By Xavier Alpasa SJ

All I wanted was to be rich. That was all I had in mind when I was trying to climb the corporate ladder. I gave it my all - worked hard, earned a Master's degree, networked and voila! There I was on top of the Eiffel Tower shouting a la Leonardo di Caprio, ‘I am the king of the world!’ That was in 1997, when I decided to join the Yuppeace delegation for the Journees Mondiales de la de Jeunesse (French for World Youth Day - fellow Yuppeace, Ricky Herrera, and I even took lessons to be able to, at least, pronounce that properly.

Days before the JMJ proper, we went to another part of Paris for the Asian Youth Day (AYD) with other Asians who would also be attending the JMJ. To our surprise, when the Indian delegates, assigned as emcees, didn’t show up, the organizers asked the Philippine delegation to take over. Issa Isaac and moi were soon onstage, impromptu AYD emcees with Fr Armand Robleza SDB, as le directeur.