The harder meaning of student leadership

There is a question every student leader should probably be asked before being handed a title, a lanyard, or a microphone: What are you leading for?

Not what position you hold. Not how many activities you can organize. Not how impressive your résumé will look after graduation. What are you leading for?

That question lingered after Prof. John Niño Vinson Cruz, University Student Council adviser, spoke at Panugod 2026, ISUFST’s three-day student leadership summit held at the Dumangas Campus. His session, Isang Tinig, Isang Tindig, centered on collective action, solidarity, and working together.

It was far from the usual leadership talk about confidence and charisma. Cruz brought students into harder territory — history, dissent, responsibility, and the people they are supposed to serve.

Perhaps that was the conversation they needed.

One line captured it well: If you are here only for titles and praise, this is not your place.

That may sound harsh, but student leadership can easily become performative. We have all seen it: titles before names, carefully staged photographs, elaborate launches, matching shirts, certificates, awards, and activities that sometimes seem designed as much for documentation as for impact.

Then there is the temptation of “portfolio fattening” — collecting positions, certificates, projects, and recognitions because they may look good on a résumé later. There is nothing wrong with building a strong portfolio or celebrating achievements. The problem begins when these become more important than the people one is supposed to serve.

Visibility matters. Documentation matters. Recognition has its place. But none of these is leadership itself.

Which brings us back to the harder question Cruz kept returning to: panindugan — what do you stand for?

Where is the student council when students raise concerns about facilities, campus policies, food, safety, or spaces for student activities? What does an organization do beyond conducting its annual events? What happens to a student publication when it becomes afraid to ask uncomfortable questions?

His point was simple: councils, organizations, and publications should give students spaces to think, participate, speak, and serve.

A student council cannot simply be an events committee. A student organization cannot exist only for recognition. And a campus publication is certainly more than the school’s photography team. Each has a constituency. Each has a mandate. Each has a voice.

Cruz also reminded the young leaders that student organizations did not appear from nowhere.

He took them back to the history of student activism and to young Filipinos who paid dearly for speaking up. The discussion recalled student leaders and activists during and after martial law and the role student councils and publications played in struggles involving rights and democracy.

Among the names he raised were student journalist Liliosa Hilao, UP student leader Leandro “Lean” Alejandro, and Ateneo student activist Edgar Jopson.

But remembering them should not end with political labels or nostalgia. Their stories leave us with questions that remain relevant regardless of one’s political leanings: What is education for if educated people are afraid to ask questions? What happens when young people stop caring about what happens beyond their own lives? And what good is having a voice if we use it only when speaking is safe?

History becomes useful when it makes us examine the present.

One line from Cruz deserves particular attention: A good leader is always a critical thinker.

Critical thinking, however, is not the same as opposing everything. A critical student does not automatically distrust government, administrators, teachers, or institutions. Neither does a critical student automatically accept everything they say.

He or she asks questions. Is this true? What is the evidence? Who benefits? Who may be disadvantaged? Whose voice has not been heard? Is there another side to this story?

That is what universities should teach.

We should not be producing students who merely repeat what their teachers, administrators, politicians, influencers, or even friends tell them. We should be forming young people capable of examining evidence and reaching their own conclusions.

And those conclusions do not have to be identical. Cruz himself acknowledged that students can hold different political views. The goal of education is not uniform thinking. It is informed thinking.

One part of the talk struck me as especially relevant to campus life: Cruz’s discussion of three student formations — student councils, student organizations, and student publications.

Too often, they work beside one another rather than with one another. The council has its programs. Organizations have theirs. The publication covers everybody’s activities. Each produces accomplishment reports. Then another school year ends.

But imagine if they actually worked together.

When students raise a legitimate concern, organizations can help bring it forward. The council can engage the proper university offices. The publication can investigate and explain the issue fairly. Students become informed. Administrators hear clearer concerns. Dialogue happens. Perhaps something actually changes.

That is not troublemaking. That is participation — and participation is part of responsible student leadership. Students should be able to ask questions, express concerns, offer alternatives, and engage authorities respectfully.

It also fits what Panugod itself hopes to accomplish. The three-day summit seeks to align student organizations with university policies, integrate the ISDA guiding principles and the SDGs, build stronger networks among campuses, and empower student leaders to undertake meaningful projects and civic initiatives.

Solidarity does not mean everybody agreeing. Sometimes solidarity means disagreeing honestly and still finding enough common ground to work together.

There is another reason this conversation matters at ISUFST. We are a state university.

Behind our classrooms, laboratories, scholarships, salaries, equipment, and buildings is public money. Some of it comes from people who may never enter a university classroom themselves: farmers, fisherfolk, vendors, drivers, laborers, professionals, parents, and ordinary taxpayers trying to make ends meet.

Some fish before sunrise. Some work under the heat. Some postpone their own needs so their children can finish school. A state university student therefore receives more than an education. With it comes a public trust.

This does not mean students owe government unquestioning obedience. It means that, somehow, the education they receive should find its way back to the people — in competence, honesty, research, service, innovation, compassion, or responsible citizenship.

That is where ISUFST’s guiding principles — Integrity, Social Justice, Discipline, and Academic Excellence — become more than words beneath a university logo. They ask us how we behave when nobody is applauding.

Panugod means a beginning, a kindling. That is a fitting image for leadership.

Fire can give light, but passion alone is never enough. Passion without thought becomes noise. Thought without courage becomes silence. Courage without humility can become arrogance. And leadership without service eventually becomes performance.

The real test of Panugod will therefore come after these three days. It will happen when the delegates return to their campuses and encounter the less glamorous side of leadership: consultations, complaints, budgets, meetings, disagreements, deadlines, and students who simply need someone to listen.

Years from now, few will remember every certificate or activity. But someone may remember the council that listened when nobody else would. Someone may remember the organization that showed up when help was needed. Someone may remember the campus journalist who had the courage to ask the question others avoided.

Perhaps that is the better measure of student leadership. Not what position did you hold? Not how loudly did you speak? But something quieter and much harder: When you finally found your voice, whom did you use it for?

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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.