Antonio J. Montalván II .
Part 3
THREE individuals recently made known claims that their parents or forefathers donated lands to the Ateneo de Cagayan. When asked for evidence beyond what was merely anecdotal, they had none. The only correct corroboration was by way of land titles to the XU Ateneo Divisoria campus. Sure enough upon perusal of the total six Torrens Certificate of Titles of XU’s 6.3 hectares, no annotations indicated any donation, except for a small lot near the gym recently donated by one Regina Realty. The rest were bought, as I had said in the first installment of this serial. Imagined donations are not the way to oppose the XU sale issue.
Because these were purchased in the name of the then Diocese of Cagayan, Bishop Santiago Hayes wrote a letter dated Oct. 17, 1939 to Fr. John Hurley, then the superior of the Jesuit Philippine Mission based in Manila, “deeding the whole plant and its control to the Society of Jesus, after prayer and meditation.”
The letter was beautifully written by a man deeply enamored with immense love for his people of Cagayan. “I wish to place the Ateneo de Cagayan under (the) control of the Society. I shall gladly do this without any reservations whatever. My earnest wish, however, is that the Society will always respect the purpose for which the school was founded and for which I made so many sacrifices – namely, the education of as many as possible, especially those of lack of means...” Earlier accepting conveyance in May 1940, Father General Wlodimir Ledochowski replied in Latin on July 6, 1940 appointing Fr. Edward Haggerty the first rector (previously, Fr. Joseph Lucas and Fr. George Kirchgessner were the diocesan directors).
Aside from unfounded donation claims, word has also spread that the sale is being fast-tracked because the campus’s buildings have failed the city’s building code compliance. University president Fr. Bobby Yap replies that this is fake news. “Our buildings are regularly inspected by city authorities and have always passed their inspections, with only minor corrections like installation of smoke alarms for the old buildings. I categorically deny that any buildings were required to be retrofitted.”
Apparently, fake news and speculations proliferate because these are voices marginalized from a highly selective consultation process. Both within alumni and within university faculty and staff, all were by invitations only. That makes it seriously moot. Worse, the letters obliged Répondez s’il vous plaît to require confirmation, an unsuitable format for open consultations. The small venue, the University Boardroom, can fit only the Board of Trustees. Not much mathematics is needed to find out how many were thus deprived of being heard. I cannot blame alumni who now allege that consultation participants were pre-selected for favorable stance to the plan. Process and messaging – many of XU’s faculty, some educated under postgraduate degrees abroad, have that expertise. Tap them. XU must make tremendous efforts to correct misimpressions. The public is watching.
In only 14 years from now in 2033, XU Ateneo will be a century old. The Divisoria campus, built humbly and made ready for the school opening of June 1935, will be 98 years old. What would justify selling a piece of impeccable heritage?
Its layers of history apropos Mindanao and the country includes the toil of several of the most industrious Jesuits in 20th Century Philippines, inter alia: The visionary founder himself Archbishop Santiago Hayes who became Mindanao’s first archbishop, the Guerilla Padre Fr. Edward Haggerty who kept the first library books hidden from Japanese pillage in Sumilao, Bukidnon at the height of World War II, Fr. Andrew Cervini who built the University Church of the Immaculate Conception and Loyola House, Fr. James MacMahon (pronounced MacMan) who built the earliest library edifice, Fr. William Masterson’s Science Center with the now iconic Immortals of Science (the only such in the Philippines that includes the French Jesuit idealist philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who participated in the discovery of the Peking Man), Fr. Francis Madigan’s Social Science Center and the world-famous demographics authority Research Institute for Mindanao Culture, Fr. Ernesto Javier’s Engineering building and the now named Faber Hall with its cavernous Nursing Amphitheater, Fr. Antonio Samson’s School of Business Management building, gymnasium and the multi-level fully air-conditioned library that also houses the only extensive Fr. Miguel Bernad Library in the entire country. Most are solid modern high rises, state of the art even. And they will just be demolished to build a new urban scape over it? The radicality is incomprehensible.
The alumnus Kerry Pacana (Grade School 63, High School 67) was justified in his open letter, published in a local daily. Selling valuable heritage is a fire sale. Surely few will oppose if a new campus were to be built in Manresa. XU can dispose of the 104-hectare El Gaucho property or the 12-hectare Independence Farm within the city. After all, a nationally prestigious institution like XU Ateneo needs space to eventually cater to 27,000 students. That is easy to accept. But dismember Divisoria and the Mastersonian legacy Manresa for that? Heritage is XU Ateneo’s pièce de résistance – you do not sell your crown jewels.
Personages have come and gone over the years, but the noble aim to serve the community stays. That is the past it mustn’t dismiss perfunctorily that “we cannot stay in the past” – a grave error that hurt many alumni. It must stay with the past for it is its guidepost to the future. Besides, “when we preserve and conserve, we simply act as good and dutiful stewards of our precious heritage,” quoting Pacana.
The only reasonable way to move forward is to conduct OPEN and INCLUSIVE public dialogues. Consultations-by-invitation hardly conform to Father General’s wishes for “dialogue and discernment.” By not heeding the voices of the community it has vowed to serve, XU alienates itself from what it is supposed to be indivisible from – the community, always the community in the vision of the great Santiago Hayes. The current process only invites Father General’s rebuff. For what will stop many alumni up in arms from communicating directly to Rome, which some have already done? All the more can we say that selling it is not the high road.
