UST Archives director Fr. Fidel Villarroel, O.P.

THE UST Archives houses a repository of countless documents, manuscripts and records of the country’s oldest university. For many people, reading, collecting and maintaining dog-eared pages seem may be an impossible task taking years and years to accomplish.

But Fr. Fidel Villarroel, O.P. continues to labor in the task of conserving and preserving the collection. He has served as UST’s archivist for 47 years. He has grown old with the task, just like the archives. Yet, he sees his job as “the most beautiful thing” he has experienced in life. Villarroel is a self-confessed bookworm who loves to read and browse through antique documents– an unsurprising fact for a man who, early in life, had shown signs of becoming the keeper of memories past.

Preaching history
Growing up in the town of Tejerina in Leon, Spain, Villarroel was inspired to become a priest by his high school teachers at the Dominican schools of La Mejorada and Santa Maria de Nieva.
“It was during high school when I developed the vocation of being a Dominican priest. That was the only thing I thought of taking as I was contented to become like my Dominican professors someday,” Villarroel told the Varsitarian.
While in high school, he became interested in studying grammar, language, Spanish history and literature. Although he had an inclination toward history, he did not consider becoming a historian since he was already focused on fulfilling his vocation to the priesthood.
But destiny intervened for Villarroel. After he was ordained in 1953, he and his classmate were sent to London by his Dominican superiors to take up post-graduate studies in History.
“I was sent away to England, for three years, to take up History at the University of London,” Villarroel said.
After finishing his Master’s degree in History in 1957, Villarroel was assigned to the Philippines to head the Spanish department of the University, a post he held for 22 years, from 1957 up to 1966, and then from 1968 until 1981. It was in UST that he obtained his doctorate in sacred theology.
Villarroel was appointed archivist of the University in 1959. He said he was the first person to hold the post after a hiatus of six years when his predecessor, Fr. Jose Maria Gonzales, O.P., left the post in 1953. It was also during this time that Villarroel began to research and write about Philippine history. He was especially interested in Filipino patriots who studied in UST, such as Jose Rizal, Fr. Jose Burgos and Marcelo H. Del Pilar.
“Since my arrival in the country in 1957, I always had the history of the Philippines in mind. Most of my books and my researches have been about Philippine history and also Church history,” Villarroel said.
Villarroel has authored some 20 history books, most of which deal with the history of the University and the Philippines. Among them are Apolinario Mabini; Father Jose Burgos, University Student; Jose Rizal and the University of Santo Tomas; Lorenzo Ruiz, the Protomartyr of the Philippines and his Companions; and The Dominicans and the Philippine Revolution.
His solid works in history have earned Villarroel national and international acclaim. Among the awards he received were the National Book Award, Catholic Authors Award, Dr. Eufronio Alip Award for Historical Research, Outstanding Thomasian Awardee for Historical Research, St. Antoninus of Florence Award for Humanities-Church History, and Gintong Aklat Award from the Book Development Association of the Philippines.
Villarroel was also invited to speak at international conventions such as the International Conference on the Historiography of the Church in China held in Belgium (1991) and the International Seminar on Ferdinand Magellan (2004).
Outside of UST, Father Villarroel enjoys a reputation as a masterful historian and scholar. Popular historian Ambeth Ocampo at one time wrote a column reporting how Father Villarroel exposed several historical errors in just one short paragraph by a Filipino historian. Researchers from other institutions also praised Father Villarroel for readily helping them in navigating through the labyrinth of the UST Archives and for his selfless assistance in their researches.

Keeping the house in order

Despite his genuine interest in history, Villarroel was confronted with a formidable task when he started working as UST archivist. According to him, the archives were in a state of disarray at the time of his appointment.
“When I arrived here, the archives were located in a small room in front of the Fathers’ Residence. It was unkempt, very dusty, disorganized and dark, with termites eating up some of the books,” he recounted.
He and his staff then began to restore the archives by arranging the documents according to year and topic, maintaining the cleanliness of the facility, and increasing the number of sections of the archives.
“Until now, I have been doing a lot of work in cleaning up the archives, putting it in order and increasing the number of our sections,” Villarroel said.
Some of the tasks that keep Villarroel and his staff busy are cataloguing the archived documents and restoring damaged centuries-old records.
“Many of the documents are breaking down in pieces, while some of the manuscripts are already unreadable, so they need restoration and preservation through chemical treatment,” he explained.
Villarroel also started microfilming documents stored in the archives such as baptismal records coming from different parts of the country dating back to the Spanish era.
Still more research
Aside from being the archivist and head of the old Spanish Department, Villarroel was also the Prefect of Libraries from 1978 to 1991 and adviser of the defunct Spanish student publication, La Voz Estudiantil, from 1957 to 1967. He has also been teaching Church History at the Faculty of Sacred Theology since 1963.
Moreover, Villarroel was involved in activities outside of the University such as serving as the secretary of the Papal Nuncio for 32 years (1959-1991) and also as the Dominican Promoter of Beatification Causes, which aided the beatification of the seven Dominican martyrs of Nagasaki of the 17th century and perhaps most important, resulted in the canonization of San Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint, and several of his companion martyrs who were alumni or teachers of UST.
Despite his advanced years, Father Villarroel’s heart remains close to historical research. His latest project is to write the last part of his planned three-volume history of the University. So far, he said, he has read about 700 pages of archived records from the 20th century that can help him finish the last part of his UST history.
“That is a very meticulous task because I have to read all the archived records from the 20th century which I still have to write about,” Villarroel said.
Despite all the pressure and strain of research, Villarroel said he enjoys his job as archivist. He added he takes particular joy that whenever he rediscovers long-lost information about the University.
“Finding data and information about the past, which nobody has seen before, makes the discovery one of the happiest moments of my life, especially when it pertains to the history of UST,” he explained.
Deriving intense pleasure from scholarship and research and love for any piece of history about Asia’s oldest University, Father Villarroel vows to continue poring over the centuries-old documents stacked in the shelves of the archives, hoping to further save the memories of the University from dust and oblivion.

