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NOW and then my wife and I are invited to
anniversaries by contemporaries to mark, say, a golden wedding (we
had one ourselves in 2006) or a diamond jubilee not for weddings (extremely
rare for any generation) but for birthdays (like the 80th year of
the late National Scientist Alfredo V. Lagmay ten years ago, or that
of National Artist for Literature Frankie Sionil Jose four years
ago).
The University of Santo Tomas,
celebrating its 400th anniversary with 400 book titles, is said to
be older than Harvard but the latter is a teenager compared to
European universities. When SV Epistola in Harvard back in the
sixties asked where I was going for my post-doctoral, I said New
College. He knowingly smiled saying, “New” must mean 14th
century. Indeed New College in Oxford was founded in 1379.
Far Eastern University, observing
its 80th anniversary, has issued about the same number of books by
way of celebration. Two literary works (one by F. Sionil Jose and
another by Azucena Grajo Uranza, both former students) were
launched last Wednesday at its artistic campus. My two years in FEU
high school after the war will be acknowledged tomorrow along with
other “distinguished alumni.” A beau geste indeed.
Early this decade I missed the
centennial of Philippine Normal University which grade school I
attended just before the war. I was told later that among my
classmates (we were the first sixth graders to graduate to high
school) was the National Artist for Music Andrea Ofilada Veneracion.
How could I have not known? Time has a way of befuddling memory.
Now we have the centenary of the
University of the Philippines whose alumni office has forgotten to
send me The Carillon of which I was the first editor back in 1954.
The late Dean Tomas Fonacier was then alumni director. I hope the
centennial organizers would get their UP history right by not forgetting,
for instance, to acknowledge that it was Vir-ginia R. Moreno who
built up, against all odds, the UP Film Center. She deserves to be
honored for this achievement.
As one of the “pioneers” from
the Padre Faura campus to the “brave new world” of Diliman
campus in 1948, I have seen three milestones of the university:
the golden, the diamond, and now the centenary.
The golden anniversary took place
at a time when the campus was in a bit of turmoil when sectarian
students rallied against the board of regents for failing to select
a new president in 1957. As a result a Collegian editor and a
student council president were expelled for organizing the strike.
There was no celebration under
the new president, former Dean Vicente Sinco, in 1958. He
immediately buckled down to work and commissioned an outside panel
led by Michigan State University president Hannah to assess the
needs and potentials of the UP. By way of marking the fifty years,
the Diliman Review put out a golden anniversary issue which included
a book-length piece Sounds of Falling Light: Letters in Exile of
Carlos Bulosan edited by Dolores Stephens Feria; and a special book
supplement, The University of the Philippines: The First Half
Century by Cristino Jamias.
Feria and Jamias were with the
Department of English, which history deserves to be written if only
for its role in developing Philippine literature not just in
English. Unfortunately, the department’s chronicler Nieves
Benito Epistola passed away several years ago. We hope the
department chair continues the history which Nieves started.
The Diamond Jubilee of UP (1983)
had also two landmark publications: The First 75 Years, edited by
Oscar Alfonso and Raul R. Ingles, containing write-ups of each
presidency from Murray Bartlett to Edgardo Angara by UP historians,
and a pictorial history of the UP put out by Dean Gloria Feliciano
of Mass Communication. Both books are out of print. On his part,
President Angara led a fund-raising campaign among alumni—the
fruits of which still support professorial chairs and research
grants.
Having left the campus seven
years ago, I now have to make an effort to keep abreast of the new
programs in Diliman. Now and then I drop by Balay Kalinaw to pick
up new UP Press titles and talk to old friends and colleagues in academic
functions. I do meet some of the young UP writers in venues outside
the campus. And I see myself in the fifties.
Recovering from the holidays, I
missed the kick-off to the centennial celebration early this month
at the quad. Now I look forward to what the official UP history of
its 100 years has to say. I also know that alternative histories of
the UP are being prepared by dissenters. Perhaps, UP’s motto is
what Iago in Othello says: “For I am nothing – if not
critical.”
And that’s how it has been in
the UP—as it marks a century in the groves.
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