Hi there.
I posted an article here at the site written by Dean Marvic Leonen:
www.upoucommunity.net/component/content/...blic Service Article


This article opens a challenge to us UP folks to redefine what it means for us to be a university committed to public service. We are in fact mandated by law to do so, as stated in our UP Charter: "...lead as a PUBLIC SERVICE UNIVERSITY by providing various forms of community, public, and volunteer service, as well as scholarly and technical assistance to the government, the private sector, and civil society while maintaining its standards of excellence".

And so...
What to you is public service?
In what ways have you fulfilled this as a UP student?
And in what ways do think you will continue to do so in the future? That is if you see this as part of your responsibility being an "Iskolar ng Bayan".

Speak up...

What to you is public service?

Public service, for me, is the willingness to share [your time, resources, talent, etc.] with others. Hence, whether a certain activity is required or voluntary, as long as there is the will on your part to help, it is public service.

In what ways have you fulfilled this as a UP student?

Within UP:
I was a freshman in UPM when EDSA Dos happened. I'm proud to say that I was out there with millions of other students.
Then, I joined The Manila Collegian. I had the opportunity to become an instrument in spreading out the latest news within and outside UP. We had this huge responsibility during student council elections. I experienced going out to cover mobilizations from school-related issues like those on tuition fee hike and abolition of rotc to national issues like COLA. As a member of the press, I also became an instrument in entertaining my fellow UP students by means of creative writing and cartooning.
I also formed a college-base organization which aimed at educating UP people about the importance of waste management and taking care of the environment. Our org also did volunteer activities in some NGOs.

Outside UP:
I believe I'm doing service by simply sharing my knowledge to others. After all, public service need not be grandiose. Teaching others simple things that would lead to something really good is service already.

Public service for me is something that should be done whole heartedly to the community. It is the act of sacrificing time and effort to appease the need of the unfortunate and the disadvantaged. It can also be given through a number of means like education and social work.

As a UP student, I was able to contribute to a donation drive where the collected books and items are given to the victims of fire in the locality of Cebu. Clothing was also given, and needed support was given willingly by the local students. In other means, I was able to contribute to my faith's ongoing community service, serving as an educator to a small community along with ordained ministers.

Finally, I can say that public service is a tiring task for anyone who is going to participate in it. It has long driving hours and has no pay. But in the end, to see the smiles of the people you are serving, to see their joy and happiness after receiving aid, isn't it heart warming that you were able to give even a small bit of happiness to them?

Seeing them smile is more than enough payment for the effort I did.

Public service literally means offering oneself to give free service to the community or those in need. It is not just the free service, help or assistance but it is the personality or character that we are imaging while we are helping. Being willful is already enough which will make us happy giving service to the public and through our emotions that we possess while helping an will possibly be involuntarily contagious to the ones your helping which will create a good atmosphere to everybody including me.

Well, since i started taking the CWTS course, it is the way where my mind was opened to do public service, it is was my first step that driven me to do such things i could never imagine to do. As a UP student, i was able to tutor a student in high school who is very poor in English Language, the feeling of wanting to do more and helping the student is slowly becoming stronger as the day passed by while i was tutoring him. I feel ecstatic, that i don't want to stop tutoring him. During our last session i gave him a book of English-Tagalog Dictionary so he can still continue learning. I also volunteered in a NGO where i was documenter while the NGO (CODE-SIBUGUEY) is conducting a Climate Change and Global Warming Forum in order to increase the level of awareness of the people. It was fun and very educational and i'am very proud that i became a part od trying to save our mother earth.

I believe that every human being has their own skills or capabilities which God gave us for a reason and whatever reason could this be, its up to us whether we use it for better or for worst and for me whatever skills may i have i will always be willing to use it for the better of our nation.

(Oliver B Ferrer 2007-81059)
Public Service for me is an altruistic view that one takes, where an individual shares his time talent and effort to the community that he or she thinks, is most in need of it, in the university setting, one may look at it merely as an academic requirement,but on a deeper perspective one will realize that public service is not just about giving a part of oneself in the service of the community, but moreover it also has a dimension of receiving something back from the community one has helped (gratitude, sense of accomplishment, sense of purpose, sense of fullfillment and many more that makes a person feel good)

Public service is a broad field. But focusing it as a CWTS endeavor , it defined as a mission of servicing the community. This is by way of helping others with a specific need or want. We volunteer not merely as a requirement for our college course but rather doing it as a mission in putting others needs first through whatever way we can in a limited span of time.

For me, public service is a way to give back to the community. Specifically, in our case, it is giving back to the community who puts us in school in the first place. Being a UP student translates to a responsibility towards the Filipino people. Our talents and skills should always be for the betterment of our society. Public service is generosity, sharing a part of yourself to the public.

Khalil Gibran said, "Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do." I believe that taking the time to contribute to our community is a generous gesture. We all have something important to do; in this day and age, everything needs to be done ASAP. Making time and exerting effort to engage in volunteer services for the community is already a practical way to serve the public.