University of Santo Tomas Alumni: An International-renowned Singer and Performer

A match made in heaven best describes the marriage of performing couple Robert Seña & Isay Alvarez. In their collaborative recording Dueto, music lovers would instantly fall for the sweet, contagious love the couple evokes in their singing.
“Because we produced Dueto, we hand-picked the elements that we wanted to include in the album,” Alvarez said. “Although we exerted a lot of effort, we are both very happy with how it came out.”
Seña and Alvarez spent their college years in UST during the early 1980's. Although both of them were Thomasians, their love story unfolded only after college as their paths never crossed when they were on campus.
“I was ahead of him by two years,” Alvarez said. “We never met inside the campus though.”
Taking AB Sociology major in Translation in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, Alvarez belonged to the first batch of Artistang Artlets when it was organized in 1981, a year short of her graduation year. She was also a member of the UST Action Singers. Meanwhile, Seña, who took Industrial Design in the University, was a member of the Salinggawi Dance Troupe and the Atelier Cultural Organization. Although they knew people from each other's organizations, they never met.
“I even told Robert my amazement about us not even meeting each other in the then UST Cooperative Canteen during break time,” Alvarez said.

Perfect combination
Growing up, Alvarez always joined school songfests. Her love for music started when she saw and heard Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
“I even wanted to be her sister and until now I do,” Alvarez said. “I think she inspired me the most to penetrate the world of theater later on.”
Seña, even at a young age, was always being asked to perform at family gatherings because of his breathtaking singing prowess. A play in Fort Santiago that he saw as a child inspired him to become a theater artist. “I was only 10 years old then and that play really sank right into my mind as very impressive.”
Their aspirations continued to blossom in college. Alvarez became active at the Artistang Artlets and the UST Action Singers (forerunner of today's UST Singers). When asked about her fondest memories in UST, she would mention her friends in those two organizations. “Up to now I'm still very well-bonded with my batch mates in Artistang Artlets,” she said.
Meanwhile, Seña enjoyed the arduous life of an Industrial Design student. It was in the strain of putting up exhibits and staying up late at night finishing projects that he found his best friends and colleagues. Seña was then already performing in stage productions in the now defunct Metropolitan Theater.
“Those activities are really close to my heart,” he said.
Meanwhile, right after her classes, Alvarez would go straight to the Metropolitan Theater to sing with the chorus in theatrical productions there. Later, she was soon given roles to play until she portrayed Monina in Gines Tan's 1985 musical Magsimula Ka. It was during her stint in the musical that she met Seña who was also in the production. They were introduced by their friends during rehearsals and gradually, the two performers became close. Although they became inseparable during the staging of Magsimula Ka, their relationship was purely platonic. No sparks flew between the graceful alto and the vibrant tenor.
“There was nothing romantic initially,” Alvarez recalled. “Even up to the time when we went to London to do Miss Saigon, we were just very good friends.”
Four years later, they found themselves performing together in the original 1989 London production of the hit musical Miss Saigon. Alvarez narrated how Seña would sweetly send her flowers or fruits during rehearsals. “He never failed to surprise me,” she said. “Robert is really sweet and thoughtful.”
In the musical, Alvarez played the role of Gigi, the world-weary prostitute who sings the heart-breaking song Movie in My Mind, while Seña played Thuy, the man betrothed to the female lead, Kim. But outside of the fiction of the stage, musical romance was blooming between the two actors.
In 1991, three years after the opening of Miss Saigon, Seña and Alvarez got married in a civil wedding in London. Two church weddings followed, first in London, then in Manila. Alvarez left Miss Saigon after getting pregnant with their first daughter, Maria. Seña, meanwhile, played the role of Judas in the hit West End revival of the musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, and the lead role of the engineer in the German production of Miss Saigon.

