The third generation upholds tradition
My good vintage buddy, architect Bnn Bautista, and his better half Malu had great reason to be proud last month when their daughter Ynna, or Dr. Dhanna Kerina BautistaRodas, took over as president of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities or PACU. The new set of PACU officers that will serve from 2016 to 2018 was inducted by Sen. Bam Aquino at the EDSA Shangri-La on Sept. 26. PACU is the country’s oldest educational association, with more than a million students enrolled in 187 member schools nationwide.
Ynna became the fourth member of the Bautista clan — long associated with education in Baguio City — to head the organization, following the footsteps of her late grandfather, the legendary Dr. Fernando G. Bautista Sr. and two uncles, Dr. Reynaldo C. Bautista and Dr. Virgilio C. Bautista, all of whom had also preceded her as president of the University of Baguio.
Ynna’s old man Bnn and I have been friends since our youthful days of jazz appreciation and night-long convos on existentialism as aspiring beatniks in the early 1960s. That was when Bnn had become the sole heir in Manila to the old Bautista “digs” in Gagalangin, Tondo. The Bautista family had earlier moved to Baguio, where the patriarch and matriarch became among the first flag-bearers of educational institutions in Northern Luzon.
Fernando Gonzaga Bautista and Rosa Castillo Bautista were to become known as the “Tatay” and “Nanay” of what became the University of Baguio. “Tatay” was also often called the “Little Giant,” as he was no taller than five feet, but proved to be a giant in terms of accomplishments.
Another old UP Diliman buddy, Eric Villegas, and I used to enjoy the privilege of free board and lodging at the incredibly happy home of the Bautistas in Baguio. They were a maniacally merry bunch of boys, six of them if I recall right, while presiding at the end of the dinner table were “Tatay” and “Nanay,” a most gently affable, wizened and loving couple.
Both had grown up, met and fell in love in Tondo, Manila. Fernando was of poor unschooled parents. He had to work his way through primary schooling as a newsboy. After high school, he continued to support himself, this time as a plumber, until he acquired an Elementary School Teaching Certificate from Philippine Normal School in 1928. While employed as a Model Demonstration Teacher, he took up night classes at the University of the Philippines, and graduated with a degree of B.S. Education in 1934.
For her part, after primary schooling, Rosa Castillo had also enrolled at Philippine Normal University, where she obtained an Elementary Teachers Diploma in 1935. She married Fernando in 1938, a year after he earned an M.A. in Education from UP. He then became assistant principal of the Gregorio del Pilar Elementary School, and in 1940, served as principal of the Rizal Elementary School, also in Manila.
It was after the war years that they decided to move to Baguio City, in 1946. Besides teaching Psychology and Education, Fernando Bautista also served as the executive dean and registrar at the Baguio Colleges Foundation. As the guiding spirit of the “Little Giant,” “Nanay” Rosa C. Bautista, herself a teeny-weeny lady, became a colossus in the world of educational management. In 1959, she gained an M.A. in Education from UP. She also paid her dues as an elementary and high school teacher, principal and supervisor in Manila and Baguio schools.
In 1948, the Bautista couple felt they would do better on their own as school administrators that would provide technical training to the youth, who could then complement engineers in the post-war rehabilitation of Baguio City.
On Aug. 8, 1948, they established the Baguio Technical and Commercial Institute, or Baguio Tech for short. 89 students and five fulltime teachers occupied a “hole in the wall” — a modest five-room structure of wood and corrugated iron sheets along Session Road. It functioned as a high school besides offering short courses on automotive, radio mechanics, typing, stenography and book-keeping.
In the 1950s, Baguio Tech moved to a newly constructed three-story building on General Luna Road. Growing fast and well beyond the couple’s expectations, the school soon had a total of 20 rooms to house the College of Liberal Arts, Normal Training Department for prospective teachers, Laboratory School for elementary students, and the Auto-Diesel Department. The College of Engineering was opened in 1958.
By the early 1960s, new additions included the Multipurpose Auditorium-Gymnasium and an eight-story High School Building that also housed the Little Theatre. The Science High School was founded as part of the Preparatory High School for selected honor students known as the Star Science Scholar Section. Criminology and Medical Technology were added as college courses in July 1967.
After 21 years of steady growth, Baguio Tech was elevated into the University of Baguio on Aug. 7, 1969 upon the signing of the University Charter by then Secretary of Education Dr. Onofre Corpuz. Dr. Fernando G. Bautista, Sr. was formally installed as its first president on Dec. 18, 1969.
Two years later, he had to step down as university president when he ran as a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention. Succeeded by his oldest son, Dr. Fernando C. Bautista, Jr., “Tatay” remained as the chairman of the board of directors.
UB opened more programs: Master of Business Administration, Police Science, BS Biology and Architectural Drafting in 1974; Doctor of Education and BS Mathematics in 1976; and BS Secretarial Administration and BS Forestry in 1978.
In June 1980, Dr. Reinaldo C. Bautista took over as the third UB president. During his term, the College of Dentistry was opened, and soon became one of the top five Dentistry schools in the country. In 1981, BS in Hotel and Restaurant Management was added.
Attorney Wilfredo Wi, not from the Bautista clan, became the fourth president in June 1989. During his term, computer courses were opened. Unfortunately, a devastating fire struck UB, followed by the killer earthquake of July 16, 1990. These two calamities severely affected the University of Baguio, with enrolment dropping for two consecutive semesters. But UB quickly recovered when the Commerce and Engineering departments were fully rehabilitated. The University Library, the new UB Square and Allied Medical Sciences also became fully operational.
In April 1, 1992, another son of “Tatay” and “Nanay,” Dr. Virgilio C. Bautista, succeeded as the fifth president. In his eleven years of incumbency, more colleges were established, more infrastructure built, and more academic programs granted government recognition.
In June 2003, yet another son, engineer Herminio C. Bautista, took over as the sixth UB president. Apart from installing even more programs, academic linkages were forged between UB and local and international institutions. The University of Baguio Research and Development Center was granted recognition as one of the outstanding research centers in the country. n 2008, grandson Johann Ben A. Bautista took over as the seventh president. Other tragedies hit UB, with a fire gutting the top floors of the Engineering Building in 2008, and the High School building in 2013. Again, UB recovered quickly.
It was in June last year when Dr. Dhanna Kerina BautistaRodas, the eldest amongst the third generation of the Bautista clan, took over the reins as the eighth UB president. She also became the transition president with the implementation of the new grades 11-12.
While I may not have enjoyed sitting at a table with Ynna, except for one evening a couple of years ago when her parents celebrated their golden anniversary at Manila Hotel, the memories are still strong of Baguio days and nights when I marveled at her dad’s and uncles’ uncanny power when it came to humor and wild laughter.
In particular, I became seasonally close to Rei, Des, and Herr, not necessarily in that order. I’m still much indebted to Rei for his help in resolving a picayune problem I had in Sagada and Bontoc many years ago. To think that two of these blokes had at one time or other steered UB through thick and thin, thus helping bequeath quite a bedrock of education to their niece Ynna.
As an autonomous university, UB now offers 21 undergraduate programs, 12 graduate programs and 10 short-term programs, in addition to a grade school and high school variants. In close to seven decades, this education pioneer and leader in Northern Philippines has grown to be a solid institution with 18,000 students and more than 600 faculty members.
Ynna will have her hands full, but we can be sure that her genetic predisposition and her own educational expertise will continue to steer the University of Baguio from strength to strength, just as the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities will find itself in very good hands.