A TV news clip sparked it all. The scene of students protesting in front of
the main building of De La Salle Araneta University (DLSAU) brought back lots
of mostly fond memories. The students
were demanding among other things the stepping down of their university
president. It was déjà vu, actually, of
events that happened a year and a quarter of century earlier.
This ultimately prompted my revisit to my
old school, the Gregorio Araneta
University Foundation (GAUF). May be, some of my recollection is fading but
I hope I still get my facts straight.
Others may deem these anecdotal since I’d only heard them from then university
old timers, leaders of the faculty and employees’ unions and fellow student
activists.
He was the son that he never had. I can’t imagine how extreme the sadness and
desperation that Don Salvador Zaragosa Araneta felt after he and his wife successively
had five daughters but not a son. The
desperation, I believe, was so great that he decided to create a surrogate son. And that’s how GAUF came to life, which
clearly hinted what career he would have wanted his real son to pursue.
Actually, he didn’t have to go that far if
all he wanted was a real son, but he was a very noble man. That nobility was borne out from being a very rich man—even in today’s
standards when a number of Filipinos are listed in Forbes’ top billionaires in
the world—and every inch a ladies’ man. Apart
from being a topnotch lawyer-constitutionalist, he was a member of the 1933 and
1971 Constitutional Conventions that framed our two previous constitutions; he was
also one of the pioneers of Philippine industries. He was a spearhead in the development of our
flour industry (RFM[1]),
animal feeds (AIA[2] Feed
Mills), animal vaccines (AIA Biological Laboratories), electric motors (FEATI[3]
Industries) among other industries, when the Philippines was second to Japan in
terms of economic development in Asia in the 1950s. He also founded FEATI University after GAUF
was established to train principally the pilots and mechanics of the FEATI
Industries. (Wikipedia 2013)
If his wife could not give him a son, he
could have done a Henry VIII and sired one, or more, outside wedlock without
encountering a hitch, I’m sure. There
won’t be a scarcity of willing women, including pedigreed ones, given his
stature. His nobility, of course, was
unlike that of the English king and, maybe, he could not bear to cheat on his
wife, Doña Victoria Ledesma Lopez, out of absolute respect and love. He instead opted to “sire” GAUF and
bequeathed him with equal inheritance that he gave to his five daughters.
However, unlike children of noble birth,
GAUF never had a royal existence, which by virtue of the nobility of his birth
and its material endowments, it should have.
I’ve briefly explained above this noble birth; let’s now look into his
inheritance, which various sectors of the university in the past believed was
the cause of his very far from royal existence and early demise.
The Araneta couple had divided their
conjugal wealth into six equal parts; five parts went to their daughters and
the last part went to their university-son to ensure his existence. For this particular purpose, GAUF inherited
among others the sprawling 25-hectare campus together with the buildings and
other needed amenities in Victoneta Park, Malabon and the 74-hectare SALIKNETA (Saliksikan
Araneta) farm in San Jose del Monte City in Bulacan. The former practically spanned the Mac Arthur
Highway in Potrero, Malabon from one end and the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx)
on the opposite end. The latter formed
part of the requisite of at least 100 hectares land reservation that permitted
GAUF to offer agriculture and forestry programs for which he had become renowned.
His yearly incomes, mainly from the tuition
and other fees that the students paid, were practically for his upkeep and for
the salaries and wages of his personnel.
Unlike his siblings, he practically did not have a traditional family to
support and a social status that the rich are forced to maintain to keep up
with the Joneses, so to speak. His
children, that in a broader sense were what the students were to him, were
different from the usual and real children typical parents have—just as he was
from other sons. They, in a way, were practically
paying him to be their father and help them mold their lives, in general, and lay
the foundation of their professional careers, in particular.
When I transferred in the
summer of 1984 to finish my undergraduate program in agriculture that I failed
to earn in UP Los Baños after nearly seven years, GAUF had degenerated to just
a mere shadow of what he formerly was a decade earlier. Enrollment was down to less than 4,000 from the
nearly 20,000 in the 70s. Broken window
panes, the result of student unrests from the First Quarter Storm onwards according
to my then former student council secretary-landlady, remained unrepaired. The main building, whose balanggay-inspired
rooftop—well, that’s the impression it evokes as I look on it—is visible from
the NLEx, looked old and jaded. His
forestry and veterinary medicine graduates, though, were still among the best
in yearly board exams.
