Dr Shahidul Alam delivering his speech during the June 19, 2026 Higher Education commencements exercises of the Ateneo at the Blue Eagle Gym in Katipunan, Quezon City. SCREENGRAB from the Ateneo website live streaming.

ACFJ photojourn mentor Shahidul Alam challenges Class of 2026: 'Don't pretend you don't see'

Reminds graduates of plight of OFWs in his 2026 commencement speech, honors fallen Ateneo athletes

By Arlene Burgos
Director, Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University

Manila, Philippines -- One of the early mentors of the ACFJ's photojournalism courses, Shahidul Alam, was conferred Friday, June 19, 2026, by the Ateneo de Manila University the Doctor in Sociology, honoris causa, during the commencement exercises for the year's graduating class. Alam of Bangladesh is known around the world for using photography and journalism to advocate for freedom and democracy.

In his speech accepting the award - among the highest that Ateneo gives - Alam urged the graduating class of 2026 to, essentially, use their education to help others.

"When you leave this room today, you will carry a credential that opens doors. This is real, and it matters. But credentials do not tell you which room to walk into, or what to do once you’re inside. My question for you is not what you will achieve – I have no doubts about that – but what you will refuse to do, refuse to look away from, refuse to go along with because something in you says no," Alam said.

Dr Alam receiving the Doctor of Sociology, honoris causa, from Ateneo President, Fr Roberto Yap (left). SCREENGRAB from the Ateneo website live streaming.

Dr Alam receiving the Doctor of Sociology, honoris causa, from Ateneo President, Fr Roberto Yap (left) and Vice President for Higher Education, Dr Marlu Vilches. SCREENGRAB from the Ateneo website live streaming.

In his speech, Alam weaved a moving string of parallelisms on the helpers from the households of his native Dhaka, to Filipino workers in foreign lands.

"I say this to you here in the Philippines with particular intention. Your country sends millions of its people abroad to work, to build other nations’ cities, to care for other nations’ elderly, to raise other nations’ children, and yes, to keep other nations’ homes. Many of them sit in a drawing room not so different from ours in Dhaka. Many of them watch from a similar distance. They are not invisible because they are unknown; they are invisible because it is convenient for them to be. What you do with this education, whether it extends its reach toward them or turns away, is one of the central moral questions of your generation," he said.

The reference to Filipino workers has to do with around 2.19 million registered overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), according to the Philippine Statistics Authority in 2024, although some estimates say there are about 10 million OFWs worldwide. They accounted for as much as P262 billion (about USD 4 billion) in remittances in 2025 .

The ability to speak out even when it is uncomfortable, or to call out things that are wrong until society refuses to unsee was a major theme in his 17-minute speech at the Blue Eagles Gym in Katipunan. Alam craftily cited the name of the gym, and the building Arete - a popular campus landmark - in his talk.

"Arete is virtue in action, a capacity exercised, a life lived at the full height of its possibility...That word resonates in this particular room. A gym is not a place for comfortable contemplation. It is not a place for theory or for certificates. A gym is where you find out what you are actually made of, where the distance between potential and performance becomes measurable, where discipline is not a concept but a daily practice, where you discover what you can do when you’re prepared to accept pain. This room has seen champions made. But the Blue Eagles did not become champions by admiring excellence from a distance. They became champions by showing up, by training when it was hard, by choosing the difficulty on purpose."

He then mentioned the cases of Ateneo Men's Basketball Team members Divine Adili and Rene Baterbonia who perished during a training activity along the shore of Dipaculao, Aurora, earlier this month.

"It also held grief. Divine trained in rooms like this one. Rene was the kind of athlete who made his teammates better. Before we talk about what excellence demands of you, we owe it to them to say their names here, in a space like this one, where effort and courage are understood. Divine Adili, Rene Baterbonia – may the work you do with what you have been given honor them. And this room, this gym, this space of honest effort, may be exactly the right place to ask what it demands of you now."

The university recognition of Alam during the 2026 commencement exercises - one of the University's most observed, to date - comes at a time when the Ateneo is reeling from the death of its athletes that have prompted multiple investigations over allegations of hazing, negligence, and lack of school or personnel due diligence.

In the morning of the commencement Mass and exercises, former basketball team Tab Baldwin appeared at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City for the first time.

The multi-awarded Alam founded Drik Picture Library in 1989, a pioneering Bangladeshi photo agency that supports local photographers and challenges Western-dominated perspectives in visual media.

He later established Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, a major photography and media school in Dhaka, and co-founded Chobi Mela, an international photography festival regarded as one of the most important in Asia.

Alam has exhibited at major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Tate Modern in London, and Centre Pompidou in Paris, and he has chaired the international jury of World Press Photo, being noted as the first person of colour to do so.

He was named a Time Magazine Person of the Year (2018) and has received numerous honors, including Bangladesh’s Ekushey Padak and international awards like the Lucie Award and the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award.

Alam served as one of the international resource speakers for academic sessions of the Diploma in Photojournalism of the ACFJ between 2007 and 2008.