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The following is the valedictory address of Robert Nelson “Tobi” Leung at the commencement ceremony of the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City on June 20, 2025. Leung graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics. He is also a champion debater.
To the villages that raised us — advisers, home departments, parents, guardians, loved ones — the day is yours as much as ours. There’s a somber nostalgia waiting in the wings at every graduation. After the tarpaulins are taken down, the family dinners are ended, and the titos finally get tired of karaoke, you’ll know you can no longer deny the weight of the years. As another leaves the nest, hold your head up high, and know that the heights your children have climbed to are only proof of all the love that’s carried them.
I’d be remiss not to take this moment to show my gratitude to the man who raised me. For the past 10 years, my father has had the herculean task of raising me and my three siblings alone. Though he’s never once taken any credit for our achievements — in fact he didn’t even know I was graduating Summa till he saw it on Facebook — he may very well be the most successful solo-parent in Philippine history now being able to claim two Valedictorians, myself and my older brother from UP, three Pisay valedictorians, two PhDs, and with any luck for me and my sio ti, two more on the way. Love you, Dad, I’m sorry none of us will be the medical kind of doctor.
In the year leading up to the World Championships in Madrid, I gave well over a thousand speeches. Some in auditoriums and grand lecture halls, many more in dimly lit hallways, hiding in the corners of vacant classrooms, and a more embarrassing amount than I care to admit, arguing with imaginary enemies in the shower. Debate societies from the Oxfords and Cambridges of the world train in grand, historic theaters, decorated with ornate architecture, that have hosted everyone from Queen Elizabeth to the Dalai Lama. In Ateneo, we train in MVP 317 — half of MVP 317 to be precise, sorry APAIR for all the shouting — where there’s mold on the benches, mysterious stains on the couch, a picture of Sharon Cuneta taped to the podium for reasons unknown to me, and the closest thing to a guest of honor we’ve ever had is the one time Fr. Jett walked into the room by accident.
People ask me if I ever had any doubt that we could do it, win the World Championships, and prove that the Ateneo name belonged on that stage. I tell them every time that I did — that after every speech, I still prayed it wouldn’t be the end of our road. Ambition, much like faith, is a living thing — it walks hand in hand with doubt. The hardest day to show up to training is the day after you lose a tournament — when you know that victory has been stolen right out from under you, when you’re counting down all your unexcused “excused” cuts, when your confidence has shriveled up like an earthworm dried out in the April sun, and you’ve run out of hollow victories to distract you from wondering what any of it was even for.
In Ateneo, we are raised in a culture of Magis — a lifestyle of relentlessly and unabashedly aspiring to more, to aspire to the absurd as a matter of habit. Ateneo is a place where mathematicians dream of writing poetry, where orchestral musicians struggle through classes on statistical theory, where would-be senators learn liberation theology, and where would-be cardinals learn organic chemistry. Ateneo is a place where we are taught to never let the moldy benches keep us from dreaming of the world stage — to never let who we think we should be get in the way of who we could be.
A few semesters after our win in Madrid, I was sitting in on a friend’s philosophy class. The professor arrives at the concept of Ubuntu, the topic of our World Final. He says to the class, “You know, the Ateneo debate team won the World Championship on this topic. Can anyone tell me what their winning argument was?” My friend, giggling, starts elbowing me to recite. Ako naman, utu-uto, I raise my hand sheepishly and go “Ah yes, Sir, I think they said this…” The professor thinks for a bit and says, “Hmm, very good. Are you a fan of the Ateneo debate team?” At this point, my friend has burst into laughter, and I reply, “No Sir, I just read an article about them.” To which the Prof says, “Mmm okay, because you missed some important points.” That’s Magis! The beautiful rigor of Ateneo philosophy — Kant himself could be reciting on the categorical imperative, and still miss the point!
But what they don’t tell you is that the pursuit of greatness comes at a price. The cruelty of ambition without purpose, is that everything you worked for, no matter how great, will always shrink in the rearview. Many go their entire lives chasing the echoes of that applause. Even after their day in the sun is long gone, they build effigies to their once-and-former greatness, and nest in their imagined self-importance. They take their medals as a license to be cruel to those they deem beneath them, to stay stuck in their old ways, demanding unearned respect by invoking the ghost of who they once were, cursing themselves to forever chase the shadow of their own specter — the frail certainty they once had.
Achievement is a vice. Merit is a drug. The thunder of applause, if even for a moment, quiets the mind. There is no rush like the rush of finally, for once in your life, feeling seen. Victory offers temporary but addictive absolution. It keeps you from having to confront all the pain and pointless sacrifice. It gives you something to point to and say, “See, it was worth it!” But when the day finally comes that your ambition hits the brick wall, when you run out of medals to hide the scars, you will know you can run no longer from the question of Why! What was it all for?
A thousand speeches make nothing happen. They will not end war or solve the climate crisis. The same is true for much of what we hold dear in this university. Lebesgue integration does not make planes fly. Iambic pentameter will not solve the education crisis. Heidegger’s Dasein will not win fairer wages. The theology of Khata will not defend the Constitution.
Still, we read poetry at funerals and dance our hearts out at weddings. We quote philosophers at graduations and make speeches at the dawn of revolution. We build monuments to our melancholy, immortalize our sadness in song, and decide on a new meaning of life every time we leave the cinema.
This, dear friends, is the beauty of Magis — not to do more, but to be more. To live the examined life, a life made ever richer by every failure, every heartache, every soul-crushing setback, every disappointing defeat. To give and not to count the cost, to toil and not to seek reward. To find meaning not in the being, but in the becoming. To find joy not in the victories, but in the absurdity of even daring to try. To fight, to dedicate ourselves in the service of the other, so they may live not only better lives but fuller lives. Not just to have food on the table and a roof over their heads, but a song in their hearts and a poem in their souls.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I’ve seen university cultures around the world, and there’s really no place like Ateneo, where when you struggle, you struggle together. When there’s a problem you can’t solve, you solve it together. When you’re lost, you’re confused, you’re sad, all you have to do is step into the org room, and someone will be there. I barely remember any of the speeches I’ve given, but I’ll never forget the nights huddled up with coursemates in a corner of Bonchon, licking our wounds after a disastrous SciComp midterm. I’ll never forget the pep talks from my seniors before heading into a tough round, words I still hold onto when times get hard. I’ll never forget watching from afar as my juniors’ names are called to the stage, knowing that their triumphs have made me happier than my own ever did. I’ll never forget the time we went all the way to Divisoria on a random Wednesday afternoon to buy medals for the children of Malanday. I’ll never forget the way their smiles shone in the midday sun, “Look ma, may award na rin ako.” Ateneo reminds us that being men and women for others means being men and women for each other — to take strength in our shared vulnerability, to be complete in our incompleteness, to move each other to dare, to dream, to chase, to fail, to be, no matter how absurd.
To the Class of 2025: I pray we live to boldly chase the absurd, to run after our impossible dreams till our legs give out and we taste blood in every breath. The philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, reflecting on the tragedy of Don Quixote, put it beautifully, “Solo el que ensaya lo absurdo es capaz de conquistar lo imposible.” Only one who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible. We are the knight dueling dragons in the windmills, the bright-eyed first year who dares to call herself Atenean though she’s ever only known it by the four corners of a Zoom room, the fresh-faced graduate who dares to dream of a world where there is no hill, the 19-year-old who comes up on stage daring to be World Champion. We are the lies we tell ourselves. We are who we pretend to be. We are the nothings we make happen.
Congratulations Class of 2025, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam! – Rappler.com
