(Editor’s note: The address of thanks of Kazzandra Baysa, valedictorian of UST Faculty of Arts and Letters class of 2025)
Last year, August 1, 2024, the Creative Writing program officially became a department. Just two years prior, its first batch of Creative Writing students graduated.
This year, UST CW turns seven years old, the youngest in all of AB. My seniors, or ancestors as they hate being called, CW Batch 2023 produced the first AB rector’s awardee from Creative Writing, Kuya Franz Austin De Mesa.
Now, here I am, the one to follow. I am Kazzandra Ysabel Baysa from UST AB, Department of Creative Writing, Batch 2025.
I was in my room when I got the email that I will be graduating as AB’s rector’s awardee. Much like any sane and rational person’s reaction to a huge honor, my first words were: “What is the rector’s award?” It was only when I asked the Department Chair, Professor Joselito D. Delos Reyes about it, did I understand. He said, “Valedictorian ka ng AB.”
One thing you must know about me is that I have borderline personality disorder (BPD). I have bouts of highs, of mania, of this belief that I can take over the world, climb Mount Everest, be the next president of the Philippines, and end crisis in a fortnight. But some days, most days, really, I can’t even get out of bed. I have not been able to get out of bed properly, for a while. Maybe something in me finally snapped after decades of exhaustion that I never did manage to sleep off. Maybe my skin finally grew tired of carrying an ungrateful mind that repaid its hard work with a mental illness that’s as good as any death sentence. Or maybe, when I buried my grandfather, I just happened to have buried the last remaining living piece of myself with him.
Some people say that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I think I must’ve gotten lost somewhere. In the dark, if you close your eyes and twirl around, would you still know which way to go? Would you still know which direction holds the light, when it’sjust a promise, when it’s not there to reach you?
But then, Sir Jowie said, “Valedictorian ka ng buong AB,” and I think light reached my eyes. I think, at that moment, I felt something akin to happiness. It was just a flicker…and a flicker is the same as a flame, is it not?
Yet, like Ryūnosuke Akutagawa wrote in his book, “The Life of a Stupid Man,” “What is the life of a human being – a drop of dew, a flash of lightning?” Such too, is happiness, a fleeting thing, a flickering flame.
I know what it’s like to burn and burn bright. I’ve been winning competitions since I was a kid when I’m not topping classes or reciting endlessly. I think at this point, my professors are sick of my voice, I mean, they skip me or save me for last when I raise my hand. Now here I am, the final day of undergrad, still yapping. Except I’m on stage.
Hi, Sir Chuck, hi, Sir Joel.
But the brighter the flame, the darker the shadow. This rector’s award is a flashlight with 200,000 lumens worth of light straight to my cornea. It’s bright. Bright enough to illuminate this tunnel & show me the way out. But behind it comes the void, shadows, looming and lurking.
They come in many shapes and sizes, one looks like all my absences and empty presences, the rest are molded into each missed activity and incompletes, the close calls and the robbed dean’s listers, for each time I missed an announcement as a president and all the mishaps, miscommunications, the unanswered messages & the people I left hanging in my inbox.
Sometimes, the shadows truly do get darker than the light.
Yet, I stand here, this medal on my neck representing an ideal, an entire department, candidates to graduate, and most importantly, the minority I managed to call my allies – the mentally ill.
In America, around 1.6% of the population have BPD. I do not know the statistics for the Philippines. The country does not have a mental health information system. I am just a digit in a statistic, a number that barely comprehends each symptom that enslaves the body to the mind – and we are not even counted yet in this country.
But here I am, making sure we are remembered.
To pull from the series ‘The Last of Us,’ “Paying attention to things – it’s how we show love.”
What I’m trying to say is this is me paying attention. This is me showing love.
What I’m trying to say is, this is me not just telling, but showing what it is like to be sick like I am, even more for those who are well and happy. Just as much for those who are drowning, but not dead enough to be considered mentally ill. For those mentally ill like I am, well, I learned that to be loved is to be known. And, I know you. I know all of you.This is me making sure that everyone else can know you, too. This is me making sure that you are loved.
I stand here wearing this medal, because this is our victory, too. For me, this is not proof of good grades, or active participation. This is proof of life, that I made it here not in spite of my condition, but with it, instead.
My shadows can get darker than my light, but I think there’s beauty in that. I think there’s beauty in knowing that even in the dark, you are loved. That acceptance is not conditional, and life is not always a performance waiting to be reviewed. That despite my misgivings, I stand here, in front of you all, wearing this medal still because my failings did not make me into a failure. And that goes for everyone else, because, like I was taught by my professors, I must make my specific experiences universal. This is it, the universality of it all – to fall, to rise – and to have done so with the people who held you through the dark.
Who did you have? A friend? A lover? A family? All of the above or everything in between? People beyond the slippery slope of labels and semantics?
