Atty Leila de Lima

Doctor of Public Administration
Honoris Causa

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The University President Fr. Aristotle Dy, S.J., Mr. Magno Edilberto Conag III, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Ms Rachel Casimero, CHED representative and other officials and administrators, Deans of the various Colleges, faculty, staff, parents and graduates. My greetings also and congratulations to my fellow awardees, Fr. Emmanuel Alfonso, S.J. and Dr. Paz Verdades Santos. Greetings also to Judge Soliman Santos, Jr.

Good morning to everyone! Marhay na aga saindo gabos!

First of all, thank you so much, Ateneo de Naga, for the honor you have bestowed upon me today. To be conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Public Administration, and to speak before this year’s graduating class, is an immense honor that humbles me deeply.

Napakalaking karangalan ang iginawad ninyo sa akin ngayong araw. Dai ko po ini malilingawan. This is one of the most prestigious recognitions awarded to me and I will always cherish it.

As you may be aware of, I’m a La Sallian, pre-law, and a Bedan law alumna. Lately, Jesuit institutions have been really close to my heart. In fact, five days from now, I will also be speaking before the graduating class of the Ateneo de Manila University, and will receive also an honorary degree: Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology. Pero siyempre, nauuna ang Bicol. Nauuna ang Naga. Oragon muna bago Katipunan. Tama ba?

I have come to cherish how Jesuit institutions stand at the frontlines of truth, justice, and human dignity. They have walked with me, shoulder to shoulder, through some of the darkest chapters of my life. Hindi kami magkaeskwela, pero sabay kaming lumaban. Sa gitna ng dilim, magka-kapit-bisig.

Aram na nindo an sakuyang istorya. I was imprisoned based on fabricated charges for almost seven years—from February 2017 to November 2023. And not even two years since my release, here we are again: they want to send me back.

Last month, my acquittal in one of the three cases was nullified by the Court of Appeals, in violation of my constitutional right against double jeopardy. Sabi ng Court of Appeals, “hindi raw maayos ang pagkasulat ng judge sa desisyong nagpawalang-sala sa akin.”

Imagine that—our first time encountering a ruling where an appellate court told a trial judge to rewrite a decision simply because it wasn’t well-written. Parang klase lang. Parang professor na nagpa-resubmit ng paper kasi raw “hindi academic enough” ang pagkakabuo. Baka kasalanan na naman ng AI? Joke lang.

Pero seryoso: habang iniuulit ang desisyon, suspendido rin daw ang bisa ng aking acquittal. Ika nga, habang walang bagong paragraphing, balik muli ako sa bingit. Parang ako pa ang may sala. Parang ako pa ang hindi marunong magsulat.

Masyado lang sigurong mataas ang standards ng Court of Appeals. O baka na-assign lang silang lahat bilang thesis panel. Joke ulit.

Pero tulad ninyo, kapag hinahamon tayo—sa classroom man o sa korte—ano ba ang isinisigaw natin?

LABAN LANG!

Tama. Laban lang. Dahil Oragon tayo. At kung Oragon ka na, Atenista ka pa, doble ang tapang, doble ang tibay.

At tama rin ang Ateneo. Life is One Big Fight. But it is not a fight waged in bitterness. It is a fight waged with purpose—with courage, yes, but also with conscience. Not only on basketball courts, but in the slow, daily struggle to build a more just, more humane, more beautiful country.

People often ask me, “Leila, hindi ka pa ba napapagod sa kakalaban?”

Of course I get tired. Tao lang ako. Kaya nagpapahinga rin paminsan- minsan. But when injustice stares you in the face—when lies become policy, and corruption wears a barong—you cannot just sit still. You cannot pretend not to see. You rise. You speak. You resist.

Because while all this is happening, our people are already burdened—by poverty, by hunger, by the quiet desperation of lives stuck in systems that do not work for them. Ang hirap na nga ng buhay, dinadagdagan pa ng pandaraya, pananabotahe, panloloko, at pananamantala ng mga lider na dapat sana’y naglilingkod.

Kaya masuwerte kayo dito sa Naga. Hindi dahil wala kayong problema—kundi dahil may kasaysayan kayo ng pamumunong tapat at makatao. You had Jesse. Now you have Leni. The same name others discarded in 2022, you held on to—and in 2025, that name has come to stand for good governance, not just in Bicol but across the country.

Just ask those at the Ateneo School of Government who worked alongside both Jesse and Leni Robredo. They will tell you: public service can be honest. Leadership can be ethical. Power can be humble.

And that brings me to this: Life is One Big Fight. And to survive that fight, you need models. You need maps. You need people who have shown you the way forward.

