DELA CERNA
This kalag-kalag season I remember some friends and colleagues who were so gifted but were gone too soon. I worked with them, and they were passionate about their work and were able to deliver with great results, unsung and unassuming. I realize that they were connected with UP.
Dr. Normita G. Recto was my teacher in bureaucracy and leadership when I pursued my Ph.D. in Philippine Studies at UP Diliman in the 1990s. She was then the college secretary of the Asian Center where I enrolled in Philippine Studies. At that time, the Philippine Studies Program of the Asian Center had three fields of concentration, namely Society and Culture, Bureaucracy, and External Relations. Whatever the major was, each student must have units in the two other fields. My major was Society and Culture, but I had to take three subjects each in Bureaucracy and External Relations.
Though Normita was teaching graduate classes and at the same time holding an administrative position, she went all her way to follow up students, always considerate of the working schedules of the students who were working full time in government offices. From her classes and our discussions, I learned the dynamics of bureaucracy and how to deal with bureaucracy. She was also my dissertation adviser, and she was a great help in the preparation, signing of the copies of my bound dissertation, and the submission of the bound copies for I was already back to teaching at UP Cebu. Four years after I finished my Ph.D., she succumbed to breast cancer.
I consider the late Dr. Maria Luisa C. Doronila a great advocate of social transformation. She was known as a pioneer of alternative education during the Martial Law period who conducted studies on national identity consciousness among the public school children. The results were so alarming that it became her passionate advocacy to promote nationalist and scientific education. She wrote voluminous teaching materials and came up with the book “The Alternative Education” complete with the national situation, some readings, lesson plans, activities, and tests. She was the consultant of Education Forum which was the education arm of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines.
Malou Doronila as we fondly called her started as a professor of the College of Education in UP Diliman. She pursued her Ph.D. in Philippine Studies at the Asian Center of UP Diliman. Her study on national identity consciousness which was published as a book by the Education Forum was her doctoral dissertation. During the administration of president Jose Abueva, she was appointed director of the Resource Learning Center in UP which produced teaching materials, books, and trained teachers and researchers. She also initiated the Literacy-Numeracy Program which was one of the big programs of the UP Pahinungod Volunteer Program. She was the vice president for Public Affairs of UP during the administration of president Emil Javier. After her stint as vice president of UP, she went around the country to promote the Literacy-Numeracy Program in the grassroots level, and in one of her travels she met a vehicular accident which took her life instantly.
The two other people I always remember were very much younger and they both studied and taught at UP Cebu: Michael Mark B. Mende, a psychology professor and Jethro Estimo, an artist and art teacher.
Mike Mende as he was fondly called by students and colleagues was a psychology professor par excellence of UP Cebu. His classes were very animated and he was always seen talking and joking with his students outside of class. He was literally the “jolly old fellow” though he was not old for he was always young and always saw things from the lens of the young. He also went with them in outings and other activities. He was a good communicator that he was a favorite master of ceremonies in several fora and seminars. In the celebration of the UP Centennial in 2008, Mike was always at hand to host any program of the celebration. He was one person who knew how to enjoy life, but he was gone too soon through a heart attack at the age of 34, leaving behind a young, beautiful and intelligent wife and a bubbly little boy who is now beginning to look like him.
I knew Jethro Estimo since his high school days as his homeroom adviser and teacher at UP Cebu High School. I saw a more mature Jethro after he graduated from Fine Arts in UP Cebu and taught Fine Arts in the same college. Together with his high school barkada who also finished Fine Arts, he ventures into business in designing. In the years before and after the UP Centennial in 2008, Jethro was holding office at the left wing of the building where I was in charge of three offices: the Central Visayas Studies Center, the UP Press Bookstore Cebu Branch, and the UP Alumni Association Cebu Chapter office.
In the Centennial year, the CVSC and the Alumni Office were the organizers and the movers of the activities for the yearlong celebration, and Jethro was so helpful in the design and the making of the logo, letterhead, note pads, cards, and other souvenirs. He was very reliable in whatever transaction he went into like when he designed the signage for the UP Press Bookstore Cebu branch. We worked quietly and I didn’t know that he had already put up the signage in the directory at the entrance gate of the AS building. His giant but pleasant figure was a common sight at the AS building, but that figure would soon disappear after he had a heart attack one early evening while attending a workshop of his academic cluster.
This season I remember these people for their various advocacies, passion for work, their love for work and thanking, sharing with others.