making diffusion more difficult over time.
But here's the catch in distributing wealth and power. You need power to moderate the power, you need wealth to modulate the wealth from concentrating upwards. Who on earth will do that? Why on earth would you ever want to attenuate the power or moderate the wealth (bukol)?
To the question of who will, I am hoping that Ateneans would. Why would Ateneans do that? I am hoping that because you “stand on a hill,” on the heights of Loyola, you see farther than most and that your time horizons are wider than most. Those who live for just their lifetimes may not even care or see the point. But, if your time horizon goes beyond your lifetime, or your sights trained beyond just your family, then you know that such a highly polarized, undistributed, unshared arrangement of wealth and power can be the source of so much sorrow in the world. It is also unsustainable as revolutions like people power and the Arab spring have shown us.
Fear, however, (like the fear of being subverted) is never a good motive force for lasting action. I would like to think that Ateneans would act to diffuse the wealth and the power out of sheer decency and respect for our shared humanity. I am also hoping they would do this because Matthew 25 has given them new eyes to see God in the face of the least of our brothers and sisters. I am hoping they would do this because Ateneo has made it possible for them to be given new hearts to love (however inchoately) the God who identifies himself with those who live at the margins of wealth and power. Ultimately, I am hoping they would do this therefore for the greater glory of God.
Finally, the last verb: direct. As you create and multiply and distribute all that wealth and power, I hope you will give direction to that wealth and power by guiding them back to our beloved inang bayan. At the AGSB, you say: “our country, our business.” At the ASOG, perhaps you would say: our nation, our responsibility.
To lead wealth and power back to our country is to acknowledge that your commitment goes beyond your stockholders or those who put you in power. To direct the wealth and the power back to our people is to recognize that those who have equity in your enterprise or public office are not just your stockholders or power brokers. Sino ba talaga ang namumuhunan sa ating negosyo o gobierno kundi ang buong sambayanan?
It would be reckless to think that your business can grow without the resources of the commons owned by our people. Or that your public office can deliver without the people who chose to give you the power.
From where you stand on the heights of Loyola, I hope you see with eagle eyes that those who have a stake in the rise or fall of your enterprise or public office are the Filipino people. Thus, when we lead wealth and power back to our country, we are merely acknowledging our debt of gratitude to our people. Tumatanaw tayo ng utang na loob sa ating inang bayan na siyang nag alaga sa ating mga pangarap, nagpalakas sa ating kakayahan at nagpatibay sa ating paninindigan. Pangatawanan natin ang buong kalahatan na ating natanggap mula sa yaman ng ating bansa.
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In closing, I hope you our graduates will not bury your talents in the ground out of fear or ignorance or unconcern. Let your light shine. Season well the wealth and power at your disposal. Create, multiply, distribute, direct that wealth and that power. Do it standing between earth and sky.
When you go down from the hill of Loyola, begin from the end. Dahil batid n'yo na ang nasa kahuli-hulihan, makita n'yo sana ang pinaka-kahulugan ng diploma at buhay na inyong tangan. Masilayan nawa ninyo ang hantungan ng yaman at kapangyarihan.
Mabuhay kayong lahat, mabuhay kayo nang may buong tapang, malasakit at paninindigan.
Jose Ramon T Villarin SJ
7 August 2011
