Disappointed

Seems like we Ateneans do not have a monopoly on apathy anymore. Nowadays, the rest of the Pinoy youth are fast becoming a bunch of apathetic kids, and that I can say with certainty.

No, this isn’t about the upcoming national elections. I could barely blame anyone for losing hope over the sorry state of Philippine politics. This is about the open letter – regarding how my younger sister was unjustly eliminated through palabunutan in the National Science Fair – that we dispatched through email. My parents’ friends and contacts reacted strongly to our letter. Many emailed back, saying they were appalled by the palabunutan incident and hoped that Nadya would recover from this traumatizing experience. And through this email brigade, our story reached Jarius Bondoc, a columnist from Philippine Star.

On my side of the Web, however, the reception has been disappointing. I wasn’t really expecting any intense response from my contacts, but I’m still surprised that they hardly seemed to care at all. Several expressed sadness over the incident, but only after I asked them if they had read the letter. One of my high school teachers did email back, but he couldn’t be counted as youth anymore (sorry, Sir, gotta face reality). The rest are probably too engrossed with their personal affairs to be bothered.

Perhaps we are still too young and inexperienced to be deeply affected by an issue like this. But aren’t the youth supposed to be full of lofty ideals and utopian dreams, and brimming with zeal and passion? An email about a palabunutan in a competition, with a young child-scientist as a victim, deserves more than a casual glance or desultory read.

Maybe I’m being overcritical. Maybe I’m just KSP. Maybe I’m asking for too much. I don’t know.

But I’m scared that this overwhelming indifference in the face of such heartbreaking experience might be a preview of how jaded we would be in the years to come.