Of Awards and Recognitions

It took me a while before I could muster enough courage to say this.

Now is the time.

I am sick and tired of awards and recognitions. Particularly if they come as a price you have to pay for acting unnatural just to please. Or when the recognition is tantamount to being knighted as part of an elite group. And most particularly if they come in exchange for some kowtowing and ass licking (pardon my French).

And this is not coming from someone who is just sour griping. I have won awards and recognitions on my own, and would not even dare list these just to prove my point. Those who know me would testify that I am not lying.

But what really gets me are the kinds of awards and recognitions in which what you become is a person recognized for what you are not, and for what others would like you to be.

There is this prestigious award given to young scientists, for example, but I know of many who have been awarded this recognition not out of exemplary work, but of extraordinary interpersonal skills. I know of a place, I am not going to name where but for those in the know would probably be able to guess, in which a quick way to win the award would be to be nice to a select elite group. I remember being approached by someone who I presumed cared enough to advise me that if I want to become an outstanding young scientist, that I should know who I should be and should not be associating with. Of course, it is but natural for this select group to take care of their own (and conversely, to make it difficult for those who do not belong in their group), to a point that the older members use their clout in the science community to facilitate the recognition of their younger cohorts--provided that they behave. Indeed, they even have a very efficient reservation system and a pecking order in which one young member already is reserved for a given year when to receive the award.

Naturally, the principled person which my parents taught me to become shuddered at the thought of playing politics and kissing asses of senior scientists if only to win a medal I could not even be proud of.

And then there is this award for outstanding alumni, in which people nominated me to receive, but I flatly refused for the simple reason that I have to produce my own evidences and supporting documents. I was just too proud, perhaps, to believe that all my work are public in nature, and therefore those who feel I truly deserve the award must find the time to look for these themselves, instead of me carting off boxes of publications, medals and recognitions. This is in the same league as that pesky international who's who that offers you to have a place in an alleged book of outstanding individuals, if only you pay a fee.

But the cake is reserved to one group organized to be supposedly composed of scholars par excellence but whose elitism and exclusiveness are taken by some of its members to medieval heights , in which people who are nominated to become one of them are subjected to scrutiny far beyond their academic reputations, but would include their personal life. And here, we are not even talking about immorality, but the very trivial quirks of somebody being denied membership for the simple reason that he is perceived to be quarrelsome, or somebody in the group doesn't like another nominee's style of written communication. One time, I almost fell on the floor when I was told that one reason why somebody was denied membership was that she was a single mother (as if all single mothers are of dubious moral character), or that one male nominee who is obviously gay is said to be having an affair with another man (and what did they expect from him, to have an affair with a woman? For crying out loud, this is why he is gay!), when in the same breath you have currently sitting members who are also as gay as you can get, but perhaps are just too good in hiding their affairs.

Here, my deepest sense of moral outrage was ignited by what I find as ridiculous and hypocritical acts of misplaced moral uprightness. I guess, I am just offended by a group anointing itself as guardians of morality. Reminds me of the Pharisees, or of moral McCarthyism. In the name of guarding their precious values, they forgot what one morally upright outcast of His society in His time once said: let those without sin cast the first stone.

Awards and recognitions come and go, and could be one or the other. The National Artists controversy, if only to give an example, is a shining testament to how political power can easily poison the process, even as one could also reveal an exclusionary elitism masquerading as due process and embedded in the vetting of nominees. Carlo Caparas may not necessarily be 100 percent wrong when he said that hell was raised against him because of the kind of art he practiced. It is too bad Gloria made it worse for him. What can I say? The lady simply pollutes anything she touches of late, including expensive dinners. I am going to bet that had Carlo received the award from Cory, many in the progressive art group would find ways to justify this as a form of democratizing the process.

I may still value awards and recognitions from peers in the form of academic journals publishing my work; or of being promoted using a very rigorous, fair and objective process such as the one we have at DLSU; or of getting grants or fellowships from competitions which have fairly established protocols. This is why I am proud of my publications, my promotions, and my recent Fulbright grant.

But what makes me even proudest is when I go home to a family that loves me the way I am, bare and devoid of all medals and accolades but simply being me--a husband, father, son and brother. My family is my most priceless medal--pure, unadulterated gold, silver and bronze rolled into one with some accents of timeless diamonds.

So, to those who think I am unlucky and miserable just because I am not an outstanding young scientist, or have not been invited to join this elitist group, or have not been recognized as an outstanding alumni of my school (from elementary to college), pardon my French--but I can tell you this: get all your medals and plaques, and shove them up as high as Mt. Everest for all I care!