To our Honorable board of directors, to our administration and staff, to our faculty members, family, friends and fellow

graduates, a pleasant afternoon to you all. I am honored to stand before you this afternoon and welcome you to the 18 th Commencement Exercises. Graduation is the most important part of a students life. It is also, indeed, the most memorable one. This is the part wherein our long journey of laborious projects, tiresome homeworks, moody teachers, boring lectures come to an end. This is the moment of our accomplishment as students, the product of our sleepless nights, our blood and sweat. This signifies that we are mature enough to face the real world. That we are now capable of conquering a new arena of life-an arena with even bigger challenge to come and bigger ponds to conquer with bigger fishes to oppose. And for those aforementioned reasons, we are here today as graduates. Armed with the knowledge we have acquired from our mentors, family, friends and life. There is indeed light in every darkness. There were times wherein we have felt that we are completely covered in black. Through the years, weve experienced problems, family feuds and just recently, that devastating natural disaster. But we conquered it; we rose from where we fell. We hoped to find light in the darkness and we did. Today we celebrate the hope and light. Today we have proven that we have learned and now is the time for us to apply that knowledge. As we leave this place in our academic regalia we can look back on the work we have done and see the evidence of great teaching, the new skills learned, and the new passions we have uncovered. On behalf of all the graduates here today, I would like to welcome and thank all the parents, family members, and friends who encouraged and supported us as we worked towards arriving at this day. I can imagine that there were many times when we seemed disconnected from daily lives as we concentrated on our studies I would also like to welcome our dear mentors, who push us to elevate our studies, seek out our passions, and challenge us with new thinking. Let us give time to pat ourselves in the back for the work well done, for the efforts of making it far into this stage of learning. So to my fellow graduates, we are headed out today- headed for new adventures so all I can say is good luck, good luck and congratulations!