Back where they belong
Despite the greener pastures in London, the couple decided that it was better for them to raise their growing family back in the Philippines.
“We were waiting for our papers in order to become residents in London, but when we had a baby, we didn't think that London was the best environment to raise children, so we forfeited our residency and went back to the Philippines,” Alvarez said.
“It was really the best decision for us because here we get to rest, go on holiday, and spend time with our kids. In London, we had to work non-stop because the shows were eight times a week,” Seña added.
At present, the couple has three children: 20-year-old Maria, 13-year-old Roberto Jericho, and seven-year-old Emilio. After Emilio was born, Alvarez took a break from the stage to raise her kids. She would wake up at six in the morning to drive her children to school.
Meanwhile, Seña continued to work on stage companies. He played Emilio Aguinaldo in Miong, Ravana in Rama at Sita, and Judas in the Philippine production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Alvarez returned to the limelight through plays such as Himala, My Fair Lady, Mga Anghel sa Lupa, West Side Story, Once on This Island, and They're Playing Our Song. Both of them reprised their original roles in the Philippine production of Miss Saigon in 2000. They also produced a show together, Love You, Hate You, Love You, at the Music Museum last year.

To God be the glory
Both credit their strong faith in God for the success of their personal and professional lives together. “For some people, being together as a couple and working together at the same time is difficult. But because we're both Christians, we try to do an excellent job in everything that we do,” Alvarez said.
Aside from this, what separates the couple from the rest of the artists is their undying support for Filipino music. According to the couple, through their newest album, they aim to revive the beautiful Filipino songs of the past that they believe should not be forgotten.
“What we really want is for Filipinos to be exposed to a different kind of music genre and at the same time, for them to appreciate old Filipino music,” Seña said. “Hopefully, artists like us who are trying to bring these songs back to life would succeed in this endeavor.”
The couple encouraged Thomasians and aspiring performers not to give up, to cultivate their craft, and to join organizations that will help them improve and develop their talents.
“Don't be afraid to explore different things, and when you learn something new, don't forget to share your discovery,” Seña said.

University of Santo Tomas Medtech Alumni turns to Bossa Music

IT WAS her dream to become a doctor so she could heal through medicine. But a twist of fate made her decide to heal through her therapeutic soothing voice.

Thomasian Medical Technology (Med Tech) graduate and Bossa Nova singer Sofia Josephine Mozo had her mind set on taking a medical study grant in Japan last year, but she simply couldn’t refuse the warm reception she got from the public after she released a demo tape of bossa, a Brazilian style of jazz.
“Although I was already set to go to Japan’s Gifu University as a research assistant in Hematology, I took the public’s appreciation of my song as a sign from God to sing Bossa songs for people,” Sofia said.
Sofia explained that after singer Sitti Navarro sparked the popularity of bossa, Ivory Records was looking for a Bossa singer of its own.
“They asked me to do a demo tape of the song ‘Desafinado’ which was aired over the radio,” she recalled. “Surprisingly, the song was warmly received and people were requesting for it.”
That one song eventually led to more songs that ultimately gave birth to Sofia’s debut album, Bossa Latino Lite and shortly afterwards, a sophomore album called In Love with Bossa Nova.
Although Sofia admitted that her unexpected entry into the music scene was a “fortunate accident,” as she was only asked by Ivory records to do a demo tape of a Bossa song or coach a would-be Bossa singer, the sultry 22-year-old singer was not expecting anything big as her song was aired over the radio.
Medicine and music
Although Sofia was more used to Med Tech functions such as blood extraction, identification of bacteria, and analysis of human feces, she found no trouble adjusting to the music industry having been a well-versed musician since high school.
“I’ve been a member of three bands. In high school, I had a rock band and alternative band and in college, I was part of an R&B and reggae band,” she said. “One way or another, my experiences with these bands helped boost my confidence when I began my singing career.”
She added that even though she had chosen Med Tech as her pre-med, her passion for music would always prevail over her.
“Even when I’m on hospital duty I would listen to different types of music that I like,” she said.
While most of her classmates were part of the boy-band craze during her high school years in St. Theresa’s College, Sofia was preoccupied with studying the history of Bossa music.
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music introduced in 1958 by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes and Joao Gilberto.
The musical style evolved from samba but is more complex harmonically and is less percussive. It is most commonly performed on a nylon-string classical guitar, played with fingers instead of a pick. Other instruments include the piano, drums and percussions.
“My best friend in second-year high school, who was listening to a lot of popular music, gave me a tape containing songs of different languages. One of the songs was ‘Desafinado’,” Sofia said.
She narrated that upon listening to the song, her respect and curiosity for bossa grew.
“As a musician, I was challenged by the complex melody of the bossa genre. If you listen to the song, it may first sound dissonant and sometimes off-key, but if you listen more closely, you’ll see that it is not,” she said. “Bossa is actually a type of sound reminiscent of jazz.”
She was immediately swept off her feet upon listening to the sounds of Jobim, one of the creators of bossa. Immediately, she started studying how to play the bossa nova herself.
Although Sofia fell in love with bossa the moment she listened to it, she observed that it would be much better if it could gain more listeners.
“When my first album was released, my ultimate goal was for people to understand and appreciate Bossa more,” Sofia said. “For me, that was as equally important as selling the album because if people genuinely understand your music, they would also be interested in you, which is more important than any award or title.”
Thomasian beat
Despite her recent success, Sofia never fails to look back at her days as a Thomasian.
She said that much of who she is right now is due to her four years as a Med Tech student in UST.
“What I learned most in UST Med Tech is to be very reflexive, witty in making decisions and in handling pressure,” Sofia said. “I also learned how to multi-task from my hospital duties at the Veteran’s Memorial Medical Center.”
She added that until now, she still finds it hard to adjust to being a show-biz personality because all her life she had been a very private person.
“The feeling is so surreal. But I have always made it a point not to let my success get into my head and see to it that my feet are on the ground,” Sofia said. “This is probably another thing that UST taught me.”
Sofia may be well on her way to success, but she never forgets her dream of becoming a doctor.
“I will still take up medicine. But right now, I am just working with what I have and being thankful for the blessings.”