One of the first big battles in life is what you’ve just fought: finishing college—or for our law graduates, passing the bar. It may feel like you’re being thrown into the deep end, like fish out of water. You will feel unprepared. That’s normal. That’s expected.

But believe me: far greater storms lie ahead. Maybe not seven years in prison. (God forbid.) But heartbreak? Betrayal? Failure? Loss? Yes, those will come. What matters is how you face them. What matters is who you look to when the path darkens.

Take it from me. Take it from someone who has been through more than her fair share of trials—and unexpected second chances.

Pinagmumura at binantaan ng Pangulo ng Pilipinas? Check.
Ginigipit ng buong gobyerno? Check. Pinagpistahan sa social media? Check. Pinakulong sa Camp Crame? Check.
Hinostage ng Abu Sayyaf habang nakakulong? Check.

Ika nga nila: Been there. Done that. Mantakin ninyo—nakakulong ka na nga, muntik ka pang mapatay.

Let me be very clear: this is not a bucket list. This is not something you should aspire to. Huwag ninyo akong gawing huwaran ng survival kung may paraan namang huwag kayong masugatan sa parehong paraan. Hindi lahat sinuswerte na may sniper sa tamang oras.

But we do need role models—not just those who survived, but those who stayed human through it all. I know many of you already have people you admire, whose lives you wish to emulate. That’s good. That’s necessary. Because you cannot time travel. You cannot see 20 or 30 years ahead. But you can look to others—those who’ve walked ahead—and let their journeys light your own.
Choose them well. Choose your role models wisely. They will shape not only your careers, but your definitions of success, of courage, of worth.

What does “making it” in life mean to you now? Is it financial security? Personal fulfillment? A happy, thriving family? Or is it, as Ateneo reminds us, a life of service to others?

I imagine your answer is: all of the above. And that’s only right. We want lives that are whole—where the material, the emotional, and the ethical are not at odds, but in harmony. A successful life, as we often frame it, is one where things fall into place: the job, the home, the relationships, the self. In my generation, when someone reached that point, we would say: “You have arrived.”

But arrived where, exactly?

That phrase assumes life is a journey toward a clear destination. That the goal is to reach it: to plant your flag, breathe a sigh of relief, and declare yourself complete.

But what if the point is not to arrive, but to keep moving? To live the journey with presence, curiosity, and grace? What if meaning comes not from arrival, but from attention—to the detours, the delays, the people we encounter along the way?

Yes, it sounds like a cliché: It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
But clichés survive because they contain truth.

There’s a story I return to often. During the Second World War, many young American soldiers went into battle with one simple purpose: to protect the man next to them. It wasn’t about geopolitics or grand ideals. It was survival, loyalty, love. But when they discovered the concentration camps—when they saw the horror that had taken root in the world—they understood something deeper. They were not just fighting for each other. They were fighting for humanity. For a world where such cruelty would never be allowed to rise again.

That, I believe, is the deeper reason why we fight, not just in war, but in life. We fight so that others will not have to. We fight so that our children, and theirs, can live freer, kinder lives. This is the dream of every parent, every teacher, every generation nearing its twilight: to leave behind a world better than the one it inherited.

But on this count, we have fallen short. Let me name just one example: climate change.

When I was your age, global warming was still a theory under debate. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that scientific consensus began to take shape. In the 90s, it started entering textbooks and news cycles. But by the time you were born, it had already become an existential crisis. You grew up in it. You were born into the flood.

By the early 2000s, world leaders were already meeting yearly to negotiate climate accords. And yet, the waters kept rising. In 2013, as diplomats gathered once more to discuss carbon emissions, Typhoon Yolanda tore through Tacloban and Eastern Visayas. One of the strongest typhoons in recorded history. That, too, is the world you are inheriting.

A world of rising sea levels, inundated coastal cities, collapsing reefs, burning forests, melting polar ice caps and erratic seasons. A world made volatile by the choices of those who came before you.

And let us be honest: this is not your fault. Your generation did not cause this crisis. Yet it is your generation—and your children’s—that will suffer its worst consequences. Ours may already be gone by then. But you—you are the ones who will be called to repair what we allowed to break.

The only question now is whether we’ve left you enough time. Whether we, in the years we have left, can still do our part to reverse the damage. Or at the very least, slow it down.
My own battle has long been rooted in another urgent struggle—one that, like climate justice, crosses borders, governments, and generations: the fight for human rights.

After World War II, when the world stood aghast at the horror of the concentration camps, humanity seemed to agree: never again. We built institutions. We wrote declarations. We crafted laws meant to shield the vulnerable from the violence of the powerful. And for a time, it felt like progress.

But history has a way of returning in disguise.

