TO BE OR NOT TO BE

Sometime last November, during my mentor’s book launching party, my mentor, Professor Elfren Cruz approach and asked me if I’m interested to help him realize the creation of the De La Salle University – Graduate School of Business – Alumni Association. Because he was my mentor and I couldn’t refuse him, I immediately said yes without thinking. Thus began my foray into this alumni “thing”. I began my foray with a December attendance to the DLSAA meeting, the umbrella alumni organization of DLSU, my alma matter and there I saw and understood what an alumni association is really about and the difficulties associated with “job”. Then followed a meeting with my mentor during a fellowship night this year where we discuss the “vision” of the proposed alumni association. Prior to that, I was tasked to assemble a group of alumni “volunteers” to get the balls rolling. Unfortunately, it was an arduous task filled with disappointment. Many like the idea of an alumni association but none are willing to work for it. It was really a dismal revelation. I figured that I had to “dig deeper” in order to get it to work. Eventually, I was able to clobber together with the help of my professor and fellow alumni, a core team of 15 – something people dedicated to the task. We held meetings every month with me presiding over. It was basically a talking group with each member eagerly contributing ideas on how to build the organization, how to attract members, and what projects to do. However, nothing really came out of it because we don’t have funds to start with. My professor was really vague about the funding source. Second, we are also caught up with the mess that is the structural change that the university is undergoing and hence, the question of “status” of this proposed organization. Specifically, I was told that we will be a chapter within DLSAA first (which is why I was made to attend the DLSAA meeting in the first place), then this was changed into a semi – independent organization under the DLSAA wing, and finally, as a totally independent organization exclusively for GSB. Anyway, the talking group kept on growing as my peers and I were calling up former classmates and friends to join the group (it now has around 30 members and growing). In fact, I went as far as digging up my class directory lists and called up my classmates and friends. Again, we encountered difficulties. It turns out that most contact info listed in the directories is related to work such as corporate emails, office numbers. A few had listed their cell phone numbers, residential numbers, and personal emails. Most of the people I’ve looked for had already transferred to a new job, which makes their corporate contact info obsolete. Others with listed personal contact info had either already changed their numbers, or are no longer using their emails, or had moved out of the country, or got married and thus changed their contact info as well. It came to pass that I only managed to get in touch with a dozen people more or less out of a list of around 200. Pretty tough. Another difficulty we’ve experienced is that of the generation gap. I mean I was able to call up alumni who have been one time or the other my classmate and that spans around a decade or so but we weren’t able to get in touch with the “older” alumni or those who graduated in the 60s – late 80s. Anyway, growing impatient with the slow progress, my professor decided to make a definitive move by calling a mini – general assembly with himself calling up his former students but which only a few arrived. At any rate, the meeting got a stormy start. One of the attendees was a former student council officer and at the onset, she is decidedly political, discrediting people and posturing herself as the “one”. Well, she manages to earn the ire of just about every participant in the room that day. One of the contentious issue back then was the election officers, which during my “talking days” were never touch because what is the point of having a “king” without a “kingdom” i.e., there wasn’t an organization in the strictest sense for there are no members yet. However, it now seems even that didn’t deter some people from “grabbing” power and credit. It came to past that I got so pique and dismayed by the political noise going on that I started to become “scarce” during meetings though I was also pre – occupied with work related problems. It was only recently, after the conclusion of my work – related problems that I began to be active again with the cause and I announced that to my peers through the email group. And to my surprise, things change dramatically during my absence. An election was scheduled this coming September with calls for recruitment of an initial 100 members. Second, the coordinator of the group, a school staff appointed by my professor the “help” out created a parallel email group without my knowledge. She didn’t even invited me to the new mailing group. I don’t know what I did to her but she was cutting me off the loop. Apparently, as one of my peers says, she seems to favor the “politician” a.k.a., the former student council officer. Thirdly, my mentor was no longer part of the loop also. He has “devolve” the task to the coordinator because he is too "busy". My mentor is staunchly against an election of officers this early but apparently he was “convinced” to agree to the idea by no less than the Dean. It happens that with the “structural realignment” of the university, the Dean became “unduly” interested with the formation