Alfonso
Alfonso
This all comes under the heading of “Getting Into the Act in UP Mindanao.” Call this “a call to arms”—But the peaceful, the best way. Arms for marms.
I do not know for a fact that lightning strikes twice in the same place. I do know in truth from personal experience that very rare opportunities can come in pairs, like twins. Two Chancellors have afforded me signal opportunities within the last two years.
Dr. Sergio S. Cao accorded me the rare honor of introducing him at his investiture as Chancellor of UP Diliman. And today, on an identical occasion, Chancellor Gilda Ochoa Carballo Rivero gives me the rare privilege of participation in this program. I cannot thank her enough for this. Sharing the stage twice in a row with two achiever comers in the higher echelons of the UP administration, on an occasion so important to each of them, is more than I bargained for in my retirement. It makes me feel as though I am not retired. It warms the cockles of my heart.
I join the many well-wishers of Dr. Rivero in felicitating her on this day of cognizance and pleasance, her well-deserved investiture as the 3rd Chancellor of UP Mindanao. Joining us on this joyous occasion are her proud parents, Engineer Romualdo and Mrs. Rosalina Ochoa Carballo. Cheering her on with us are her husband Reynaldo Rivero, M.D., residing in Californa, USA and their two daughters Christine and Rachel, here present. All four of them are UP alumni.
East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. So wrote Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. In our time he would be alive to the observation that in the Philippines the twain do meet, not just East and West but also North and South. A meeting of destiny between Chancellor Rivero of Santa Rosa City in Laguna, in the North, and Mindanao in the South. A getting together of the academic cum administrator of great promise, on the one hand, and Mindanao the land of innate promise, on the other hand.
The Chancellor and the constituencies of UP Mindanao are met, for good or for better, in helpfulness and in health, till success do them impart; the leader staunchly supported by the faculty, the research and extension personnel (REPS), the administrative personnel, the studentry, the UP alumni. Mostly Mindanaoans, they—Christian, Muslim, lumad—long feeling in their bones the aching needs of Mindanao. They would see that Chancellor Rivero is good for Mindanao, and the good of Mindanao is for their own personal good and collective fortunes. To see this as at once golden opportunity and worthy challenge for all in UP Mindanao to set their hearts and minds, jointly and commonly, on helping make Mindanao surge. Beautiful partnering in the offing this side of heaven.
This is opportunity, best of all, to help redeem the promise, chunk by small chunk perhaps, relative to the nature and the immenseness of what need to be done, but significant nonetheless, indicant of the earnest exertion applied. To bring the accumulated knowledge and know-how and the academic values of UP to bear upon Mindanao’s vision and aspiration. Where Central Luzon used to be the granary of the country, now Mindanao bids fair by official intent to be the food bastion of the nation.
The chosen task is the uplift of Mindanao; the chief instrument, science and technology, bolstered by the social sciences and the humanities. Sa abot ng makakayanan ng UP Mindanao. The call for the Chancellor is to focus, and Dr. Rivero is known to focus sharply and well. A competent and forward-looking biologist is in place in UP Mindanao. She is problems-aware, solutions-conscious, sectoral-and-all-support-invoking—all to the good of Mindanao.
For closure, let a word to the wise suffice. Chancellor Rivero, take this as sage advice from a Thai Airlines advertisement that appeared recently in Time magazine. “Relax more, sleep deeper and dream better.” Let us all add, as though in supplication heavenwards: Dream better, to help make Mindanao fly. Dream on. Then, look to the dawning and the morrow, and the morrows after that, for you and UP Mindanao to use to full advantage. Would that the deed be done and done well, though there be no more tomorrows, or because of it. And there shall be thanksgiving for mission accomplished. And joy in the heart. Peace to the mind.
—Oscar M. Alfonso