When a mayor I had investigated for orchestrating a death squad in a city in Mindanao rose to the presidency, and declared that he would bring the killings to every corner of the country, including major cities, I knew I had to act.

I thought any decent politician would. I believed the fight for life, for due process, for human dignity would be an obvious one. I was wrong.

Suddenly, I found myself standing almost alone. Only a few stood with me: some colleagues, the Catholic Church, a handful of brave journalists, artists, feminists, and civil society groups. We were few. But we were loud. And for that, we became targets.

People would ask me, “Leila, why are you fighting Duterte?”

To me, that was the wrong question. The better question was: Why wouldn’t I?

When a man in power tells you to help him kill—literally kill—other human beings, the moral line is not blurry. The call to resist is not complicated. The fear may be real, but so is the obligation.

And yes, I was afraid. But not so afraid that I forgot what I was fighting for. I was fighting so my children—and yours—would not have to face someone like him again when I’m no longer here.

My eldest son is a special child—a gifted painter, full of wonder. One of these days I’d be proud to share with you some of his art. From the moment I realized he was different, I also knew that the world could be cruel to people like him. Too fast, too brutal, too careless.

And so I resolved: he would never face that world alone. I would be his shield. I would be his witness.

That is why when the biggest bully in the country became the President of the Republic, I did what any mother would do. I fought back. Because Duterte was no ordinary bully. He didn’t just humiliate. He didn’t just threaten. He ordered the killings of thousands. He made fear official policy.

There were thousands of Filipinos who, like my son, had no way to defend themselves. And instead of protecting them, the state hunted them. Branded them. Executed them.

I remember Kian, a teenage boy, barely seventeen. He begged the police to spare his
life: “May exam pa po ako bukas.” But they killed him anyway.

Kian could have been any one of you—eager, hopeful, on the cusp of a life. But he did not make it to graduation. Because someone in power decided he didn’t deserve to live.

Some, unlike Kian, found sanctuary in the Church. A few were sheltered by brave souls. But most were not as lucky. Most were left to die unnamed.

That is why I raised my voice. That is why I raised my fist.
That is why I raised my hand — saying STOP THE KILLINGS!

And that is how my persecution began.

I was not born with extraordinary strength. My mind, my body, they were not forged for suffering. I was not built to endure more than what any ordinary person might be asked to bear.

But life doesn’t always wait for our readiness. Sometimes, it throws us into the fire without warning, without armor. And it is only there—in the crucible of trials we never sought—that we discover what we are truly made of.

You will be surprised by your own strength. You will learn that the soul, when called, can stretch beyond what you believed it could carry. That pain, though unwelcome, can be survived. That dignity, even in darkness, can remain unbroken.

This is what I learned from everything I’ve been through: the false charges, the years in detention, the public ridicule, the near-death moments. No one would ask for that. But having walked through it, I know now: the human spirit, when tethered to purpose, can outlast almost anything.

Now, I am not saying life is nothing but hardship. Far from it. For most, life will offer more light than shadow. But it will not be without its rough roads. For some, those stretches will be brief. For others, they will seem endless. And so the question is not whether the road will turn—it will—but whether you will keep walking when it does.

Do not be afraid of the future.

But also: don’t be reckless with your courage.

People often say I’m brave. Masyado raw akong matapang. Ang sagot ko: sakto lang. Just enough to face down bullies. Because there will always be bullies—in schools, in offices, in politics. And when they rise, we must meet them not with silence, but with strength. Never be the bully. Always be the one who stands between power and the powerless. Always be on the side of the truth.

And always—always—be kind.

Kung ang henerasyon ninyo ay may meme na “Always be mindful and demure,” sa akin ganito: Be kind and gentle.

Because you do not know the battles others are fighting. You do not know whose dreams you might be stepping on. Tread softly. Speak kindly. And life, more often than not, will return the favor.

Before I close, allow me to honor the proud parents here today. Graduation is not only your children’s triumph—it is yours. After years of sacrifice, long nights, quiet hopes, and silent prayers, you now see the fruit of your love. Thank you. Thank you for raising not just students, but citizens. Not just children, but future leaders.

To the graduates: this is your moment. You are standing on the threshold of independence. From here on, you will shape your days. And while the world may not be easy, it will be yours.

Remember: life after college is not a downward slope—it might be the most electric, most exhilarating part of your story. So go. Work hard. Find joy. Stay grounded. Have fun.

To the Ateneo de Naga Class of 2025: LABAN LANG.

Pero huwag niyo rin kalimutan…
mag-party paminsan-minsan.

Maraming salamat sa mga opisyal at guro ng Ateneo de Naga, sa mga magulang, at higit sa lahat, sa inyong mga mahal kong nagsipagtapos.

Dios mabalos!