University of Santo Tomas Graduate: a National Artist for Literature

FRANCISCO SIONIL JOSE
I enrolled at the University of Santo Tomas in 1944; the school then was in its old campus in Intramuros, close to the Santo Domingo Church. The main campus in España was the interment camp of Allied civilians, mostly Americans. After the first air raid by American carrier planes in September 1944, all classes in Manila were closed and in October that year, with Manila already starving, the country in shambles, my mother, a cousin and I walked all the way from Manila to my hometown Rosales, Pangasinan, where we waited for the Liberation. In January 1945, I joined the American Army as a civilian employee, and left the Army in October 1945. The following year, when Santo Tomas opened, I enrolled in the college of Liberal Arts as a preparatory medicine student.
How did I get to join the Varsitarian?
Miss Paz Latorena whom I already knew was a first rate writer was teaching English and I purposely enrolled in her class. On our first day, she made us write on a theme whose title I do not remember. It was not difficult—so when I finished it in 15 minutes, I asked if it was all right for me to leave. She said, yes.
The following session, she called my name and told me to see her after the class. She said I should take the examination for the Varsitarian that forthcoming week, and that I must not fail to do it. And that was how I joined the Varsitarian, first as assistant literary editor, together with Dolores Locsin, The literary editor at the time was Albert Card—an American veteran studying under the GI bill of rights.
In those days, there were separate entrances for men and women and separate classes as well, but not in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters because we were so few, the Varsitarian office was in the ground floor, the huge room at the right of the main entrance in the main building. Voz Estudiantil, the paper in Spanish shared the office with us. The Varsi Adviser was Francisco Cuerva, and the Varsitarian moderator was Fr. Florencio Muñoz who was also the University secretary; he was succeeded by Fr. Francisco Villacorta. It was the age of the typewriter, the flatbed press and the linotype. When we put the paper to bed, we really put it to bed in the flatbed press at the UST Printing Press which was then at the corner of P. Noval and España. There we often worked late at night, and got our fingers dirty with printer’s ink while we helped the printers set up the pages with the cuts and the proofs fresh from the linotypes.
When there were huge blanks that needed material, we typed out the stories right there. In those days, there was indeed a close working relationship between the editorial staff and the printers.
My first editor-in-chief was Eleno Mencias who was a medical student, then came Santiago Artiaga who wrote a column, Tiago Tiaga. He was in law, and finally, Manuel V. Salak. He was taking up Law. And on the fourth year in the staff, I became editor-in-chief, with Constante Roldan as my managing editor. I remember Cenon Rivera who was staff artist, then J. Elizalde Navarro, who lived by himself in a small ground floor apartment near the University. I often visited him and we reminisced about the war, and talked about art. He was then very much under the influence of Carlos V. Francisco.
Pepino Vinzons Asis, alumni editor—in the eighties, he visited me at my bookshop. He had become a priest and was in a poor parish somewhere in Bicol. We talked about the priesthood, its hardships I had hoped he would visit again.
There were several fixtures in the Varsitarian, the first of course, was Francisco Cuyerva who was the publications director and the office manager, Enrique Lumba who was responsible for running the office. I had no typewriter and he permitted me to work in the office at lunchtime or late in the evening typing out my manuscripts. Then there was Mike Evangelista who was alumni editor, who was also a very good proof reader, and Benny Buenaventura—the hippie poet and perennial student, who continually gave us his poems—some of them publishable. I was walking behind him once on the way out of the campus to España and he was talking to himself. I moved closer and realized he was reciting Shakespeare.
