Ask “Why Not?”
Closing Address for the Ateneo de Naga
Junior High School Completion Ceremonies
Fr. Roberto EN Rivera, SJ
17 March 2018

My dear students moving up to senior high.  It has been a long evening and many words have been spoken already.  Let me just leave you with words not my own, but from the famous English author George Bernard Shaw.  Shaw once wrote: “Some look at things that are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask, why not?”  My dear students, as you move on from junior high, I ask you to do the two things that Shaw says, to dream, and to ask, why not.

Dream on my dear students, and ask, why not? You may not have gotten the grades or awards you were hoping to get in junior high.  You have senior high and college ahead of you. Why not? You may have discovered a skill and talent and nurtured it in junior high.  You want to be really good at it. Why not? You may have been inspired in junior high to think about some future career or vocation that will allow you to make our country and our world a better place?

Perhaps it may even be the simplest of aspirations.  I have never thanked my parents or guardians and said “I love you” to them for all the care and support they have given me?  Why not. Ateneo de Naga has taught me to be a good person, a true man and woman for others. I want to live this out the rest of my life.  Why not?

My dear students, this is our final message for you.  Never stop dreaming. Never stop asking, why not? Congratulations!  Dios mabalos!