(This is the last column of the author, who passed away last Wednesday at the age of 80).
IN MID 60s the Benedictine Sisters of Pampanga ran the Assumption Junior College. Its school facilities occupied the top floor of the Assumpta Building in the central section of San Fernando, the capital town and seat of the Archdiocese.
English teacher Rodolfo Cortez, former hotshot instructor from Don Bosco Academy where his students adored him for his amiability. They did not greet him Good Morning but “hailed” the loveable tutor on Monday mornings.
Co-educators of AJC swarmed around him and got mesmerized by his charm and neatness.
A rigid Prussiian drillmaster in grammar, one female student particularly was close to him. He has coached the girl – and they never lost –in all oratorical and declaration contests
The friendship and closeness of the team generated campus rumor and suspicion about the teacher and his prized orator. The Sister Dean decided that Cortez’ teaching contract may no longer be renewed anew.
While Cortez’s followers were campaigning for his retention in the faculty, another shadow group mobilized student power to oust the dean.
Archbishop Emilio Cinense invited me to get the ground situation. He asked me to lead the protest peacefully and without violence. I was befuddled by not demanding a stop to the demonstration.
I thought Cinense tolerated the student action. The archdiocese was interested in taking back the operation of the school and had its own plan for its development and progress. Cinense’s staff Monsignor Serafin Ocampo and Reverend Fr. Constancio Panlilio were in the same wavelength with the archbishop for the takeover.
True enough, under the new management we three teachers lost our jobs.
Cortez won the top prize of the sweepstakes. He was bringing relief assistance to the Taal volcano victims of 1967 when he perished in a car accident in Sampaloc, Apalit.
Macalino practiced sonology while I returned to community journalism.
Before being kicked out of the school, Sr. Gunfrieda Schneider, requested me to establish the college’s official organ. I named the publication REGINA.