An Inquiry Into the Life and Times of Teridon

Contemporary Youth Popular Culture

There is no denying that contemporary youth popular culture does hold sway in the student council despite the existence of a militant counter-culture. The best example for this would be the perennial lack of initiative which is a very common trait of the youth of today. At its worse, it would be disdain for responsibility. Many student council officers would rather shun the delegation of tasks even if they knew fully well their mandate and responsibilities to the student council and to the student body. As a result, another typical youth trait comes to the fore – pagpapalusot. They will come up with all sorts of creative excuses to exculpate themselves for failing to do their responsibilities, to the extent that they will simply never admit that they failed to do their tasks, which sadly, is another youth trait – pasaway and matigas ang ulo. Nonetheless, this pasaway and pagapapalusot traits are never fully addressed as the higher-ups, including the Chairperson are very mapagpasensiya and maunawain, which are distinctly Filipino traits. As such, the Weberian ideal of strict subordination and even the rational ideal of accountability are gravely overridden because of this, triggering administrative problems of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Surely in a Weberian sense, these subordinates would be greatly rebuked, fired or even impeached. On the other hand, positive youth culture also infects the administrative culture of the USC such as being mapusok and palaban, notwithstanding the romantic notion of serving the people. These are very important youth cultural traits which sustain the output of projects and services of the student council. However, mapusok and palaban are fleeting traits which more often that not disappear as soon as academic load and personal issues get in the way of student council work. It is usually followed by another pervasive youth cultural trait such as panlalamig (demoralization and disillusionment).

# posted by Terry Ridon : 1:53 AM