Eugene Dela Cruz and the grace that carried him home

In a sea of blue and white caps and gowns, one figure stood quietly, heart pounding not from nerves but from the echo of everything he survived to reach this day.

Eugene Dela Cruz, 2025 graduate of Ateneo de Manila University, is not your typical honor student. Behind his Latin distinction and scholarly achievements is a story not of privilege but of perseverance. Not of easy victories but of a war fought daily in silence, shadows, and sorrow.

At just twelve years old, Eugene disappeared from the radar of society. Not in death but in destitution. Life swept him away from the classroom and into the cold streets of Metro Manila, where hunger, fear, and invisibility became his daily companions.

“I became a ghost,” Eugene reflects. “I wasn’t brave — I just had nowhere to go.”

He scavenged for coins, rationed stale bread for days, and washed away dirt and dignity in public restrooms. While other children his age worried about homework, Eugene worried about surviving the night.

Four years vanished like smoke. And with them, his childhood.

But fate had not yet spoken its final word.

Something within whispered, try again. He did. And in time, he would walk not just into any university but into the halls of Ateneo, one of the country’s most prestigious institutions.

“I wasn’t supposed to make it here,” Eugene admits. “But someone believed I could.”

It began with the Ateneo Office of Admission and Aid, who read beyond his documents and saw a soul worth saving. From there, a village formed. The Ateneo Alumni Scholars Association, mentors who became family, peers who became pillars, and quiet helpers whose kindness kept him going.

Eugene didn’t just survive college. He soared.

He choreographed festivals to fund his meals. He tutored others while mastering financial economics himself. He carried notebooks in one hand and emotional scars in the other and still emerged with honors, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Economics (Honors Program) with a Specialization in Financial Economics and a Minor in Decision Science.

He was also recognized with the Ateneo Alumni Scholars Association Fr. William H. Kreutz, SJ Endowment Scholarship and awarded Third Best Undergraduate Thesis in Economics.

Yet Eugene’s greatest achievement may be less about medals and more about the man he became. Resilient, radiant, and remarkably grounded.

“I used to think I didn’t belong,” he says. “But Ateneo—its people—made me feel otherwise. They said, ‘You matter.’ That was enough.”

Today, Eugene stands not only as a graduate but as a living testimony to the power of second chances, the miracle of mercy, and the truth that poverty does not define potential.

His message to those still in their darkest hour:

“You might not have a crowd cheering for you. But there is always someone watching, someone who sees you, someone who stays. And that might just be enough to begin again.”

As he walked across the stage, there were no trumpets, no confetti, just the quiet roar of grace wrapping itself around a boy who once curled beneath tricycles and now stood beneath the lights of a stage he never imagined he’d reach.

Maybe that is the miracle.

That the ghost became a graduate.

That the invisible boy became a beacon.

And that in the end, love not luck carried him home.