In the Varsitarian, Ben Rodriguez, Tedoro Benigno, Mary Ruff Tagle, and Eugenia Duran Apostol wrote short stories, and Adoracion Trinidad contributed poetry. Juan Gatbonton and Neal Cruz were reporters. Delia Coronel who was the coed editor became a nun and in Marawi, she translated the Maranao epic, The Darangen, for which she has yet to be fully honored.
My first formal dinner was tendered by the Father Rector, Angel Blas, for the new Varsitarian staff in 1946 at Carbungco’s—the only posh restaurant shortly after World War II. And so there we were, before that fancy dinner table arrangement, the different kinds of forks and knives. I did not know the sequence so I watched the priests, and followed their example. The red and white wine—that was easy enough. The soup and the fish, too. Then the brandy after dinner. I wondered why it was not so generously poured as the wines and so I gulped it, not sipped it, and almost choked.
I remember Johnny Frivaldo and our meeting with Father Villacorta, how he had asked for more pay for us staffers and more scholarships—which Father Villacorta granted. To prove his point, Johnny lifted one of his shoes which had a hole in the sole. Johnny was a very good politician, as his career later proved.
And Gloria Garchetorena, and Celso Carunungan—as literary editors they made a beautiful and a hard-working pair. Celso could write those complex and profound sentences—but he elected to write simply as was the fad in those days with Carlos Bulosan, and William Saroyan.
And since I was then an avid follower of William Faulkner, I tried to write differently, in a manner prolix and confused, one page, one sentence of convoluted thinking.
I recall only too well how once, Manuel Salak, who was then Varsi editor, and Manila Times reporter had inquired about one essay that I wrote. He said, it was beautifully written, but what did I want to say? I thought the words were by themselves explicit.My most important lesson in writing was given to me by Fr. Juan Labrador, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. This was sometime in 1947, I think. NVM Gonzalez was then editing the Saturday Evening News Magazine and he had used one of my short stories.
Father Labrador took me to the canteen—the building at the left of the main building. The ground floor was for students, the second floor for the faculty. We had mami and siopao. He asked me to look out of the window and tell him what I saw. I said, the high school girls playing softball. He said, suppose I put curtains on both sides of the window, what will you see? I said, the curtains and the girls playing softball. Then he leaned forward and asked, Suppose I covered the entire window with beautiful curtains, what do you see?
I said, the curtains, Father.
He said, that is writing. Never cover the window with curtains, no matter how beautiful. Leave something clear so that your reader can see what is beyond the window.
His eyes twinkled, Besides, you will always be a second rate Faulkner. You can be a first rate Jose.
So, goodbye William Faulkner. And shortly after, Miss Latorena dropped by the Varsi office. She had read my latest short story and she said, now I was not just telling stories but writing them.
The happiest days of my youth were spent at Santo Tomas. Thanks to the Varsitarian, I had a small pay and a scholarship as well. And most of all, although it was not at the campus where I met her, it was at UST where my future wife was studying, too. When I first met her, I asked if she had read me. She said, no. Did she not read Varsitarian at all?
Again, she said, no.
It was a monumental put down, but it did not faze me. V
Francisco Sionil Jose is the National Artist for Literature. He is one of the most widely-read Filipino writers in English. His works, most famous of which are the Rosales Saga, had been translated in 22 other languages. He founded the Philippine Center of International PEN (Poets and Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) in 1957 and became the Varsitarian editor-in-chief from 1948-1949.

