Lost and confused here--just like school and national politics

I'm not sure if everyone has heard this but some say that college government and politics mirror that of current society.

I'd like to think more than that, it's what we should expect from our generation once they run the country some 10, 20 years from now.

I just thought of making this post because I see that issues regarding the University Student Government (USG) sprouted up again--some sins from past school years surfacing again when for me, they are never truly forgotten.

Maybe some bring up these issues as a joke, which I believe is one of the main reasons(lol). Here I am now, though, as a graduate and now in my work that exposes me to the real issues of this nation, reminded by these DLSU student government anomalies that were once scorching news back when I was in college.

When I was still in college, I used to despise how the student government was handled. To be realistic: no government, actual ones or not, is perfect. At the same time, I partially blamed students for not taking advantage of the democracy given to them with how we have the power to choose who we put in power. Don't like anyone nominated? Then vote for abstain, not actually abstain the elections.

I used to have a simplified view of how issues regarding the student government would be discussed. Of course, I'm not oblivious to corruption cases and  incapable officers that have long plagued the USG, but I just see it as just that: these accused are horrible people unworthy of their positions, the end.

Being a graduate now who unexpectedly fell into the world of journalism, I view it now as something different.

Probably you'll ask: How come these still matter to you even if you're already out of the university for good and probably would be accused as some "pakialamera" in student politics I don't have to be under anymore?

From the lens of a reporter, I've had my fair share of witnessing and knowing issues to heart, and reporting a filtered, straight version of it. While the output of my work is just the straight up news, as a reporter I absorbed everything I witness prior to producing the articles. There are lots of issues I don't get to put out because of professional reasons.

A reporter's job zeroes in on the officials as much as they focus on their actions and insider knowledge about them, which is probably more than only a tenth of what is being put out their, won't easily go away.

On the the other hand, we live in an age where we will always use the past against someone--especially if someone has proven then to be unworthy, incapable, stupid, shams. But at the same time, our societ still loves pushing these type of people higher into power.

I guess that is the best way I can thread the relevance of USG's past controversies to my life now: that these kids who fooled around with internal funds and/or these kids who only won because of popularity and influence could be pushed upward in society.

You see, people who are hungry for power in DLSU then are always the ones with the means--in every sense of "means" (money, popularity, bloodlines, etc.). Starving for power doesn't immediately go away; it follows you even out of these great halls of school.

Maybe I'm just paranoid or assuming but let me explain some more.

It scares me that the same people I walked those university halls with are also people who join me now in the workforce and are also contributing in their own ways to this country. It terrifies me that some of them now, at least I heard, are doing well regardless of whatever happened in the past in DLSU when they allegedly betrayed all of us as a student body. It is a frightening thought really, although I don't wish them ill at all, they will be the people who'll probably run this country; its businesses, its government, its courts.

They'll be some of the CEOs, the Senators, the Justices--the future power holders of the country who have you under their hands.

And when that time comes, I'll be an insider in a different sense. Insider in a sense that I was the student who probably made the mistake of voting for some of them and witnessed school year after school year of issues more than solutions.

I'm not saying to expect the worst but rather, don't be surprised when it DOES comes some 10, 20 years when we see the same smiling faces that went room to room or shook your hand in between class breaks someday holding power over the nation and failing us again.

While many of the accused in USG's juiciest scandals of all time are considered innocent til proven guilty, I just hope the future voters in both the university and this country will realize that no one wants governance that is marked with confusion on who to trust or not.