Class of 2025 valedictorian French B. Bandong urged fellow graduates to confront injustice with hope and resistance as he delivered his valedictory address during Ateneo de Davao University’s 73rd commencement rites.
Bandong, a magna cum laude graduate of the AB Political Science program, reflected on the polarizing political climate and the cost of political opinions on the lives of those who bear it.
“Those who are able to separate their personal lives from their political opinions are those that are privileged enough to not become the collateral for these political choices… But for a lot of us, politics is deeply personal.”
His remarks come as political polarization deepens in the Philippines, where red-tagging, human rights violations, and misinformation continue to define the landscape.
On June 21, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) acknowledged the report of United Nations Special Rapporteur Irene Khan, backing the urgent need to safeguard freedom of expression amid continued cases of media killings and red-tagging across the country.
The growing spread of artificial intelligence-generated misinformation has also worsened disinformation campaigns and public distrust — tensions that are expected to escalate ahead of the 2028 national elections.
Bandong warned that withdrawing from politics out of discomfort risks abandoning those already harmed by it.
“As irrelevant as we think politics is to our careers, we must confront politics and if we are to do so, we must be prepared to be inconvenienced,” he said.
He also underscored the growing disconnect between political passion and moral responsibility in public discourse.
“Today, we see that there is so much passion, anger, and frustration when people engage in politics. That is where it reflects how much people really care. But lately, we have lost our moral obligation towards caring for others.”
As thousands continue to die in global conflicts and in state-sanctioned violence, Bandong cautioned against intellectual detachment.
He cited Gaza as a pressing example of how abstraction can numb ethical responsibility.
“The situation in Gaza is a case of illegal occupation, annexation, and genocide. A lot of us has diluted this genocide because it is apparently complex and reserves a more professional and diplomatic analysis. But in doing so, we lose how politics is meant to preserve humanity. You may write and talk about these things in history books, but our institutions will be judged by how they responded to the moral crisis of today.”
According to Gaza health officials, the Palestinian death toll breached 55,000 in June, marred by multiple incidents of shootings in areas of aid distribution.
Bandong’s address called for a generational reimagining of how hope, resistance, and empathy can rebuild broken systems.
“To be true persons for others, our conception of politics must be measured by how the least of us are doing, and not the best of us.”
“We need a counterculture that radically loves even to our most opposite neighbors, and radically hopes even at the most troubling times. As a generation that has overcome a global pandemic and still managed to be here, we need to maintain that space of optimism and hope: we build a culture that rejects individualism and pessimism,” Bandong added.
“Friends, engage in a politics of hope; engage in a politics of resistance; engage in politics as if your life depends on it, because it does.”
The 73rd Higher Education Commencement Exercise was held on June 21 at the 4F Martin Hall.