Gatekeepers of National Pride: Alumni of University of Santo Tomas

By JOSEINNE JOWIN L. IGNACIO, ROMAN CARLO R. LOVERIA and ANA MAE G. ROA
THEY WERE men of wisdom whose intellectual guile and artistry have enamored a nation and kept it from the bondage of cultural apathy and ignorance.
Of the 16 Thomasians who were named national artists, three are former Varsitarian staff members–Francisco Sionil Jose and Bienvenido Lumbera for literature, and Jeremias Elizalde Navarro for the visual arts.
Francisco Sionil Jose
During his formative years as a writer, Jose, a naitve of Rosales, Pangasinan, was deeply inspired by the works of “Jose Rizal, Anton Chekov, Stojowsky, William Faulkner, and several black writers,” according to him. There was also the constant support he got from his mother Sophia and Fr. Juan Labrador, O.P., former dean of the old Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (Philets), now Faculty of Arts and Letters. Convinced at a young age that writing was “an expression of memory,” Jose, the 2001 National Artist for Literature, would live by this principle, his impressions, social consciousness—and memory—finding flesh in his novels, short stories, poetry and essays.
“It (writing) is memory put down on paper. So my earliest memories are my basic capital as a writer,” Jose tells the Varsitarian.
In 1945, he entered UST as a Literature major then joined the Varsitarian the following year.
Jose’s subsequent editorship, however, had to endure the heavy hand of censorship, with articles especially those with political overtures, having to be tamed by the school administration.
“It was during that time (1947-1949) that the Parity Rights was amended,” Jose says. “The students back then were very interested in politics.”
But it was only after the Second World War that Jose and his colleagues truly felt the burden of censorship which greatly exasperated them.
“We knew ourselves to be mature, and we knew what censorship was. And though we never took it upon ourselves, there were times when I got very angry about it,” he says.
Jose also founded the Philippine center of the international organization of Poets, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN) in 1957. As a man of letters, he thrived in the company of deliberate solitude, a situation that helped him complete some of his many notable novels such as Ermita (1988) and the Rosales Saga, which includes Po-on (1984) and Tree (1978).
His experiences abroad gave rise to his other successful novels such as The Pretenders (1962) and My Brother, My Executioner (1979).
In 1974, Jose received the Outstanding Alumnus Award for his literary achievements. His other writing diadems include the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts in 1980, the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 1981 where he bagged the grand prize for his novel Mass, and the Varsitarian’s Parangal Hagbong in 2005.
Bienvenido Lumbera
Wordplay and a sense of social awareness typified Lumbera’s literary temperament.
The Lipa, Batangas native injected social relevance to his essays and stories by using intricate yet level-headed words which he learned from reading the dictionary and some children’s story books during his primary-school days.
“When I was in Grade 6, I wrote a composition using fancy words from the dictionary,” Lumbera says. “My teacher could not believe that I wrote it, and that I had the ability to write such a composition.”
After high school, Lumbera heeded the call of writing as he entered UST in 1950 to pursue a degree in journalism. He joined the Varsitarian in 1953 and became a literary editor before graduating cum laude in 1954.
Lumbera’s poetry collection, “Sunog sa Lipa at Iba Pang Tula,” won a Palanca in 1975 and like Jose, he also received the Magsaysay award in 1993. In 1998, he was awarded the Gawad Cultural Center of the Philippines Para sa Sining.
As a librettist and scholar, Lumbera has published books on culture and nationalism, one of which is Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology (1982), which he wrote and edited with his wife Cynthia. The anthology, while recounting the country’s literary history into five periods (pre-colonial, Spanish colonial, American colonial, the Third Republic and post-Edsa), also raised the standards of Philippine literature against the “prevailing literary customs” characterized by the aversion toward the study of ethnic lore. He also penned Writing the Nation: Pag-aakda ng Bansa (2002), which tackled Philippine arts and culture.
Proclaimed National Artist for Literature in 2006, Lumbera, whose works subsequently became part of the canons of Philippine literary criticism today, holds this distinction in high esteem. “When (a person) assumes a title like the National Artist, one needs to be circumspect in his views since he is speaking from a point of authority,” he says.
Jeremias Elizalde Navarro
Besides producing the finest writers of the country, the Varsitarian also produced masters in the visual arts. Case in point: the late Jeremias Elizalde Navarro who was declared a National Artist for Painting in 1999.
The Antique-born Navarro first entered the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts in 1947, but later transferred to UST where he majored in Painting. He joined the Varsitarian in 1948 and became its Art editor from 1949 to 1951.
As a V artist, Navarro conceived Varsilaffs, which provided comical renditions to everyday University-life scenes and Season’s Harvest which portrayed harvest-time landscapes.
Besides dabbing paint onto the canvas, Navarro also explored and used other media such as hardwood, metal and stone in his later works. He was also known as one of the pioneers in incision paintings, a technique that emphasizes texture by laying thick paint on carved wood or stone surfaces.
Among his masterpieces were “A Flying Contraption for Mr. Icarus” commissioned by the Lopez Museum (1984), and “I’m Sorry Jesus, I Can’t Attend Christmas This Year” (1965).
Navarro represented the country in various artistic competitions abroad, such as those in Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Japan, Indonesia, and the United States among others. He also staged numerous one-man exhibitions.
For his sharpness with the pen vis-à-vis his artistic brilliance, the Varsitarian conferred on Navarro, (who also ventured into poetry and art criticism later in his career), a posthumous Parangal Hagbong award in 1999. On June 10, 1999, he died of bone cancer at the age of 75.