After I left in
September 1987 to join a Central Luzon peasant organization in their democratic
struggles, the deterioration was more pronounced. I’d heard that the sites of the piggery and
poultry facilities and the engineering institute, as well as part of the
University Grandstand and Parade Ground, were gone to pay longstanding loans he
incurred. University operations were rationalized
and confined mainly to the remaining facilities surrounding the main building
in the greatly reduced 4-hectare campus.
It’s glaringly evident that it was not only
his physical plant that was neglected; his finances were also a mess. His indebtedness was not limited to the banks—which
was unusual from a typical rich man—but, of all people, to his faculty members
and non-teaching personnel. Imagine, a
big landlord is indebted to his tenants and farmhands! This was in spite of his huge endowments and
the practically regular increases in tuition and other fees imposed on the
students.
This pitiful predicament provoked the
various sectors of the university—students, faculty members, employees and
alumni—to accuse the school administration of doing a hatchet man’s job for the
Araneta sisters to deliberately mismanage and lead the university to bankruptcy. During my initial stint in the Supreme
Student Council (SSC) as Vice President for External Affairs in school year
1985-86, I’d heard from the faculty and employees unions’ officers that GAUF
had always been considered by the Araneta sisters as their bastard brother. They claimed that the sisters strongly resented
the fact that their inheritances were significantly affected by his
establishment. This made them to
conclude that the latter were bent to see him bankrupt, which, in turn, would warrant
his closure by the government. If that
happened, whatever is left of his remaining inheritance would revert back to
the sisters since the government would most likely opt not to sustain his
operations given its own problems with existing state colleges and
universities. As a foundation, his
remaining inheritance will not go back automatically to the sisters but would, only
if the government decides not to continue his operations as a university.
With the benefit of hindsight, let’s us look
into this allegation.
The Board of Trustees (BOT) was the highest
policy and decision making body of the university but the other equally
important stakeholders, like the students, alumni, faculty members and
employees, did not have any representation, not even ex-officio, in this august
body. There’s another structure above the BOT, though,
whose sole function that I knew of was to determine and appoint the composition
of the BOT. This structure was called
the Visitators and was headed by the Supreme Visitator. The visitators and the BOT members came from
three “sectors”: the Araneta family, the
Catholic Church and the government; three BOT members were supposed to come
from each of these sectors. This
structure, as I saw it, was more of a ceremonial rather than a line organ that
had specific authority and responsibilities and performed definite functions.
The late Jaime Cardinal Sin was still the
Supreme Visitator when I was elected president of the SSC in school year
1986-87 and I had the opportunity to meet, separately though, some of the BOT
members but not him. He appointed Fr. Varela
SJ, whose first name I could not recall anymore but was obviously from the Ateneo
de Manila University, and Bro. Rolando Dizon FSC, who was then president of the
De La Salle University and was later appointed BOT chair.
The visitator from the Araneta family, if
I’m not mistaken, was Mrs. Ma. Victoria Araneta-Concepcion, one of the five
daughters of Don Salvador. One of her appointees
was her husband, Mr. Jose Concepcion, who was a long time BOT Chair until he
resigned and replaced by Bro. Dizon after the resolution of the longest protest
actions in GAUF’s history, which was highlighted by barricades staged by the
SSC and allied student organizations, faculty and employees’ unions and alumni
association and capped by the more than 20-day hunger strikes by selected
student leaders that resulted in the ouster of the university president in 1987. Mr. Concepcion was also then Board Chair and
CEO of RFM and gained national prominence as the chair of NAMFREL during the
Snap Presidential Election in 1986 but this was tarnished, in a way, when
NAMFREL attested to the absence of irregularity during the 2003 elections when
Gloria “I Am Sorry” Macapagal-Arroyo was declared president. He was also the DTI secretary in the Cory cabinet. Contrary to common perception that he’s a
Green Archer because of his prominent presence during DLSU basketball games in
the UAAP, he’s actually a GAUF alumnus.
I had that impression until I was corrected by the union officers.
Her other appointee was Mr. Jesus Tambunting,
majority owner and Board Chair/CEO of Planters Development Bank. In a meeting he had with the officers of the
SSC, alumni association and faculty and employees’ unions that comprised the University
Rehabilitation Task Force (URTF) that was formed and tasked to identify
solutions to the problems plaguing GAUF that were highlighted during the
protest actions, he frankly admitted that his BOT seat was the result of the
Php4-million (I hope my memory still serves me well) character loan he extended
to the university on the representation of Mrs. Araneta-Concepcion. Just as he shared during that meeting, I
believed, he gave up his seat when this loan was repaid with the lot that formed
part of the University Grandstand and Parade Ground.
