who is Jun Lozada?

I’ve heard a lot of buzz going around about this person named ‘Jun Lozada’ but I didn’t pay attention to any of it.

Tonight, I was given the opportunity to learn more about Jun Lozada. He was the resource speaker for a Leadership forum series at Ateneo entitled ‘Mulat Diwa’ (the opening of the consciousness). He not only spoke a bit about his current situation but he also spoke about his childhood and how his past experiences and especially the influence of his family had a big impact in what he did.

When I found out about the speaker for the forum tonight, I was ignorant enough to be very skeptical. I figured that he was just the usual Filipino politics celebrity person-of-the-month. Basically, someone who is power hungry, starved for attention, and was just like the others involved in government.

Fortunately enough, my perceptions were proved wrong. From the moment he walked in to the auditorium filled with people, wearing a simple gray shirt and jeans, I saw a man who was obviously exhausted but still managed to smile and crack a few jokes about his unfortunate experiences.

To me, he seemed really genuine and sincere about the messages he wanted to convey. Here are some of them:

- we can’t just wish for a brighter future, we have to work for it

- we have to be aware of what is happening around us. without this, we will just continue to be a failing state

- when you want to help, it should be unconditional

- we have a choice. either to tolerate or to reject what is happening to our country. If we choose to reject, then we have to act now and not wait for someone else to do it for us.

To tell you the truth, I’m still not fully aware of all the details of the story behind Jun Lozada’s experience. I’ll let you take the first step towards AWARENESS by looking into that yourselves. I’m also not going to go into detail here and provide information of what he did or whether or not I condemn his involvement - I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind about that.

But what I am blogging about is that tonight, I saw a man with love for his country - and we can all learn about that.