I have Roli Angelo R. Manuel. My love, to this day, I cannot fathom how you could love a broken mind that isn’t yours to fix. I do not understand why you would drive over 20 kilometers from Pasig to Malabon just to honor me, or why you stare when I can barely look at my reflection. I have spent 20 years despising myself, but Roli, when youhold me, I feel like for once I am lovable, and for that I love you, too. And I do not have much, but for what it’s worth, it’s all yours, I am all yours, always, in all ways.
I have Angel Flores, my partner in crime, my BPD twin. You have given me your six years and counting, whether it be the middle of the day or the middle of the night, because you of all people know that our darkest hours do not choose waking light. For that, thank you. Reinaldo Tabalno, Emeri Mendoza, and Ashley Quinton, for making sure I never run out of reasons to stay, thank you.
Thank you to Creative Writing, my classmates and officers for seeing past my lapses. For my professors who understood my illness and never took it as me making excuses; for treating me like I am sick, because I am – but not repelling me as if I am contagious – Sir Augusto Antonio Aguila, Sir Joel Toledo, Sir Louie Zaraspe, Sir Joselito delos Reyes, Ma’am Jing Hidalgo, Sir Mark Angeles, to name some.
And of course, Sir Chuckberry Pascual, my thesis adviser, my Malabon twin except he’s my most favorite professor since first year. Sir Chuck, you once teased me to thank you only when I’ve finally graduated. BPD makes me feel simple disappointment as painful as third degree burns like studies have shown. But whatever the opposite of that is, whatever soothing balm, or salve erases not only the pain but the scorch scars – that is worth my gratitude for you, Sir Chuck, for easing the burden of my burning soul. From the bottom of all my imbalanced brain chemicals, thank you, Sir.
For my family, my mother Rosario R. Baysa, my father Nelson S. Baysa, and of course, my aunt, Noemi S. Baysa for funding my endeavors and believing in me when I once thought there is nothing in me to believe in. And of course, Tita Rosalie, Tito Catalino, Kate, Kuya JM and the Manuel family as a whole, thank you for welcoming me with doors wide open.
Most of all, to my grandfather who passed away last Christmas; you told me that I’ll be Summa Cum Laude, but now I’m also the rector’s awardee and you are not here. It feels so wrong that after 21 years of your footsteps beside me, you are not the one walking up the stage with me, now. But I feel you, I will do my best not to forget the feel of your calluses. I did not put this medal on my neck all on my own. You are there, I know it. And so is everyone else. In this dark tunnel I’ve been traversing for most of my life, there is a candle lighting up my path for each and every hand who held me up – and all at once, I am unable to focus on my shadows because it’s just as difficult to ignore the light.
I realize now that this was the point of it all. To be someone. To be with someone.
To fail. To succeed. To rinse and repeat. There is no truly good nor bad life. There is only existing and everything follows.
We all possess the shadows of our mistakes – but please know it does not diminish the gleam of our victories that illuminate our very existence.
At the end of the day, I only stand here with you because I am still alive. I still exist, and so does each and every single one of you. We are real, we are human, and we are here. I hope that when you look at your diplomas, medals, should they be on your person, and the tassel of your cap to be shifted to the direction of success, you see not only this moment of completion. Please look at each other and you will find that you are here because you showed up, not just today, but for every single hour, every single moment of your being. You’re existing.
And I will remember each of you like this, in light, because my four years in Creative Writing has taught me that I’m a writer and so I must remember. Remember for those who have forgotten, for those who are forgotten, and for those who exist, or have run out of reasons to do so.
This is the point of art, to study humanity, and in so doing, be human. To realize and remind that to exist is to be fallible. In this era of AI, robots, and autogeneration, in this world where problems are met with cold and calculated equations, programmings, let us all be a little more human and make our mistakes, because that is what it means to exist.
This is the point of writing, for a moment, for a time, we existed, and we made it last forever. To quote the Dead Poets Society, “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits & necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
It stands also for each and every single one of you, regardless of department – for your pursuit of humanities and this course of existence, I honor you all.And now, for the afterwords. The world beyond UST is vast, and I make no promises on a bright future. I won’t stand here and lie. But I do promise a future. It won’t be perfect. Far from it, really. But it would be yours.
To quote John Lennon, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
To close this very long speech, I would like to use my teachers’ voice and hope you find the heart I kept in the words I was given.
From Ma’am Jing, “Your writing is enough reason to keep going.”
From Sir Mark, “We would always want to hear from you.”
From Sir Tots, “You have the kind of talent and intensity that make a great writer.”
From Sir Chuck, “Marami ka pang maisusulat.”
And from me, from Kazz, “In tripping and falling, we are graceful. Hurting is a reminder that we are human. We are alive.”
This is the age of getting it wrong, and making it worse, and feeling around a dark tunnel, and then from time to time maybe finding something right. Something like light. But for always, this is the era of living, & breathing, & being – and of course, existing.
And so, stay alive.
