In the 70th Year of Our Founding

Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J.
College Graduation Address, 2010

Mr. Monico Jacob, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and other members of the Board here present, Dr. Rebecca Torres, the AVP, Mr. R.N. Ayo, the University Treasurer, Dr. Sancho Tolentino, the President of the AdNUGAA, the distinguished members of the faculty, administration and staff,  the parents, relatives friends and benefactors of our graduates, and most especially, the  graduates of SY 2009-2010:

This entire year, we recall with gratitude our founding 70 years ago.  It was Bishop Pedro Santos, the Bishop of Nueva Caceres – at that time encompassing whole of Bicol - who took the initiative to bring the Jesuits to his diocese.  He was worried about the growing influence of Protestantism in Catholic Bicol through the presence of Siliman University even in Legaspi.  He felt that beyond the response of the parishes, it was necessary to respond through Catholic education.  Having graduated from the Jesuits’ San Jose Seminary, he leveraged his influence with the Jesuits to attract them to come to Bicol.  He proposed that they take over the Camarines Sur Catholic Academy, founded in 1935 by Fr. Lis Dimaramba, which had not been doing too well.  He succeeded.  Through the leadership of Fr.  John Hurley, then Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in the Philippines, Bishop Santos’  proposal was accepted by the Society of Jesus on March 13, 1940.  Our “Ateneo de Naga” began with the opening of classes on the feast of St. Peter and Paul, June 5, 1940.  Its first rector was Fr. Francis Burns.

We have come a long way from that first day of high school classes of the Ateneo de Naga and its first Mass led by Fr. Burns, in what is today Naga Parochial.  For the longest time, Ateneo de Naga served Bicol primarily as a high school, then later as a high school with a small college operation appended to it, initially only for young men, then also for young ladies. It is still a very strong high school.  But it has also become a very strong university -  dedicated to quality instruction, research and outreach, institutionally accredited and autonomous., Filipino, Jesuit and Catholic. 

We come together this evening with great thanksgiving.  Throughout the years, in shared mission with one another, in professional engagement, in the quest for truth,  and in friendship, we have indeed been richly blessed!  That I am sure is our shared sentiment as we congratulate this year’s batch graduates from our colleges and graduate school.

We know our accomplishments of the past to be beyond deserving – a mysterious mixture between human achievement and divine favor, human exertion and the travail of a divine Spirit working in and with and around us, calling us forth from our complacency, restoring our strength in our tiredness, inspiring us in our discouragement, forgiving our sins, giving us joy in faces of companions lit up with insight, in the quiet resolve of graduates, encouraged and enabled to serve as women and men for others.

As we have been richly blessed, so too are we in life invited to richly give.  As we have been blessed with knowledge and skills, so are we invited to use that knowledge and those skills in the service of others.  As we have been blessed with new relationships with the learned and non-learned, the wealthy and poor, the progressive and conservative, so are we invited to work with them for the common good of others.  As we have been blessed with a relationship with God, so are we invited to live faithful to that relationship.  We hope this is a real relationship, not just a sham.  We hope, as we stressed in our Baccalaureate Masses and throughout our Jesuit education, that in life first must always be the Kingdom of God – Primum Regnum Dei.

So, dear graduates, go forth into the world, through the Pillars of this University, into the battlefields of this modern, confusing world. Primum Regnum Dei - Serve first the Kingdom of God.  Remember, here you always have a home, in our Church of Christ the King, before these imposing Four Pillars. Our best wishes for you all, and our gratitude to your families, friends and benefactors, who have entrusted us with a role in your education and formation.