Special Hopia, Special Siopao

To have something special, you just have to believe it’s special.

– Po’s Dad, Kung Fu Panda

I’m not the biggest movie buff, unlike my man who practically watches two or more DVDs at night before going to bed. But when I saw the trailer of Kung Fu Panda, I knew I had to watch it because… I thought the big fat Panda was so cute. But after one run of the movie, I realized it was very beautiful and carried with it so many insights that I practically watched it again, five times.

I was struck by the ‘special’ line. I figured, indeed, it is very true. I noticed how people seemed to prefer stuff over others just because it carried the word special like special hopia, or special siopao, or even special isaw [grilled intestines]. But sometimes, we often tend to look too long and hard for that special thing without realizing that we already have that special something all along.

We just have to believe that it is special.

My thoughts about this was stirred when a political student party campaigned in one of my classes. The student running for campus student council president was talking about the well-known battle cries or lines of famous universities in the metro like Animo La Salle or Arriba Letran. Then he asked what was our line in our university. There was silence because we all knew that there was none. We didn’t shout anything special during sports events against other SUCs nor do we chant anything special during events awarding against other competing schools.

It was then that he said that those other schools had a yell simply because they were proud of their school, of where they came from. They feel so special being a part of that institution that they scream its name and glorify it so much. And the reason why we do not have any yell was because we lack school spirit and pride within ourselves.

I figured he was right. Students do not feel special in the university. Maybe because we are but an SUC in the province, or maybe because it was the culture that we’ve adopted from those who came before us. But I realized it was not right. In fairness to our university, there are many things to be proud of, though far from perfect, there are still things within us that are special.

Like the nursing board top notchers that come every year, or the simple fact that we are the largest university in the province, and one of the emerging strongest SUCs in the region though we are the youngest. And I can honestly think of so many, many things to be proud of in the university.

I guess in the end, we just have to believe that we are special. That we have something special. That at the end of the day, the most important part is that we believed.

After all, to have something special, you just have to believe that it is special.