Beyond my SenRi crush

I had imagined meeting Senator Risa Hontiveros many times, although certainly not with a microphone in my hand, hundreds of students in front of us, and my colleague Dr. Jomil Guintivano beside me helping identify who would ask the next question. Before the open forum at ISUFST’s Main Campus–Tiwi Site began, I made a confession that drew giggles from the crowd: Risa had been my college crush. Decades later, there I was seated beside her, moderating a conversation with around 700 students and faculty. Life has its little jokes. But once the students took the microphone, my fan moment faded into the background. What mattered was hearing how Hontiveros would answer young people thinking seriously about school, work, health, governance, and their future.

The questions could have come from any campus. Will there be decent jobs after graduation? Can education keep pace with AI? Why do teachers remain overburdened? Where can students seek help when things become too heavy? Does the youth really have a voice in policy? Even the postponement of the barangay and SK elections came up. Hontiveros opposed the postponement, arguing that people should be given the chance to choose their leaders and hold them accountable. For young people constantly urged to participate in democracy, that point was especially relevant. Nothing sounded rehearsed. These were everyday worries spoken aloud.

Perhaps that was why Hontiveros’ discussion of the SDGs worked. She moved beyond the familiar seventeen boxes and talked about where those goals actually land: schools, workplaces, clinics, communities, and public life. Young people, she said, “will inherit and shape our collective future.” The line also turns the question toward us: What are we giving them to work with?

Take education. A student asked about government support and employment after graduation, and the discussion eventually reached artificial intelligence. This is no longer futuristic talk. The International Labour Organization’s 2026 Philippine policy brief says generative AI is already transforming work, with young people among those requiring particular attention as occupations change. So preparing students cannot mean teaching them to outrun ChatGPT. That race makes little sense. Schools have to strengthen the things technology makes more valuable: judgment, communication, creativity, disciplinary competence, ethical reasoning, collaboration, and the ability to tell useful information from beautifully packaged nonsense.

The discussion eventually reached teachers. Hontiveros argued that education cannot be judged by funding alone. Teacher pay, benefits, professional growth, and classroom conditions matter, too. I raised the need for a more responsive Magna Carta for teachers, and she agreed that educators need better protection. After all, “noble profession” sounds less comforting when a teacher is doing paperwork at midnight, worrying about medical bills, or stretching a salary to payday. Respect should show up in more than speeches. Hontiveros has also filed a bill seeking a ₱15,000 across-the-board increase in the basic monthly salary of public basic education teachers and employees.

Mental health followed, a concern especially close to me as a guidance counselor. A graduate school student asked how young people could help shape health policy instead of merely receiving services adults design for them. Hontiveros spoke about prevention, accessible services, health workers, funding, and giving young people a seat in the conversation. Her involvement is not new: she authored Senate Bill 1190, later consolidated into the measure that became the Mental Health Act.

Then came a thought I hope survives beyond the selfies: leadership does not require a title. It can begin with listening, helping, showing up, and speaking when something needs fixing. We Filipinos do love titles, elections, certificates, matching shirts, and impressive officer lists. Fair enough. But sometimes every office is occupied and leadership is still vacant.

That distinction matters because Hontiveros also talked about concrete protections for young people. Her current Students’ Rights and Welfare proposal seeks a national framework for student rights, while her Interns’ Rights and Welfare bill recognizes interns as part of the labor force and calls for fair treatment and just compensation. Both remain legislative proposals, not enacted guarantees, which is an important distinction. The internship issue is painfully relatable. Ask a college student who has to find money for transportation, meals, uniforms, boarding, and requirements while completing hundreds of training hours. “Experience” is valuable, certainly, but experience does not pay the jeepney fare. A young person learning a profession should not automatically become convenient free labor.

Meeting a politician on campus should invite questions, not automatic applause. Students can admire Hontiveros and still disagree with her. In fact, that is how public life should work. I have admired Risa for years, something 700 people now know rather well. But admiration does not excuse anyone from scrutiny. A public official’s record should still face the questions that matter: Is the proposal sound? Are there better alternatives? Does it work beyond the speech and the press release?

This is why I enjoyed watching students take the microphone. Time permitted only a handful of questions, and we promised to gather the rest through our social media page and forward them for consideration. That detail may seem minor, but it captures what a youth forum ought to be. Young people should not merely fill chairs while adults deliver wisdom from a stage. They should interrupt our comfortable assumptions with inconvenient questions: Why is this happening? Who benefits? Who gets left behind? Where is the evidence? What can we do? A university earns its name when students leave with better questions, not merely more quotations.

For me, there was also a quieter lesson. Sitting beside someone I had admired since college was admittedly a small personal dream fulfilled. I enjoyed the smile, the wink, and the unlikely symmetry of it all. Yet the more memorable privilege was not proximity to a senator. It was being close enough to hear students speak about the country as they actually experience it. A future teacher worried about education. A future professional wondered about employment. Another student asked about mental wellness. Others were thinking about local and national governance and their place in it. These were not abstract SDGs. They had faces, voices, tuition payments, family expectations, anxieties, and plans.

Hontiveros told them that they would inherit and shape our collective future. I would add only this: inheritance is never just about what the young receive. It is also about what we leave behind. If we want courageous, compassionate, critical, and socially responsible young Filipinos, then our institutions must give them something worthy to work with—good schools, protected teachers, decent opportunities, accessible care, truthful information, and public spaces where asking difficult questions is welcomed rather than punished. The young are already listening. They are already asking. Perhaps the harder question now belongs to us: when they inherit the country, what kind of country will we have left them?

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.