YESTERDAY, the Ateneo School of Government (ASOG) formally celebrated its 10th year anniversary with a Leadership Conference which featured no less than President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
ASOG is probably one of the least known institutions within the Ateneo de Manila University community but its role as a graduate school for leadership and public service has proven to be an important thrust in promoting a culture of nation-building and responsible citizenship within and, more importantly, outside the university.
Two of the core programs of the ASOG are its Masters in Public Management (MPM) and its Executive Education program which equip our government officials with the necessary knowledge, skills and competencies that would allow them to be able to serve their constituents in the best possible way.
An innovation that the ASOG has done is it has brought its MPM program to different provinces such as Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, IloIlo and La Union so as to provide access to more leaders especially in our rural areas. Aside from this, the ASOG also helps manage international programs that promote transparency and public accountability such as the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP) which brings together different institutions in the Philippines, Mongolia, Cambodia and Indonesia that promote social accountability. The main aim is for these institutions to learn from each other, work together and at the same time train other institutions that also want to promote social accountability in their respective areas.
Aside from this, ASOG is also heavily involved in addressing environmental issues particularly climate change. With policy and governance as its major strength, the ASOG currently provides policy support at the national level to address climate change impacts. This initiative is strongly backed up by the ASOG’s projects on capacity building for local government units, technology and innovations, social accountability, disaster risk management, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. In addition, ASOG also conducts studies in electoral reform through its Political Democracy and Reforms (PODER) Program. Among its priority areas are election-related violence and the strengthening of political parties in the Philippines. Finally, my involvement with the ASOG has been through our Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship program that aims to train the next generation of Filipino leaders who will address key social problems in our country in an innovative and sustainable manner.
These are just among the programs that ASOG has been running through the years as it continues to be at the forefront of creating genuine and lasting positive change in our nation.
For more information about the ASOG, please feel free to visit our website at http://asg.ateneo.edu .
Advice to young leaders
Last Saturday, I had the privilege to speak at an induction ceremony of the Leo Club (youth arm of the Lions Club) at the Jade Vine restaurant in Manila. In my short speech to them, I shared with them that if one looks at the world right now, it is young people who are actually leading the way in shaping our future. The founders of Google and Facebook were both under 30 when they established these two Internet giants which have already changed the way we live.
In the field of politics and governance, the Arab spring has been led by young people in Egypt, Syria and Libya through the use of technology and social media. This has led to the toppling of decades old dictatorships in the region. No longer are the youth being taken for granted since more and more their idealism and zeal are re-shaping our world’s future.
It is with this context in mind that I challenged the members of the Leo Club to also become active change makers in their respective communities by moving out of their comfort zone and going beyond what is being asked of them as responsible Filipino citizens.
Simple community programs such as collecting books for public school libraries or raising funds to send financially-underprivileged students to college can go a long way in helping move our nation forward.
By using social media such as Facebook and Twitter properly and responsibly, they can now make their collective voices heard especially about national and local issues that may concern them such as the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill and the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).
Finally, the challenge is for every Filipino to not just stop at criticizing our government and its flaws but to also become part of the solution to our social problems. One thing that we need to change is our culture of always trying to criticize and bring down institutions but not being able to be part of the solution ourselves. The energy and idealism of the Filipino youth needs to be channeled properly so that it becomes productive and positive and not the other way around.
As part of its thrust in getting more young Filipinos involved in nation-building, the ASOG together with Kaya Natin!, the office of Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Quezon City Vice-Mayor Joy Belmonte-Alimurung and Representatives Bolet Banal and Marcy Teodoro have launched iChange: a youth leadership and social entrepreneurship training program which goes around to different areas all over the country to provide skills training to young leaders.
Recently, we just finished training more than 60 young leaders from Marikina and Quezon City. For more information about this program, you can get in touch with Myra at
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or call (02) 426-6001 local 4637.
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