of a separate alumni organization, one that he could control I guess. The group coordinator was the Dean’s PR person. So the situation is, we are going to have an election this September to elect a set of officers for a GSB backed alumni organization and all hell began to break loose. When my announcement of returning to active duty was sent, I was surprised to get calls from my peers professing their “vote” for me! The funny thing is I wasn’t even campaigning! It turns out that politics have begun to rear their ugly head and as early as now, there are 4 other “wannabes” (not including me) vying to be the first. They all kept on talking but no concrete moves or actions were made at all towards the goal of realizing the formation of an alumni association. This is the reason why some of my peers wanted me to lead because I was “seen” to be doing something about it. It is too frustrating actually to learn all of this development. I don’t really oppose an election right now but I just think it isn’t right at this time. I mean, as I said the core members are mostly my batch mates and we all belong to the same “generation” of graduates. Older graduates, many of them with high standing in business and society aren’t there in the group. It is the “old generations” that has money and influence and they should be the ones running the show while “youngsters” like me should be “making money” and earning our feathers in the cap. Youngsters like me should be helping out the established guys run the organization and not seize it for our own. By doing so, we would be alienating the “older generations” in the organization and this would be detrimental in the long run since we need their connections, standing, and money to function effectively. But hey, this is politics, nobody cares about the outcome until they are in charge. On the other hand, I also understand the wisdom of an election of officers for this would create a formal structure with an identifiable leadership and a solid backing from the university. This would provide legitimacy, credibility, and authority that would help in attracting members and hence, the formation of the organization. It wasn't an idea to be dismissed outright. Well, it is at this point that I am faced with a dilemma. On one hand, I want to run for the leadership of the organization. I would be a hypocrite not to admit that I desire the empty vanity of the post. But on the same length, I don’t want it either. For one, the post entails great responsibility and takes up too much time and effort, something that I found out during my “talking days” and which I can’t afford to provide. Second, my mentor is out of the picture and from the way things are, I was being forced out from the picture too. If I get elected, I doubted if I could get any support from the university much less cooperation. Third, the issue of funding is of paramount concern. Although the university is providing the seed capital, the organization would definitely need more and as the leader of the organization, the expectation is high that one should provide “cover” for any shortfall to make the endeavor a success. Given that, it is only logical that I shouldn’t be getting myself involve in the mess. After all, politics isn’t my forte. I would rather stay home reading a good book rather than play politics with a bunch of power – hungry, do nothing, try to look good politicians. With these “justifications”, I shouldn’t feel anything at all with the coming election, not the least bit interested. In fact, as a testament to this care – free attitude, I didn’t campaign at all neither I make any effort in recruiting. However, I had this sense of unease lately as September nears. I felt I should join in the fray not only because of my own hypocritical lust for vanity but also because of my sense of responsibility. I don’t owe my mentor anything now to see the task through as he himself is out of the scheme but I felt responsible to the my peers for I invited them to join in the group in the first place. They are there because of me. I felt that I would be abandoning them especially those peers in the talking group. We had met a couple of times. We had spent time, effort, and a few pennies in trying to draw up a coherent plan. To not be able to realize those plans would tantamount to declare that what we did for the last 6 months or so are a waste of our time. I would be the person responsible for the failure (if I didn’t run and realize them) because they look up to me to make it happen in the first place (other people may lead but they may not be adopting those plans). Furthermore, as recent activities or inactivity suggests, nothing is really moving without somebody taking the lead. Election dates and venue haven’t been set. There is no registration. No announcement in relation to that has been made. Nothing whatsoever that would make an election work. Nothing so far that I could see (or perhaps, I wasn’t able to see it because I’m out of the loop) to suggest that there will be an election at all (even though the rumor mills is going on full throttle about this). Something has to be done and all eyes are on me because I was the one who recruited most of my peers into the group and I was the one calling the meetings all the time until recently. Funny, I prided myself in being able to make decisions and stick to it. But now, I’m in a quagmire as to what to do. Should I run or not? As Shakespeare would say in one of his plays, “To be or not be, that is the question”. And yes, it is a tough one.