The visitator representing the government
was the late Ambassador Narciso Ramos, father of former President Fidel V.
Ramos. One of his appointee was his
daughter, then our ambassador to Australia, Mrs. Leticia Ramos-Shahani. The other BOT member coming from the
government was Mr. Mr. Romeo Acosta, who was then the incumbent president of
the GAUF Alumni Association and the planning director of the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources. He
topped the Forestry board exams during his time.
I can’t recall the third appointees from each
of the sectors maybe because I never met them or heard of them during my
two-year stay in the SSC. It’s not of
course possible that the visitators were also BOT members for it won’t make
sense not to have the Supreme Visitator as the BOT Chair, too.
But the enumerated BOT members alone already
made up a very impressive list. They
were absolutely, without doubt, captains of their respective industries and professions. RFM and the Planters Development Bank may not
be as huge as their counterparts and competitors today but they remained highly
competitive and are forces to reckon with in their respective industries. This can be attributed in large part to the
business savvy and acumen of Mr. Concepcion and Mr. Tambunting, respectively. Bro. Dizon and Fr. Varela had definitely contributed
invaluably to the present stature of DLSU and AdMU, respectively, which are undoubtedly
the best and leading private universities in the country. Mrs. Shahani made her marks not only in
international diplomacy but also in education and politics as a senator. She was once a dean at the Lyceum of the
Philippines and at Miriam College and held teaching posts in UP and other US
colleges. Mr. Acosta held various
positions in the DENR, aside from being a part-time professor at the GAUF
Graduate School. There is no reason
therefore to doubt their competence and ability to manage the strategic
direction of GAUF and oversee his day-to-day operations. In fact, he’s such a small entity compared to
the companies and institutions they’d managed or ran.
When viewed against this backdrop, the
imputation that he was deliberately mismanaged would gain credence. It’s really hard to believe that GAUF would
go under under their collective watch.
RFM, Planters Development Bank, AdMU and DLSU continue to flourish to
this day in spite of the competitions coming from old and upstart corporations,
banks and universities—not only locally but globally. Was it then possible that the BOT and the visitators
had willingly allowed this to happen and played along in the perpetration of the
alleged selfish end of the Araneta sisters?
The operative words here are: willingly allowed. Personally, I believed, there might be some
who did but I would like to believe that it was done unwittingly more than
anything else. Looking back, I think that
not all BOT members attended and intensively took part in their meetings. This reminded me of the BOTs of some NGOs—also
non-stock, non-profit foundations like GAUF—that I worked for where 100%
attendance was rare and the quality of the discussions left a lot to be
desired. In the first NGO I joined after
I left working directly with peasant organizations at the beginning of the
1990s, I was made to attend some of its BOT meetings to document and later
prepare the minutes (of the meetings), so, I know where I speak of. A number would even send their proxies, who
hardly contributed to discussions, instead of themselves personally attending these
important organizational activities. In
fact, I myself once stood as one for a colleague who thought I could contribute
better in the discussions on that NGO’s development project that was being
implemented among the Aetas of Pampanga—well, I knew a lot about my province and a
little about the Aetas but none about the development project. It was the BOT members who were like this
that unwittingly played a role in the mismanagement of GAUF since they most
likely believed that the decisions of their colleagues leading the meetings were
the best and most appropriate.
Actually, I could have had a personal glimpse
on the quality of and what transpired during GAUF BOT meetings had I attended a
meeting sometime in September 1987 where the students were accorded ex-officio
representation for the first time as a result of the recently concluded
multi-sector protests—and, as a bonus, I could have had first-hand information
of what it’s like inside Forbes Park where the meeting was held in Mr.
Concepcion residence. But I was then on
my way out to join a Central Luzon peasant organization and left my residual
responsibilities to my Vice President for External Affairs.
My belief that some had, may be, unwittingly
supported the move to bankrupt GAUF was also predicated on the analysis
advanced by a section of the local student movement that I was part of. This group, which was privy on some
information from a well-informed source in the BOT, opined that the bankruptcy
will lead to GAUF becoming a part of DLSU and that the sisters were not really
after the return of his inheritance. I
can’t forget the first retort of the university registrar on seeing me in 2005 when
I applied for a copy of my diploma, which I needed as a development volunteer
in Kenya, that our analysis in 1987 was indeed correct. GAUF, by then, was already DLSAU for the
past three years. The registrar was the
former vice president of GAUF Employees Union.
