Kabataan Partylist-Panay awarded four outstanding Iloilo graduates – all from the University of the Philippines Visayas – the Outstanding Kabataan OK! Serve the People Award in recognition of their contributions as leader-servants of the school and community.

They are UPV College of Management Student Council Chair and B.S. Accountancy student Eloisa Fe Lusotan, School of Technology Student Council Chair and B.S. Food Technology student Shelyn Mae Bajala, College of Arts and Sciences Chair and B.A. Media Studies student Zaira Nichole Racadio, and University Student Council Chair and B.A. Political Science student Christian Sorongon.

The awardees received framed certificates during the UPV Papuri Recognition Day ceremony held last April 24, 2012 at the UPV Iloilo City Auditorium.

"We are giving the OK Awards to these outstanding graduates to help promote and acknowledge their various contributions for the larger community," said Kabataan Partylist-Panay Regional Coordinator Karlo Mikhail Mongaya.

The youth leader said that the positive achievements of the four graduates are a testament to the potentials of the youth as a force for social change. He added that the youth can actualize this if it sides with the oppressed and marginalized.

The four student leaders were active in mobilizing the UPV community in the 2011 mass campaign for a higher budget for education and the social services, highlighted by a series of massive protest actions in Panay and the whole country.

Mongaya said that the attempts by the Noynoy Aquino regime to privatize the character of state universities and colleges through massive budget cuts have been consistently met with militant student protests.

He said that these efforts to defend greater access to higher education by the oppressed and marginalized masses should be recognized and emulated.

Eloisa Fe Lusotan was particularly cited for initiating activities that integrated both online and offline advocacies and the incorporation of various pro-student and pro-people causes in traditional school activities at the UPV College of Management.

The four awardees joined Kabataan Partylist-Panay in calling on fellow youth and students to use their knowledge and skills to serve people. "Our education is useless if it only serves our self-advancement or the interests of oppressors or the ruling elites," said Mongaya.

Eloisa Fe Lusotan said that the greatest challenge faced by the new graduates is not simply about landing a good job: "How do we apply our education in upholding social justice and will we be able to expend our energies in the pursuit of the highest ideals?"

Christian Sorongon, credited for capably juggling the serving of both his constituents in UPV as the University Student Council chair and in the Municipality of New Lucena, Iloilo as a youth Municipal Councilor, meanwhile said that "to serve the nation is the greatest gift and reward."

Shelyn Mae Bajala, lauded for her strong sense of justice and strong commitment for truth in the face of adversity, addressed the Filipino youth as follows: "Let us all work hand in hand and prove that we are indeed the hope of our motherland."*PR