A mom at a youth congress

Students today are so lucky. They have access to so many learning opportunities outside the classroom - virtually through the Web and via face-to-face academic gatherings like the 3rd Shell Sustainable Development (SD) Youth Congress last September 28.

The Shell SD Youth Congress is a one-day forum conducted by Shell companies in the Philippines in partnership with the Center for Research and Communication of the University of Asia and the Pacific (CRC-UA&P). 


The annual activity is designed to promote Shell’s advocacy of a sustainable energy future by educating today’s youth and tomorrow’s leaders on the importance of sustainable development in our country’s progress and economic development.

During the congress, some 300 university students and Shell scholars from Metro Manila and Batangas province are given the rare opportunity to learn from and interact with industry leaders and to work with peers on generating the best SD ideas.

I was lucky enough to sit in during the morning session and listen to talks by Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. Asset Manager Sebastian Quiniones, CRC-UA&P Research Director Dr. Bernardo Villegas, UA&P School of Economics Dean Dr. Peter Lee Yu and UA&P 4th Year Industrial Economics student Francis Galeon.

They basically confirm my understanding of sustainable development which is “walang swapangan”.  The oft-quoted definition of SD is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (from Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report).

“Kaya let’s play football,” suggests Villegas, who explains that the spirit of cooperation and the inclination to contribute to the good of the community is fostered best in football, where everyone passes the ball to score a goal.  That, or he is a big football fan. :-)

I enjoy everything well enough until Yu flashes a series of very unattractive line graphs on the growth of GDP vs. production and cost of electricity.  I ask one of the organizers if his graphics mean anything to the students.

“Yes,” she whispers back. “These are students taking up Economics, Business, Engineering and Accounting courses.”

I can assure you that the takeaway of this Communication Arts graduate is a lot different from those of the students sitting in front of me.

For example, this mother is not exactly thrilled when Villegas encourages the young (and maybe hot-blooded) audience “to produce as many babies as they could” to bring home his point that we should not go the way of Japan, whose ageing population and declining birth rate may lead to the extinction of its people.

I do understand his reason for doing so.  Different credit rating agencies like Goldman Sachs, Fitch, ADB, etc. all agree that one of the reasons why the country is considered one of the fastest growing economies is its “young, growing, educated and English-speaking population.”

Considering that women are expected to live as long as 84 years and men 70 (now why is that?), these kids can be productive Filipinos in the next 30 years, he says.

Well, they would have to be empowered, says Quiniones. This is why Shell invests in the Filipino youth, touching over 8 million youngsters through its education, scholarship and skill-building programs. He encourages the youth to be more aware of what’s happening around them and get more involved so that they can make a difference.

STUDY, STUDY, STUDY and maximize your education, adds Villegas. (He is so emphatic about this that I actually have visions of the word STUDY framed, strung up, or set in an attractive design in my daughter’s room).

I will not go into the whole morning’s talks since I will not do the speakers justice anyway. But I did hear stuff that got me thinking about what my husband and I could do to inculcate the value of SD in our daughter (who was kilometers away in Batangas and even further from college as she is only 10):

• Invest in her future by saving up for travel to other countries. The ASEAN economic integration in 2015 lifts the barriers to doing business in 10 countries so we want her to already start thinking beyond Philippine shores;
• Encourage her to study agriculture and/or technology to produce food. This, after Villegas says the world will be “awash with energy” but will face a serious shortage of food and water;
• Or maybe, engineering. As Yu puts it, prices go down via research and development. “What we need are not economists, but engineers who will find better and cost-efficient ways of doing things to produce cheaper products for society. “ 
• Go into business, if possible, or encourage entrepreneurship from my daughter. This will be our contribution to increasing the Philippines’ rate of investment, which is low at 18 percent of the GDP compared to the average investment rate in Asia of 30 percent. 

Yes, it is the mother in me that listens so that when the articulate and confident Galeon gives his thoughts on how teenagers like him can contribute to SD and nation-building, my thoughts wander. 

I wish my husband and I can bring up our daughter to become as assured, confident, articulate, emphatic and knowledgeable as the young man standing before us.

Bringing her to activities like the Shell SD Youth Congress and exposing her to the wealth of knowledge and experiences shared would be a start.