In the light of this development, how then
do we explain the behavior of the Araneta sisters? For the sake of putting forward an answer,
I’ll take off from the contention of the faculty and employees unions’ officers
that the sisters resented his establishment and they considered him their
bastard brother. All they’re after was
to erase the trace of their father’s “infidelity”. And by becoming the seventh member of the De
La Salle System, he lost his identity and had ceased to be the sixth child of Don Salvador Araneta.
We can only surmise as to the true
motivation of the Araneta sisters. But,
I can say with conviction that with their actions, they’d done their father
grave wrong. They deprived him a more
endearing and lasting legacy and a better showcase of his nobility. John Gokongwei practically paid the AdMU—he provided
endowments—to have its business college named after him, the John Gokongwei
School of Management. Henry Sy and Lucio
Tan bought the National University and the University of the East,
respectively. They’ve done this
obviously for the prestige more than anything else; if it’s profits that
they’re after, they could have placed their money in better profit yielding
business ventures.
It would be the height of naiveté for the
sisters to claim that this was precisely their motivation in allowing GAUF to
be the seventh member of the DLS System.
I believed, even before he “sired” GAUF, Don Salvador already had a clear
vision for his university-son. His
foundation status, the first university to have one in the country, is an
undeniable proof of this among others.
When he became part of the DLS System, this vision was lost since GAUF
as DLSAU will now be following the vision-mission-goals of the DLS System. It’s true, it remains as an educational
institution offering practically the same academic programs, but DLSAU is a
different animal, so to speak, from GAUF.
All its programs and activities will all now be directed to the
attainment of the strategic direction of the DLS System and enable it to be at
par with UP and other leading universities.
This “merger” could not be as “simple” as
one between two banks where the ultimate objectives when they were set up by
the owners would all boil down to profits. It’s true that both GAUF and the DLS System
shared the objective of providing education to the Filipino youth. But the VMGs of the De La Salle Brothers
(System) will never be the same as that of Don Salvador for his son.
When GAUF was transformed into DLSAU and
became the seventh member of the DLS System, he ceased to be the sixth child,
albeit bastard son, of Don Salvador.
With this development, it’s practically goodbye to his vision and dreams
for his son. All his investments were
lost and are now delivering “ROI” (return on investment) to De La Salle
brothers not to the vision of Don Salvador.
It appears that history is being repeated,
though, as student unrests appear to be on the rise anew on what is being
passed off as his son more than a decade after his demise. When we ousted the university president and
with Bro. Dizon at the helm in1987, I thought it would be a rosy horizon for
the bastard son from that point on. But,
there was the change in name and more in 2002, and heard practically the same
woes from the faculty and employees in 2005.
And lastly, I saw that TV footage.
As
soon as I overcame that eerie feeling on seeing that scene, the first thing
that I asked myself was: “Is this a portent of the things to come?” If it was, then, may be, it was karma.
Why karma?
When I navigated the DLSAU website, I can’t help but feel betrayed; that
Bro. Dizon dealt and negotiated in bad faith with the GAUF community when we discussed
university rehabilitation in the URTF after the 1987 protest actions. All along I thought that we, in the URTF, really
wanted to see GAUF rehabilitated. But this
particular passage in DLSAU’s Home Page triggered this feeling of betrayal and
bad faith: “Integration of the university to
the DLS System started since 1987and in 2002 became an official member of the
system.” Will I be faulted if I say that all those
consultations with the different sectors and their participation in special and
permanent bodies of the university were all for a show? This statement does not lie, as early as 1987,
maybe even earlier; the decision was already made to “kill” the bastard
son. They could not make it operational
maybe because they felt the student movement was still strong and could still
make noises. But after they were able to
deprive the students with the “weapons” which in the past advanced and
protected their democratic welfare and rights—the SSC and the student paper—they
were able to complete their plan.
Had this not been the case, then the De La
Salle brothers could have acted as true selfless missionaries, which all
religious missionaries are supposed to be, by acting as surrogate parents of
the bastard but noble son of Don Salvador.
They could have harnessed the different sectors and stakeholders in turning him into the best De La Salle-administered university instead of
subsuming him into their system. They
can still accomplish their noble mission of educating and molding the minds of
the Filipino youth given this set up. Apparently,
they found it worthier to have a seventh member in their system so that they
could be at par and compete better for recognition and prestige with the
leading universities in the country and abroad than to help to perpetuate the
legacy of a selfless and noble man by supporting his bastard son to manage
himself and survive.
If the unrests would escalate further, I
would assume this is Don Salvador’s ghost’s way at getting back at the people who’d
done his beloved bastard son wrong. (30)