University of Santo Tomas Graduate: Campus Journalism runs in Bautista Family

“THERE is no balm in writing,” the father told the children, reminding them about the risk of flirting with letters and choosing writing as a profession.
But that mild warning hardly discouraged three of Felix Bautista, Jr.’s 12 children from entering the world of campus journalism through the Varsitarian.
Growing up in an environment influenced by their father Felix’s journalistic temperance and mother Lourdes Syquia’s academic guidance, Maria Angelica, Maria Regina, and Noel Martin never dreamed of becoming editors-in-chief of the Varsitarian. From their parents they enjoyed the liberty of choosing their own career paths, but the lure of writing proved too irresistible. Before they knew it, they were occupying the V’s top post.
For a while, it seemed they were influenced only by their father’s routine as a newsman and later speech writer of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin. But the Bautista siblings were for real. The interest was there as early as high school when all three became editors in chief of UST High School’s student publication, The Aquinian.
All the while, father Felix never wavered in his support, consistently reminding his children that “writing should be done to express, not to impress.” The advice—nothing short of a mantra—would be distinctive character of Felix’s writings, and later, those of the children.
Eighth-born Maria Angelica “Gigi” Bautista-Rapadas served as Varsitarian editor-in-chief from 1978 to 1979. A magna cum laude graduate of B.S. Mathematics and recipient of the Benavides Civic Award, Angelica is an information technology expert and at present, chief information officer (CIO) of the Ayala Corporation. She is also the general manager of HRMall, a wholly-owned shared services subsidiary of the Ayala Group of Companies for human resource and payroll systems.
Angelica’s writing skills brought her far. In 1979, she was chosen to represent the Philippines to the Japan Air Lines Summer Scholarship Program in Tokyo after undergoing a series of interviews and submitting an essay titled, “How the Young Graduate Can Meaningfully Contribute to the Development of His Country.” She joined 35 other delegates from the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore. Angelica says the knowledge she gained during her three-year stay at the Varsitarian helped her in becoming the leader she is today.
“The V was my first real experience in managing people,” says Rapadas, who rose through the ranks of the V’s news section before becoming editor-in-chief. “I try to build up the same spirit of teamwork, dedication, and camaraderie in all the teams I work for or lead in the corporate world. Of course, having the talent to write and communicate is a valuable asset in any job. Writing a memorandum or business letter or report well, and with ease, helps.”
Before working as CIO for Ayala in January 2006, Rapadas was senior director for operations of the Asia Pacific division of Oracle, the world’s largest software distributor. She joined the corporation in 1995, first starting as Practice Director for Oracle Philippines before moving to Oracle Southeast Asia. She worked at Oracle for 12 years.
Following her footsteps was Maria Regina “Gina” Bautista-Navarrete. The 10th of the brood, she became editor-in-chief in 1984 while taking up B.S. Industrial Engineering. Currently the general manager and president of Red Ribbon Bakeshops in the Philippines and the United States, she acknowledges the Varsitarian’s pivotal role in her success.
Starting out as a news reporter and becoming associate and managing editor afterwards, Regina recounts how the Varsitarian equipped her with the essential social skills needed during interviews.
“The Varsitarian helped me gain confidence from having to interview a lot of people as a writer,” Regina says in an interview with the Varsitarian’s Breaktime Magazine last May.
Apart from the Varsitarian, she also delved into other fields of interest, such as volleyball where she played for the Faculty of Engineering. But despite her preoccupation, she still graduated cum laude and like her older sister Angelica, she also received the Benavides Civic Award for outstanding students of UST.
Being siblings to someone who also managed the V’s highest post, comparison between them may seem inevitable, but Regina did not feel they were being compared at all.
“I guess it helped that we weren’t really contemporaries. My sister already graduated from college when I joined the Varsitarian,” she says. “As for my younger brother, I think we overlapped a bit, but I was more senior (to him) so there was really no competition at all. I think we have more similarities than differences.”
Both Angelica and Regina served as editors-in-chief while their father Felix was still publications adviser. The sisters were naturally concerned of possible impressions that their position was a product of nepotism.
“But to be fair, the fear was mine alone,” Angelica says. “I never heard or felt anything negative from my staff: no resistance, no insinuations of favoritism.”
They note that family relation never made them skip the paper’s tedious selection process. Their surname might have been Bautista, but it was fair game in the screening.
“I rose from the ranks, first as reporter and then as News Editor,” Angelica recalls. “The qualifying exams were also graded by several ex-editors and assistants, apart from my dad. I didn’t have any private lessons.”
Dealing with pressure
For 42-year-old pediatrician Noel Martin, the virtue of time management was one of the many values he learned during his five-year stint at the V. Despite a heavy academic load typical of a second-year Medicine student, he still excelled as a Varsitarian writer and even assumed the top post in 1987.
While enrolled in Medical Technology from which he graduated magna cum laude, Noel applied for the Varsitarian in 1983 and was accepted as a news and special reports writer. The following year, he was promoted as news editor before becoming associate and later managing editor during his freshman year in Medicine.
Being the 11th and the youngest among Felix’s editor-in-chief children, Noel came under the pressure of performing just as well. He says much of it came from himself than from others.
“You always wanted to be better,” recalls Bautista, who now teaches Biochemistry and Medical Nutrition at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. “Not better than the one who had preceded you, but you (simply) wanted to be better than what you could actually do.”
Regina was no stranger to her brother’s predicament.
“Since my eldest sister had set the bar very high, all of us who came after felt that we too had to do well, in whatever we did,” she says. “I remember my mom telling us that we shouldn’t study too hard, that it was better to sleep than to study. She would send us to our rooms and turn off the lights, so we would set our alarm clocks at four in the morning if we wanted to finish our homework or cram for an exam.“
Noel says he ignored the people who occasionally compared him with his sisters, but took the experience more as a motivation to excel.
Aside from teaching, Noel also manages online communities, most notably USTExchange.com. He stopped his medical practice four years ago to focus on his master’s degree in Business Administration specializing in Health Care at the Ateneo de Manila University.

