Weaving light from darkness

Read the speech of Angelique Pearl Virtue Villasanta, PhD (Clinical Psychology, '25) the graduate students' representative at the 2025 University Commencement last Friday, 20 June 2025.

In an interview with Dr. Anne Candelaria, Assistant Vice President for Graduate Education, and some of the deans and chairs of GBSEALD, SOSE, SOH, JGSOM, and RGLSOSS, I was asked "What is the most memorable moment in your PhD journey?". Many moments came to mind, and I allowed myself to sift through them:

​Discussions with teachers and my PhD cohort,
Readings that lit a fire in me,
Projects that solidified my love for what I do,

Then I settled on one memory that I felt was the beating heart of my PhD journey - which is the sustained intensity and tenacity it took to hammer the dissertation out of me. Remembering what that was like brings to mind that famous quote about how writing is easy, because all you have to do is sit down at a typewriter… and bleed.

I could tell the story of my PhD that way, and leave it at that. How I was absorbed in a trance-like state - the soft glow of the laptop screen bouncing off my fingers as I type away into the night; the sound of the keys clicking and clacking, harmonizing with my husband's snoring. Writing felt like weaving at times. But for most of the time, it felt like shoveling my way out of being buried alive. And finishing the dissertation felt like sunlight… finally breaking through the dirt.

I could tell the story of doing a PhD that way, and leave it at that. Focusing on me and my process - the researcher, the dissertation. After all, doing this PhD felt like one of the most personal things I have ever done.

But that is not a complete story.

I cannot say the story of how being consumed by the dissertation felt like being buried alive, without saying that there is that weight because holding it and grappling with it is how I honor the fact that healing from sexual violence (which is my dissertation topic) is a messy and gritty process.

I cannot deny that the metaphor of sunlight breaking through the dirt that I use when I speak of completing my dissertation is reminiscent of how my participants talked about that moment when they realize how far their lives have come; that after such heavy darkness, may gaan na ulit.

I could talk about my PhD story as that of hardship -- how hard it was to finish my dissertation while also being a thesis adviser of 28 graduating seniors and one MA student; all thankfully marching with me tomorrow. But on the other side of that is a story of mutual care and concern - that after thesis consultations with them, they would ask "Ikaw Ma'am, kamusta? How's your research?"

I cannot claim that it was only my sheer tenacity that kept me awake. Because my PhD cohort was there, staying up with me during our weekly writing sessions. And because my colleagues and friends would check in on me and offer words of encouragement. And because our department staff were the first ones to believe that I will indeed finish and graduate. And because I have a family whose love I can feel across continents and timezones.

To every single person who supported me, pushed me, and journeyed with me: Thank you. I know myself better now because you allowed me to see myself more clearly through your eyes.

I believe in myself better now because I had people who believed in me.

Women who trusted me with their stories of brokenness and healing.

A mentor who believed that I can do it, before I knew how to actually do it.

A husband who always assumed the good in me, and whose role in my PhD story is not only to snore; but also to read every single draft of everything I have ever written; to take care of the cooking on mornings that I couldn't; and most importantly, to buy the post-defense cake.

And I had a research group with whom I learned to research not as an expert, but to research like a girl:

to be boundlessly curious,

endlessly creative,

to take up space;

To do research that is as sharp as it sensitive,

as hopeful as it is sobering,

unapologetically selfish, yet somehow speaks of something shared and collective

As much as my PhD story is as personal as it can get, it is not mine alone.

Even the questions I pursued in my dissertation - questions about surviving and healing - are not mine alone.

Questions like "What breaks us and what heals us? What holds us and carries us through?" are questions asked by many other women. By way too many women.

These questions form the navel of my PhD story. And so, I cannot tell the story of my PhD journey without recognizing how it is intertwined with the story of many others.

And I hope that in my honest and steadfast pursuit of understanding what healing is, that I have touched and changed the lives somehow of those who carry these very same questions in their bones.

Because ultimately, this PhD story showed me that there is no such thing as an isolated process. That even when we feel alone, unseen, or solitary as we sit hunched over our laptops, writing and/or bleeding, our process of pursuing a question that matters to us and to others have inevitably touched their lives as well.

Almost ten years ago, I remember being a young MA graduate and a new faculty member, listening to a senior faculty describe research. She said, "It's all about the question. To ask the right research question, that's the magic." Now that I've completed my PhD, I don't know if I can do magic already. Maybe it will come in a few more years.

But here is what I learned about how one could hold the research question.

You have to hold the research question with laser focus so that you don't miss it;

Hold it with patience, as it goes through its many different forms.

​Hold it with tenacity; because like a slippery fish, the question will bring you to unknown depths, so hold firmly.

Hold it with gentleness; a question is like glass (most often, a mirror); don't crush it.

​Share it with others; it is like s'mores and a bonfire, or buy one take one sangria; as tempting as it sounds, you are not meant to have it alone.

​A question is alive; tend to it

​A question can be scary; trust it

​A question is a story; let it unfold.

​And when you have held it right, it will carry you; it will change you; and inevitably, your honest and beautiful pursuit of it would have changed others too.

Thank you, and congratulations to all of us!