Something Worth Trying

The Correspondence Office hosted the flag ceremony this morning. It was Ricky’s turn to brandish his pep-talk skills, hehe. Here’s his speech:

Magandang umaga po sa inyong lahat. Ako po si Ricky Torre, deputy director ng Correspondence Office. Sinulat ko na lang ito, gawa nang mahina ako mag-improvise.

Like some of you here, I’m relatively a newcomer in Malacañang. Noong Biyernes na nakaraan ay nakabuo na ako ng isang taon dito. But I’ve worked in government and in politics before, and one of my former employers is the late senator Raul Roco.

It was from Senator Roco that I learned this insight, which I wish to share with you this morning, about public service or government being an art form, like music, painting, and the other genres. I already had a faint understanding of that idea before, but it was never really articulated until Senator Roco expressed it, not to me personally, but in one out-of-town forum. I was struck by how radical and true that idea was. Being radical, after all, does not mean so much to go to the extreme but rather to go the heart or the essence of the matter.

It is also true that any endeavor can really qualify as art or craftsmanship. But public service may well be the greatest of them all, precisely because of its lofty ends: to change a country, to revitalize a society, and to galvanize a people into an inspired mass action.

And yet, if public service or government is the loftiest of the art forms, the apparatus by which this art form functions has its gross limitations as well. We know by experience how rigorously regimented unto itself the bureaucracy is. But, on the other hand, the same can also be said of any apparatus of art, be it the piano, the electric guitar, or the classical structures of poetry, all of which are designed according to their unique restrictions.

We also have our limits in each our office cubicles, which, in any case, we wield, according to our resourcefulness and imagination. Here at the Correspondence Office, our main bulk of work is presidential messages. Normally, people reading the newspapers do not mind reading them, but still we thought of converting this medium of communication to convey the President’s main themes for the Filipino people: that we are starting afresh in charting our nation’s course, that now is a good time to revive the values that serve as the foundation for a progressive country, and that our country, after all, used to be regarded with envy in this region.

I take pride in the Correspondence Office staff, with whom I work to carry across the President’s message for the people. As my time is limited, let me just name some people. There’s my good friend and superior Mikael de Lara Co, the director of the Correspondence Office and a multiawarded poet, who had just won last Friday the Maningning Miclat Award, his second time to win that distinguished award.

I would also like to mention Sasha Martinez, that tall lovely girl in this group, who is also an award-winning writer like Director Co.

Bilang empleyado ng gobyerno, gamay na gamay ni Miss Martinez ang kanyang mga tungkulin, bagaman ito’y naiiba sa mga masakit at matamis na kwentong pag-ibig na sinusulat niya sa libre niyang panahon.’

Let me also cite somebody else whom the Correspondence Office coordinates with from time to time, and that is Undersecretary Manolo Quezon III, one of the most brilliant writers today on politics and history, and someone I’ve idolized for a long time, if from a distance. I remain awed by Undersecretary Quezon’s spontaneous creativity in his present capacity as a public official.

I mention these people because they are among many others who are following after what has become the tradition of artists venturing into the complex task of government. This tradition has a distinguished lineup, and that includes the poet and senator Claro M. Recto, the poet and senator Francisco Rodrigo, the journalist and diplomat Carlos P. Romulo, the historian, journalist, and diplomat Leon Ma. Guerrero, the poet and president Carlos P. Garcia, the poet and president Diosdado Macapagal, the journalist, poet, and senator Benigno Aquino Jr., and the mathematician and president Corazon Aquino, whose son—as those among us who are privy shall attest to—has grown fast in his job and become a rather adept wielder of the instrument that is government.

We can all take inspiration from these public servants, and also from the period which most of them helped to shape. Much has been written about our country’s distinction in the past. For me, the most outstanding facet—apart from the clean streets and waterways, and the neat development planning—was the dynamism of the Philippine bureaucracy, with the dedication of its work force being a practical application of activism. It is really amazing how the American rulers had such pride of place for this archipelago which was not even their home, but, to be sure, was their crown jewel at the time. All that, we have here as ours now, including our authority and position—and never has the cliché about learning from the past become more relevant than as it applies to us here in government.

To the many among us who are lawyers, or consultants, or clerks, we can see and we are in a position to evaluate how we can refine our work system, which like any set of procedures always has room for improvement. To those of us in charge of maintenance, we can always keep our comfort rooms clean and our taps functioning and thereby impress our visitors. I am, of course, emphasizing the obvious that nothing is too trivial and everything is important in our united tasks as one work force. And in each our assignments, we can strive to practice imagination and creativity until these qualities become a habit, thereby enabling us to improve in the fine art of government.

Thank you.