ICONIC SCHOOLS NOW THE NEW TROPHIES OF TOP 1%

THAT a private university that used to be based in the heart of Old Manila—and performed its mission to educate the young in a some sort of coming- out party recently was not surprising. It was to stress the obvious: the university has moved out of its Manila roots to a high-rise along EDSA and is under a new owner, a billionaire.

Jerry Acuzar, the contractor construction of those shanty-like town homes along the stretch of the PNR tracks in Metro Manila (called “Home along the Riles”), has acquired the iconic Manuel Luis Quezon University (MLQU) from the old-line family that had run it for generations. All but a few of the Home along the Riles have been demolished and some of my former newspaper colleagues were dislocated by the demolition.

We do not know the reasons behind the decision of the original owners to sell and dispose of an educational icon that trained, among others, former Senators Bert Romulo and Bobby Tañada, and a long line of distinguished Court. Was it fatigue? Was it to cash in on their asset? Was it the realities of operating a school in the 21stcentury? Was it to give Mr. Acuzar, who collected a lot of heritage houses and transplanted these to Bataan, another trophy? (One of those old houses belonged to the Basque landlords of my sharecropper-father.)

A university is never a losing proposition. Even during the times of turmoil, during the peak of student activism in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the MLQU owners stayed put and soldiered on. The U-belt, which stretched from Morayta- España up to the site of the MLQU in the Quiapo area, was in a state of siege. The MLQU owners and all the independent families that ran were torn between the tumult of the moment and the pressure from the military to temper campus activism. The irreverence of voices articulated by the school organs were unnerving. Yet, the owners stayed put and persevered.

In the 21st century, in a period of general calm, the old-line family that owned MLQU made the handover to the Acuzar group. Acuzar, now a very wealthy and politically connected man, was given his trophy and that vested with him with bragging rights. That was probably the reason for the recent coming-out party of MLQU.

Of course, the handover of MLQU to Acuzar is the depressing reality of the 21st century—the country’s richest grabbing the country’s iconic schools like trophies at the Kentucky Derby. Let us look at the long list.

The Sy family, the country’s richest, owns the National University, which specializes in engineering and architecture, and which counts former President Ramos among its distinguished list of graduates. The family also operates an information and technology school very near the Metro Manila start of the SLEX. Has the family silently acquired other schools? I don’t know.

Lucio Tan, another tycoon, actually started the tycoon schoolbuying trend after his family’s acquisition of the University of the East from the Dalupan family. By everyone’s reckoning, the UE acquisition is the biggest deal between the old-line families that operated and owned universities and the business tycoons. UE the Caloocan City campus and the UERM, which is one of the top training ground for doctors, dentists, nurses and many other courses in health care.

The Mapua University is now owned by the Yuchengco family with interests in banking, construction and insurance. Efforts by the family to rename it Malayan University ran into a roadblock tertiary school called Malayan Colleges. Dado Banatao, the most successful Fil-Am in Silicon Valley is an engineering graduate of Mapua.

The Yap family, which has interests in shipping, publishing and hotels, now owns the Centro