Ateneo Board of Trustees, you bore me.

ADMU Board of Trustees respond to the issue of MVP's stolen commencement speech!

SNORE.

Fine, the Ateneo needs MVP to stay. Okay. He's a great businessman with a long list of achievements and contributions to society. Wonderful. But must your excuse for the man be simply that he wasn't aware? Like, "oops sorry i didn't know lol"?

Evidence suggests that MVP, knowingly or unknowingly, has been giving stolen speeches as far back as 1997 (source!). Does an impressive CV exempt him from the basic responsibility of checking his speeches at least once in 13 years?

As a member of the Ateneo's class of 2010 who had to sit through the speech, I'm not amused nor moved to tears in admiration of MVP's apology---which wasn't even directly addressed to the whole Ateneo community nor to the graduating class, just to Fr. Nebres, university president. Apologizing and taking responsibility is the right thing to do, no doubt, but this is THE LEAST we could have expected.

Another thing is that the cry of "we support MVP, sack the speechwriter!" makes little sense, as MVP's only publicly disseminated statement fails to shed any meaningful light on the extent to which an alleged speechwriter was involved in the crime. MVP claims that he has "had some help in the drafting of [his] remarks," but takes "full and sole responsibility for them" (source!). Some help? What exactly does that mean?

During the weeks toward the end of the academic year, MVP gathered some of the Ateneo's brightest students (I wasn't one of them) for a group discussion of what the graduating class would like to hear in a commencement speech; is this the help he was talking about? Or did his statement really imply an evil plagiarist speechwriter who fed his product of intellectual thievery and malice to poor, unsuspecting MVP?

Or doesn't the fact that MVP, without hesitation, took full and sole responsibility---not to mention claim to have "labored long hours to get those speeches done"---give enough indication that he has had at least some control over what he was doing? As opposed to him being utterly clueless as the Ateneo Board of Trustees seem to imply.

Even worse is if somehow MVP took all the blame to save face (an allegedly "rare example of humility, selflessness, and leadership"), and then sacked his speechwriter, in which case all of you who cheer at this scenario are hypocrites.

MVP was given the great honor of an honoris causa by a university community who deeply respects him, and he could not even give us his own speech---in an academic setting, no less. Fine, a man of his importance might have been too busy to write his own speeches. Having other people write your speeches for you is perfectly legitimate, since all other important people do it. Fine. I suppose you can get away with it if "visionary leadership," "love of country," "service and commitment," and "generous self-giving" are all attached to your name in other people's introductory remarks of you.

I mean no attack against MVP's person. God, no! The issue is no longer MVP's one big mistake vs. his achievements. The majority of the Ateneo community has already made its stand clear enough. Let him stay in the Ateneo, let him keep his honorary degree. Fine. MVP will live with his shame for the rest of his life, and that's already a much more awful punishment than anyone can give.

But MVP, I think you owe us a bit more enlightenment than your "public" apology---which was addressed to one person (but fine, apology accepted.) Who wrote the speech? To what extent did you have a hand in it? And in those crucial moments when you "labored long hours" thinking of what piece of wisdom to give the Ateneo's graduating class of 2010, WHAT EXACTLY WERE YOU THINKING?

But I suppose in the end I just think the Board of Trustees' official statement could have been less boring, lazy, and typical.

ADDENDUM (April 15, 2010):

Faculty respond to the Board of Trustees.

THANK YOU ATENEO FACULTY FOR BEING SENSIBLE.