19/06/2026
Shahidul Alam was asked how to pronounce his name. He replied that its Arabic origin was far more interesting: "Witness of the World." Listening to him speak at commencement, I couldn't imagine a better title. Suddenly, I was a student again, transported back to 2008 when I learned under him through the ACFJ.
Alam beautifully connected Areté and the Blue Eagle Gym—our campus landmarks—framing them as peaks flanking a valley of effort, grit, and remembered grief. He reminded the graduates that excellence is not admired from a distance; it requires choosing the difficulty on purpose to serve something larger than oneself.
But as someone who teaches photography, visual communication, and the concept of "home," it was his raw assessment of the camera that completely spoke to me. Alam described a photograph as a simple act of witness that names what a community has agreed to ignore, making certain injustices impossible to unsee.
"That is what I’ve spent my life trying to do: to make certain things impossible to unsee. Goodness is not enough. Goodness requires seeing, and seeing requires the willingness to look at things that are uncomfortable to look at, including the arrangements in your own house."
He spoke to the Philippines with agonizing precision, pointing out the millions of our people sent abroad to raise other nations' children and keep their homes—rendered invisible simply because it is convenient for the privileged. What we do with our education in the face of this reality is the central moral question of this generation.
His words echoed a column I wrote back in college about our duty to open doors for others. Alam reminded us that credentials do not tell us which rooms to enter, but rather what we must refuse to do. Like Rizal's novels, our education is not a historical artifact; it is a set of active instructions.
He challenged us, that true courage is not fearlessness; it is the willingness to fly when you are afraid, holding the camera steady even when your hands are shaking. When someone is watching from the doorway of a drawing room, we cannot look away. We must take the photograph.
This urgent challenge is not just for the graduating students. It is for us.
- Words and photos by Aaron Vicencio, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Dr Rosita G Leong School of Social Sciences, & University Photographer at Large, Ateneo de Manila University
