By Julian Abonal
If life has taught me one truth, it’s that the prospect of win-win situations is but wishful thinking. The Pareto efficiency, a standard for economic growth, believes that in an ideal world, one’s welfare cannot be improved without compromising another’s. Such is the reality leaders face on the daily — that try as you may, there is no pleasing everyone.
That’s the thing, though; pleasing everyone, or at least trying to, isn’t what a leader should do. He or she must be well-aware that humans are much too diverse to warrant the existence of *the* consensus. Rather than burning the candle at both ends scouring for it, a good leader makes peace with its non-existence and encourages others to do the same. From this principle arises the maxim of every student council: lay the common ground, be the common ground.
The Supreme Student Government (SSG) of Pisay-Bicol is no exception to this dictum. Many may know it as the clique always cooped up at the left side of the Gymnasium stage during campus-wide events, the brain and brawn behind the said events, or the assembly of the most competent leaders of the school, but above all, the SSG is the representative body of the PSHS-BRC student populace. Specifically, it facilitates communication between the BRC administration and those represented. On one hand, it extrapolates student concerns and opinions then raises them to the former;on the other, it ensures that announcements and policies reach the entirety of the student body. In essence, this set of officers is established to abridge the two groups — to lay and be the common ground on which cooperation is feasible.
Because of the gravity this responsibility holds, the SSG is two things: integral to the betterment of student welfare and, by extension, capable of bringing about its ruin. While the SSG officers stay true to vows of putting the best interests of the student body at the apex of their priorities, it is easy to take this mantle at face value. Rather than mediators who expedite as many compromises as it takes to ensure that the admin and the student body see eye to eye, these two sides diminish the SSG as a means to an end. To the admin and students alike, the council’s aptitude or lack thereof is defined by whether they can convince the other side to do our bidding or not. What is meant to be a bridge is treated as a one-way expy to self-preservation.
Yes, these tendencies are not privy to the BRC admin. Judging from the incessant questions during the Miting de Avance along the lines of “As an SSG officer, how would you ensure that the admin listens to the students?” and the absence of those formatted the other way around, it becomes apparent that we ignore or are oblivious of the SSG’s obligation to make us listen to the admin when they see fit. It’s hypocritical — we’re quick to condemn the admin’s dismissal of (or arguably, indifference for) our mental and physical well-being but are also tone-deaf when being reprimanded for engaging in vices or lewd escapades in a public place.
Being an SSG officer is tough. I can only imagine the frequency at which one finds himself or herself caught in the crossfire between the difficult administration and the snarky, wayward student body. The aspirants’ willpower to run despite being haunted by this possibility, on top of all the student and adolescent turmoil, goes to show their passion for service or their insanity; either way, they have my respect.
To those who will manage to win the trust of the students and be offered a seat at the table, may you never lose sight of your purpose: to lay the common ground, to be the common ground. Your position does not exist to be the students’ or the admin’s lapdogs; it exists because we need someone who’ll show us the best of both worlds, someone who’ll show us that when all is said and done, the admin and the student body share a common goal — to foster a better Pisay. Win-win situations don’t exist, but take these notions to heart and they just might.
