Former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. (5th from left) and lawyer Augusto Go (6th from left) are conferred honorary doctorate titles by the Royal Institution Singapore (RIS) during its 10th International Conference and Conferment Ceremony last April 8 at the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu. With them are RIS officials led by Dr. Molano (2nd from left).
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Two prominent Cebuanos in the field of legal practice and education were recognized by one of the biggest professional institutions in the world last April 8 at the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu.
Former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. and University of Cebu founder and president, lawyer Augusto Go, were conferred honorary doctorate titles by the Royal Institution Singapore (RIS) during its 10th International Conference and Conferment Ceremony along with 89 other professionals of different fields.
“I have had received 14 honorary doctoral degrees, mostly doctor of laws honoris causa, but they were conferred on me months or years apart from each other during my tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,” Davide said in his acceptance speech.
“I thank the Royal Institution for placing me in the honored ranks of its many awardees,” he said.
Davide was conferred Honorary Fellow and Doctor Fellow of RIS, and Doctor Fellow of the Royal Institute of Lawyers, Singapore.
“This is the first time in my life that on the same occasion, I got conferred with three awards,” the 20th chief justice said.
Go, CCC staff, faculty
Lawyer Go, for his part, was conferred Honorary Fellow and Doctor Fellow of RIS, and Doctor Fellow of the Royal Institute of Educators, Singapore.
“This honor does not belong to me alone, but I gratefully share this with the numerous men and women of the then Cebu Central Colleges when the school started in 1964 with 600 enrollees,” Go said.
“Those dedicated staff and faculty took the risk of working hand in hand with me in growing it to become the University of Cebu,” he added.
“Without the active support and cooperation of the past and present teaching and non-teaching personnel, the University of Cebu would not have been able to expand to four campuses and become the largest privately held institution in Visayas and Mindanao,” he said.
RIS also conferred on 89 other professionals from various fields the titles Doctor Fellows (16), Senior Fellows (8), Fellows (40), Senior Members (23) and Members (2).
Dr. Helen Molano, president of Royal Institution Philippines, said their “objective is to level the playing field” for professionals anywhere in the world.
“Sometimes, our architects, for instance, though they are licensed architects here in the Philippines, they are not qualified architects when they go to Singapore,” she said.
“With membership to RIS, we try to level the playing field so that our professionals here are also recognized as professionals in other countries.”
700,000 members
With 700,000 professional members all over the world, RIS is one of the largest professional institutions that has 300 institutes that cater to 300 different professional fields like law, education, architecture, and medicine, among others.
They operate in 60 countries including USA, Canada, China but are most active in the Philippines.
RIS will have another international conference and conferment ceremony on June 2-4 in Cagayan de Oro City and in Johor Bahru, Malaysia on July 7-9
For more details, visit their website https://www.ri2020.com.