By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

THANKS to the Facebook post of Simon Vistro, I learned of the event that the Phinma University of Pangasinan organized to pay tribute to Don Blas F. Rayos, Sr., the founder of Dagupan Colleges. I missed it and I would have loved to be there.

I was deeply touched by PHNMA UPANG’s gesture as my memories of him struck an emotional chord in me, recalling instantly and vividly how it was to be with Dr. Blas in the late 60s and early 70s when I was just beginning to earn my spurs, managing the PUNCH,  getting involved in civic activities in Dagupan City.

I was introduced to him by the late Amado Ayson, then a fellow Rotarian at the Dagupan Rotary Club. He asked me to visit the college and meet Dr. Blas. When I went as promised, I did not expect the founder and president in a small corner in a room divided by glass partition, his door wide open to anyone who needed to see him.  No secretary to screen visitors.  I watched his visitors, mostly students, who didn’t have the money to make good on their tuition fees and desperately sought his permission to be able to take final exams. I listened in while I waited to be formally introduced by Don Amado.

Dr. Blas only had one question to each student who went to see him: “What’s your problem?” And the students began narrating their families’ financial constraints with promises to return to pay their tuition fees.  That was enough to win his heart and readily signed all the waiver documents presented to him.

I could not help but wonder if the college was earning at all. Here was the founder-president being overly generous to students, allowing them to continue with their studies with only promises to pay their tuition fees.

That’s how we met. He said he  knew my father,  heard about me taking over the Sunday Punch, and being a member of the Rotary Club at age 22. He asked me about my college credentials which wasn’t much – A.B. Behavioral Science from Ateneo.  Then, out of the blues, he asked time if I wanted to teach ‘Psychology’ to nursing students (mostly girls)  .Whoa! I thought it’d be a hazardous situation for me if I did – I was single! So, I sheepishly declined saying I didn’t have any qualification to teach!

That was our first meeting. I was absolutely charmed by his candor, gentle ways, simple lifestyle, ultra generosity to his students.  In subsequent interactions, he allowed (and encouraged) me to interact with officers of the student council and ROTC at any time.

Then he invited me to join him at the YMCA Pangasinan where he was the president… and made me a board director.  After several engagements on local YMCA affairs, he asked me to join him travel to Manila to attend a function of the YMCA. Before I knew it, he nominated me to be elected as a member of the YMCA National Board of Directors… and there I was without much ado.

We never discussed local politics. I engaged him talking about his family, how the college started… me, about Sunday Punch, student activism, etc.  It was natural for us to regard each other as family.

He was my elder “father”.  I sorely missed him through the years.

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BARKADA FLOOD COMMISSION. The opposition-majority at the Dagupan Sanggunian had the gall and the temerity to ask Mayor Belen Fernandez why she did not implement the recommendations of the Flood Commission created by their boss, ex-Mayor Brian Lim.

First of all, the commission hardly functioned throughout since it was created.  Secondly, the recommendations were the run-of-the-mill, from dredging rivers to constructing flood gates which was not surprising at all. It never conducted a study on the causes and problems and long-term solutions.  Not a single member of the commission had any background on climate change, much less about budgeting for flood control. It was about Barkada lang whose recommendations could be dished out by families surrounded by floodwaters, who didn’t need the commission to tell them what can be done.

Mayor Belen was right not to implement the commission’s sophomoric recommendations and  instead pursued the studied plans of the DPWH for the long term that earned national government funding.

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‘CONTENT CREATOR’S VS. MBTF.  I received a copy of the ‘white paper’ calling for the modification of the specifications for the construction of the elevated drainage system and roads in Dagupan.

It was obviously the result of a desperate political exercise with the end view of peddling it to the media in the hope that the ‘movement’ will catch some traction and stop the DPWH project,  and to lay the blame for the inconvenience suffered by business owners on Mayor Belen.

As I had expected, the script called on the councilors in the opposition to confront Mayor Belen during the committee hearing on the annual budget that she attended.

How predictable can they get.

The “content creators” did not even have the courage to put their names on the white paper and transform it into a formal protest, worthy of consideration by a trial court for possible injunction.

So, the “paper” flew to the trash can.

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SONNY’S LEGACY.  The Sunday Punch joins the provincial government, the literary sector in mourning the loss of Santiago “Sonny” Villafania, Pangasinan’s lead poet.

We had invited him to join the PUNCH family to write a regular column, Aristos, using the Pangasinan language.  He liked it that we shared the same advocacy – to promote the Pangasinan language in every way, particularly, to overseas Pangsinenses. And he graciously delivered every week until his commitments no longer allowed him to keep writing.

I pray the schools divisions in Pangasinan will find reason to consider making his works as reference and mandatory subjects for class reading.

Sonny was a class of his own! 

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