Valedictorians with no filter

By Herman M. Lagon

Not all graduation speeches shout. Some speak in quiet truths. And this year, those truths echoed all over the country—of hardship, survival, and questions that do not end with a diploma. Valedictorians gave us a picture of success with cracks in it, asking, “What does winning mean if you barely survived the race?”

At UPLB, summa cum laude Helbert Paat took the stage with a steady but heavy voice. He was not there for applause. He was there to tell a story—one of growing up with little and seeing how poverty is not just about money. It is also about what we do not learn, what we ignore, and what we allow. His speech was a call: this cap and gown are not the prize—they are just tools. Now, what will you do with them? His speech was not sterile motivational fluff. It was a litany of questions we would rather not ask. Who gets left behind while we rise? Who gets crushed when systems reward a few and spit out the rest?

Then there was the understated grace of Tricia Ann Anda of University of St. La Salle (USLS)-Bacolod, who took her summa medal and tried to give it away—to classmates juggling part-time gigs, cracked devices, and silent battles. Her speech did not shout; it whispered courage. In her words, hardship was not a sob story but a slow transformation, likened to a chrysalis, a quiescent insect pupa like that of a butterfly, where no one watches, and no one claps. Her metaphor of growing wings in silence struck a chord with those who know that resilience is often built offstage. You could imagine the room hold its breath when she honored her overseas mom and said, “What you gave was not absence—it was love in its bravest, quietest form.” That line alone deserved a standing ovation.

Over in Baguio, PMA valedictorian Jessie Ticar Jr. marched past expectations and into the nation’s consciousness. His story was not only of drills and discipline but of a mother who sold pens in city hall to raise a future soldier. His father, once a taxi driver, had a stroke before he entered the Academy. But Jessie did not frame his story as a triumph of the self. He anchored it in community, family, and duty. “In a world trying to change us,” he said, “may we stand firm and change the world instead.” It was a line that earned him the nation’s applause, but also its challenge.

And while many speeches aimed for dignity, some aimed for disruption. At UP Diliman, Val Llamelo warned his listeners early on: if you want to be inspired, scroll elsewhere. Instead, he launched into a hard critique of structural inequity. He questioned why a poor working student graduating summa cum laude remains an anomaly, a “headline,” when it should be the norm. Rather than framing his achievement as proof of “making it,” he called it evidence that the system makes it hard for most. His rhetoric refused to be ornamental. It was a wake-up call disguised as a farewell. And the applause that followed? It was slow, hesitant—but real.

Over at Ateneo de Manila, another valedictorian, Robert Nelson Leung, stepped up with a speech that fused absurdity with depth. Having won a world championship in debate, he knew the weight of words—but he also knew their limits. “A thousand speeches make nothing happen,” he confessed. Then he spun magic, reminding everyone that Magis—the pursuit of more—is not about doing, but becoming. Not just about being right, but about being whole. And it was not just rhetoric. His examples were hilariously grounded: moldy benches in debate rooms, debates with imaginary enemies in the shower, random trips to Divisoria for medals. Sure, his punchlines made them laugh—but his real point was clear: greatness without heart is just noise, and all that discipline turns cruel if it forgets what it is for.

In Capiz, Khaz-JP Padilla did more than make history as the first openly trans summa cum laude of her campus. She brought visibility to a community still boxed by stigma. Her speech refused to be sanitized. It named the quiet violence of forced conformity, the confusion of identity in teenage years, and the power of family support. She said it plainly: “This is not the end of my journey. It is the start of using my voice for those still silenced.” It was not just a call for inclusion—it was a claim to space, to dignity, to the fundamental right to belong.

At Central Philippine University, Nathalie Heart Herrera stood tall—but not for the medal around her neck. She chose instead to honor the quiet sacrifices that got her there. Her message overflowed with thanks, not the scripted kind, but the kind that sees both the bright lights and the long, silent nights. “Medals glint in the sun,” she said. “But character gleams in the dark.” Her words were for the students who did not always excel, but endured. The ones who just kept going.

Down south in Davao, French Bandong stepped up and made politics hit home. As a Political Science graduate from Ateneo de Davao, he said plainly what many fear to: silence is not safe—it is surrender. He talked about Gaza and elections, but also about the fights around family dinner tables, the online unfollowings, and the pain of growing apart. His speech was not easy to hear, but necessary. Sometimes, love sounds like discomfort.

From the UP High School in Iloilo, valedictorian John Emmanuel Ocastro reminded his peers that every choice shapes who we become. His speech was a gentle yet powerful reflection on regret and acceptance. “Regret,” he said, “is fleeting—if you choose to make it so.” He talked about choosing UPHSI, leaving home, finding his way in clubs and student government. The message was simple: own your choices, but more importantly, surround yourself with people who choose you back. It was not an earth-shattering speech. It was, in its quiet way, something better: honest.

In a recent address from Sophia Beatriz Cruz of UP Diliman’s College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, the central question was piercing: “What makes us different from the batches who once dreamed of change but later upheld the status quo?” It was not condemnation—it was introspection. She turned to a lesson from her father: “Doing well for yourself and doing good unto others are not mutually exclusive.” This, she argued, was the path forward—no longer choosing between self and service but merging both into a life of conviction.

These speeches are not just archives of eloquence. They are diagnostic tools. They measure the heartbeat of a generation raised during a pandemic, taught through a screen, and graduating into an uncertain world. They prove that valedictory addresses today are not about poetic flourishes or sterile gratitude. They are not rehearsed exercises in perfection. They are testaments. Witnesses. Warnings. Prayers. Sometimes all in one.

Perhaps, in the past, we have all heard many speeches dressed in academic finery, padded with quotations, and smoothed by institutional politeness. But these ones? These 2025 valedictory speeches were jagged, raw, awkward at times—but real. And perhaps that is what our society needs most: not more polished pronouncements, but more brave truths said while trembling.

When the streamers are taken down and the medals tucked away, what remains? Hopefully, not just framed certificates, but an ember—an inconvenient, necessary ember—burning in each graduate’s chest. Something that aches not just to win, but to serve. Not just to be heard, but to listen. Not just to change their lives, but to help others do the same.

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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.