SD PortalXtra


October 2012


guide me on a walking campus tour, I proffered to do it on my own – ―waking up the echoes‖ can be traumatic for one search- ing for the Silliman as it used to be. I first came to SU in 1961 for a degree in political science and history, stayed on for another four years in law school, left briefly in 1969 to prepare for the bar examinations while serving as legislative aide to Senator Lo- renzo Teves. I remained in Manila post-bar as an associate in the law office of then UP law dean Estelito Mendoza (later on jus- tice secretary), but then in 1971, returned to Silliman to become surrogate for President Calderon as assistant law dean. (Dean Calderon was elected ConCon delegate and had to be in Manila.) In August 1972, I left for a fellowship at the University of Michi- gan and was in Ann Arbor when martial law was declared a month later. The year away stretched out to be forty years. Coming back last August was akin to hitting a reset button,


and for four days I looked for remnants of that Silliman past. And so I did my walk around – ambled through the buildings and the now unfamiliar walkways, tried to locate the Sillimanian and Portal offices which I edited (used to be by Guy Hall and in Hib- bard Hall, respectively) and found them in the Student Center now housed in Oriental Hall. Talk about change – in that and the


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claimed: you must really love school! Silliman can do that to you, the school spirit does not diminish with age and there is no statute of limitations on learning. Embedded into this essay are some snapshots of


those four days reflecting happenstances I was too dazed to even think of picture-taking. Sadly they are few, taken more as afterthoughts, and yet they are memory markers of a long-delayed journey into the past – certainly incentives as prologue to a return much closer than another four decades. A side trip to the Valencia resort Forest Camp be-


came an illuminating half day on a natural resource managed by Teng Vicuna. The resort, a popular venue


With Teng, Virgie Ancheta, and Sylvia (Somoza) and Gene Malahay. Forest camp has overnight facilities.


During booth opening night Aug. 21, with resident brethren of Gamma Phi fraternity and Gamma Sigma sorority. The elderly gents in the picture are Noel Villalba and Eugene Malahay.


Student Nurses Home, I must have spent an inordinate amount of time in those two places. And of course, Hibbard Hall is no long- er the place it used to be – although for new students seeking en- try to the three Silliman portals, it is the place to start. Reminisc- ing at the amphitheater was refreshing, and getting involved with some extreme frisbee competition in the quad with students was invigorating; in fact got to throw football spirals with visiting alumni, just like the old days. A fraternity brother once ex-


for visiting alumni, has recovered nicely from the re- cent Banica river floods. Plus one gets to request a pri- mer or demonstration on how to produce malunggay powder, a thriving dietary supplement so indigenously Filipino. In hindsight now, my length of stay at Silliman was


but eight years as a student, and yet those were equally defining years all associated with burning candles at both ends. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay cautioned that while these candles may not last the night, they give such a lovely light. Yes, Silliman has changed. And yet in some ways, she hasn’t really changed at all.


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