University of Santo Tomas: A Rich Heritage of Arts and Letters

DORIS GAMALINDA. Eric Gamalinda. Natasha Gamalinda. Jonathan Gamalinda.
For these three generations of Gamalindas, being with the Varsitarian runs in the family.
Doris, the family matriarch, led the way when she became the paper’s literary editor from 1947 to 1948. Her son Eric would assume the same post more than 20 years later, before her granddaughter Natasha took her turn as the section’s editor just five years ago.
Like his kin, Natasha’s cousin Jonathan all but escaped the lure of the Varsitarian where he served as assistant art director in 2006.
Adoracion “Doris” Trinidad-Gamalinda started young with the craft, writing as early as elementary when she worked on her valedictory address. There was no stopping the writer-in-the-making since then, as Doris further honed her skills at the Varsitarian during the post-war.
But Doris the Writer would take a break soon after graduating summa cum laude in Philosophy at the old Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. For the next two decades, she would become a full-time housewife to Marcial Gamalinda, Jr., whom she married in her junior year in college.
She returned to writing only after her husband suffered a stroke and had to quit his job at the Development Bank of the Philippines. She worked as the Women Section editor of the Manila Times before the paper was closed down soon after Martial Law was declared in 1972.
Doris then moved to Focus Magazine where she became associate editor in 1973. Four years later, she led the National Media Production Center as its publications head before editing the People’s Magazine in 1978 and Woman’s Home Companion Magazine in 1980.
Though it was quite obvious that writing ran in the Gamalindas, Doris swears she never prodded her children or grandchildren to follow her footsteps.
“I have never imposed my ‘values,’ literary or otherwise, on my progeny. I am ‘mom’ or ‘lola’, always will be. And I hope this is value enough,” she says.
But whether she liked it or not, at least one of her eight children would go the similar route. It was quite evident early in his life that young Eric was no different from his mom. He devoted much of his free time reading, an attitude that introduced him to literature.
In no time, Eric began reaping awards, too. At 17, and a college freshman in 1972, he published his first collection of poems titled Fire Poem, Rain Poem.
Like his mother, he, too, joined the and wrote for the Literary section in 1974. He later became assistant literary editor, and then literary editor in 1976.
After college, Eric worked for the Mabuhay Magazine, wrote music reviews for Jingle Magazine, and penned investigative articles for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
His essays, plays, short stories and poems garnered several Palanca awards. In 1997, he became the publications director of the Asian American Writers Workshop. He was also a resident writer artist of different international organizations in Europe and was the first Filipino to have a story published in the Harper’s Magazine, a monthly general-interest magazine in the United States covering literature, culture, finance, politics and the arts.
Eric says her mother never failed to give him advice—though subtly—about his writing from his Varsitarian years up to the present.
Although given this privilege by his mother, Eric tries not to do the same to the batch of younger writers in their family.
“I tell them when I like their work, but I think young writers should be free to develop their talent on their own. My opinion might just inhibit them or make them too self-conscious,” says Eric who taught Asian American Literature and Asian American Cinema at the Columbia University last semester.
Never too late
For Doris’ poetess granddaughter Natasha, being a late bloomer is a non-issue as far as her innate writing talent is concerned. Unlike the other Gamalindas, she did not start writing until she was in high school.
She might be a bookworm like her grandmother and uncle when she was younger, but 25-year-old Natasha felt she was meant for something else other than writing. So far, the so-called search for that “something else” has gone nowhere but in writing. Like Doris and Eric, she is also with writing. She says much of her inspiration came from her late aunt Diana, who wrote poems.
“I was mostly inspired by the poems of a late aunt who was also a writer before she drowned when she was 19,” she says. “I had romantic notions that I was continuing what she might have left behind. When I think about it now, it seems silly, but that’s how whatever it was that drove me to where I am now had started.”
Natasha was a member of The Flame, the Faculty of Arts and Letters’ college paper, and the Thomasian Writers’ Guild when her poem, “Puddle,” was published in Montage, the Varsitarian’s literary magazine, in 2002. She became the V’s literary editor in 2003 and then chairperson of the 20th Ustetika Literary Student Awards in 2004.
Natasha says she joined the V partly to escape the pressure of joining Ustetika. Then and now, budding writers in UST are almost always expected to try their luck at the annual contest, a sort of literary baptism of fire for them.
“I was friends with most of the people I’m competing with and it just felt strange,” she says. “I still wanted to devote my energy into writing, but I couldn’t deal with so much competition. Luckily, joining the V turned out to be one of the best impulsive decisions I’ve made in my life. It might have rooted from chickening out, but I learned a lot in my stay there.”
Like her uncle Eric, Natasha also look up to her lola who never ceases to give her pointers about writing.
“My grandmother has always been a very, very patient reader,” she says. “I make her sift through horrible-rhyming writing exercises and she was always very encouraging. My grandma has always been kind with her comments.”
At present, Natasha is completing her master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines.
Brush over pen
While his grandmother, uncle, and cousin drew pictures with words, Jonathan Gamalinda delved into another artistic field: fine arts. As Doris’ grandson-artist left the Varsitarian last May, he recalls all the lessons he learned during his three-year stay at the publication.
“I must admit that this publication contributed a lot in honing my artistic skills,” says Jonathan, whose father Marco is an accomplished painter. “There, I received a lot of critiques from my superiors unlike in CFAD (College of Fine Arts and Design), where I only got grades.”
Aside from being the V’s assistant Art director, Jonathan drew editorial cartoons for CBCP Monitor, the official publication of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), and worked as a layout artist for the UST Office of the Secretary General.
At present, he is with ArtOne Designs and Communications, Inc., a design agency established in 1991, which specializes in print communication.
Though his expertise is in the fine arts, he did not exactly abandon writing. In his senior in college, he became the first editor-in-chief of Hiraya, CFAD’s official student publication.
“It was not an easy task to revive a college paper,” says Jonathan, who also wrote a column titled Ventriloquist during his term as assistant Art Director. “Although Hiraya was not very successful with its maiden issue, I am proud to be its first editor-in-chief because I saw that Fine Arts students had the ability to write. They just needed proper guidance and encouragement.”
He currently plans to publish a compilation of his short stories to go with his illustrations. V Francis James B. Gatdula and Reniel B. Tiu