CWTS is just one way of living up to the call of public service. In the previous study session, CWTS was said to be a venue for students to harness their interest in serving the public. It should indeed be in our interest to serve the public, the community, the Filipino people. After all, being an Iskolar ng Bayan is not just good for four years, it is a lifetime commitment.

The powerpoint presentation of Dean Leonen gave me pause until I read the full paper. Warning signals were set off when I saw the slide with the following text: “The kind of public service that we should privilege should not be those that can be provided by other government or non government institutions….”

I began thinking about Oppenheimer and ivory towers. J. Robert Oppenheimer is the physicist called “The Father of the Atomic Bomb.” He was elated by the scientific breakthrough that made the atom bomb a reality but later he questioned how such knowledge should be used and stood up for arms control.

The full paper provided the context for the kind of public service demanded of the UP community and/ or what the UP community should demand of itself. As pointed out, there are many kinds of public service needed (for education, health care, social welfare, etc) and many ways of providing the service (providing instruction, infrastructure, finances, etc) but the challenge is to give the best service one can give. The intellectual resources and generation of knowledge in the UP community gives it a distinct role to be able to address as much as it can the basic problems plaguing our society and the challenge of development.

The paper already lists several possible ways to be a community of scholars that is able to address structural problems. At the moment, my mind is on the immediate challenge of the May elections. How can we contribute to fair, peaceful and relevant elections? One thing is to help put forward the issues. Some groups are already demanding for an “education president” because, indeed, the future is in the hands of people. There are also groups putting forward a human rights agenda for the next president. Then there is the challenge of getting facts rights amidst all the banners and ads. One can ask questions, like the following: What is the track record of the frontrunners? Which candidate will be able to overcome their apparent weaknesses? Can Nonoy stand up to his family to assert that the farmers of Hacienda Luisita deserve their land? Can Villar forget his business interests to be true to public service? Can Teodoro serve the people rather than his president, the one he has protected from legitimate impeachment proceedings? Can Erap rule without his midnight cabinet? I am discussing this issues with friends and groups I am apart of and there are no easy answers.

I have also volunteered to be a poll watcher but I am getting increasingly anxious with all the recent developments – Comelec’s announcement of a possible automation failure in 30 percent of polling areas, the revelation of the shipment of jamming devices and other possible new that may cause a of failure of elections. With all these going on I know I will have to train to be an effective poll watcher.
-- Rebecca Lozada

Hi Brethren,

Good Day.

Actually that calling phrase became a history already.

The simple connotation of that phrase has a simple answer- put much our initiative on actions and outputs not by mere literary definitions.


The technology is present, the idea has been evaluated, everything is studied in every corners of the room and the bureaucracy is there. Practically the challenge is how to apply the knowledge earned for the benefits of public-these marginalized people. “Public Service as Our Identity” not by just an exclusivity of high intellect elite group of people but this is addressed to every Juan dela Cruz out there.
Now, if it is a calling or a responsibility for all the ISKOs as expected then it is good to have the so called public service adhesion-as a legacy of our identity.


Thanks

E^3

To me, public service entails a sincere willingness to help out and share information with the people in the community. Public service deeds could be as simple as not throwing stuff out on the streets or as stated in the article, maintaining a “car-less” oval on Sundays to discovering new species of living things. I think that public service is something that could be done in a matter of minutes or in the span of years. It doesn't always have to be a sacrifice. Just as long as someone is doing something not only for one's self but also keeping in mind the greater good that would benefit from his/her deed, then that could be considered public service.

In the past, my high school has required us to spend time with lesser fortunate kids and share with them what we know. I consider this as public service. As a UP student, I have opened my eyes more to a bigger picture of public service, especially through the CWTS course. Through it, I have volunteered in our Barangay Hall and help out in some of the community projects being carried out by our officials. I would admit that I would never have done this under any other circumstance but I was glad that I had done it. I learned a lot about our community, I got to interact with the people I normally wouldn't have talked to and I got the chance to be involved in something bigger than me. I found out the many opportunities and ways that I could get out there and help out.

When Typhoon Ondoy struck, I realized how fortunate I was to live in a place that didn't get flooded as much as other areas hit by the typhoon so I gathered my friends up so that we could pull our resources together and donate clothes and canned goods to the victims. Then we also spent time lending our hands at a relief center to pack the goods that we brought in. It was an extremely humbling experience to have my friends around me helping other people, as well as getting to meet new people with the same goal.

I grew up with the saying “do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you” and I live by it still. I have tweaked it a bit and formed it into “do unto others what you want others to do unto you”. So, once in a while, I humble myself by picturing myself in other peoples’ shoes, especially the lesser fortunate or the ones struck by typhoons, and think that if I were in their place I would like to be helped and so I do, in whatever way I could. In the future, this is what I will still live by. As an “Iskolar ng Bayan” I could learn more ways to help others and perhaps associate myself with other UP students willing to help others and pull together more resources which could better help out that having a single person do it alone.

That is not to say that a single person couldn’t render public service by him/herself. For instance, I avoid littering in streets and doing other simple things like that because I want the world I live in to have a clean environment. A simple deed which not only benefits me but also benefits the others around me. It’s these simple things that we could make big things that make a difference which could also be considered as public service.