AS OLD AS UP. Fernando Javier, 100, who graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Engineering in 1933 leads torchbearers at the kick-off rites on Tuesday to usher in the state university’s yearlong centennial fest. EDWIN BACASMAS
Century man ushers in UP centennial celebration By Marlon Ramos Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 04:30:00 01/09/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- Fernando Javier was ecstatic at being invited to attend the alumni homecoming of the University of the Philippines’ College of Engineering on Nov. 12.
After all, it had been a while since the UP civil engineering graduate last hobnobbed with his batch mates.
But his excitement turned to disappointment on that night. Apart from himself, no one from his Class of 1933 was present.
“I was looking forward to seeing even a few of my friends. But none came,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know if any of them are still alive.”
Javier shouldn’t really expect to see many people his age still living -- or partying. A survivor of the Bataan Death March, he turned a century old on Dec. 22.
On Tuesday, the man led hundreds of “Isko’t Iska” (Iskolar ng Bayan) from various generations in jump-starting the yearlong celebration of UP’s centenary.
He is the oldest living alumnus of the Philippines’ premier state university, but is actually a month older than his alma mater.
“I am really glad that I’m still alive to witness this. I’m proud and elated that I will join UP again,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Sunday.
Sharp
Despite his age, Javier is mentally sharp. He can still recall the names of the professors and classmates he met as a UP student almost 80 years ago.
He doesn’t need a cane to walk. He still enjoys a bottle of beer after a day’s work in his garden in Baguio City.
And he has fond memories of UP when it was still a three-building university on Padre Faura Street in Manila.
After graduating from Laoag High School in Laoag, Ilocos Norte, Javier went to Manila to take the UP entrance exam in 1928.
“I entered UP because I was told it was No. 1 in engineering at that time. Although UST (University of Sto. Tomas) was more famous then, it was known for its medical courses,” he said.
Born to a family of doctors and lawyers, Javier recalled having to study hard: “UP professors were known to be very strict. You cannot pass your subjects if you don’t study well.”
More than his parents, it was his elder brother and sisters who prodded him to take up engineering instead of law or medicine.
“Almost all the students from our place failed in their first semester in UP. So I was really pressured to pass my subjects. Luckily, I did not fail any of my subjects in my first year,” he said.
“It also helped that students had no distraction during that time.”
Silent films
After school, Javier would go straight to his rented room near Intramuros.
He said that unlike now, UP students in his time rarely went to bars after classes to share talk and beer.
“We just watched silent movies [starring] Charlie Chaplin and the others. It wasn’t until the 1930s that we were able to see what we called ‘talkie movies,’” he said.
The fraternities then were not known to be aggressive and violent, according to Javier.
He himself did not need to hurdle hazing rites when he joined the Beta Epsilon fraternity in 1931 as a junior engineering student.
“It was very peaceful then. There were no [frat rumbles],” he said. “I really feel sorry to hear news of [rumble and hazing deaths]. It’s terrible, really terrible. I don’t see why hazing can’t be stopped.”
Asked if he joined protest rallies as a student, Javier said: “There’s none that I can recall. The system of education during those days was very good.”
He said the only time students gathered “to argue with each other” was when the late Carlos P. Romulo, then a young English professor at UP, started to organize a debating competition.
He said the UP debating team, led by the late Teodoro Evangelista, always emerged champion over other debaters from universities abroad.
War vet
After graduating from UP in 1933, Javier joined the Bureau of Public Works as an assistant civil engineer in Palawan.
But his budding career in government service was cut short when war broke out in other parts of the world in the late 1930s.
When Adolf Hitler’s troops started to overrun Europe, Javier, like most Filipino men his age, joined the Philippine Army.
He served in the Army variously as brigade engineer and cadre commandant. He also joined the US Armed Forces in the Far East.
As Japanese forces invaded the Philippines in 1942, he was assigned to Batangas, Cagayan and other provinces to build cantonments, or temporary military headquarters.
He also went to Limay, Bataan, to lead a military expedition to save war materiel on Corregidor Island, which was under heavy bombardment.
It was then when he and hundreds of Filipino and American soldiers were arrested en masse by Japanese forces.
Javier later took part in -- and survived -- the infamous Bataan Death March to Capas, Tarlac, where thousands of Filipinos and Americans met their end.
He said he had yet to meet a survivor of the 97-kilometer march apart from his brother, Dr. Jose Javier.
Work abroad
Although he belongs to a landed clan, Javier had a hard time getting decent work after the war.
He left the country to work in Okinawa, Japan, but returned after several years when his wife died in 1958. He took off again shortly after receiving an offer to teach young engineers in Afghanistan and Korea.
“Filipinos were really in demand abroad because our education was superior to others. But now, it’s the other way around. We have been left behind by our neighbors,” Javier said.
“The government seems to have neglected the education of Filipinos.”
At one point, Javier moved to Guam to work for the Environment Protection Agency, a unit directly under the US federal government.
In 1983, after almost 30 years abroad, Javier retired from work and returned to his motherland. He helped his siblings manage the mango and rice farms owned by his mother’s family in San Fernando, La Union.
Now he keeps himself busy growing ornamental plants in his 144-square-meter garden in Baguio. His two children, a son and a daughter, are based in California.
In his genes
But what’s the secret of his longevity? It must be in his genes, Javier said.
(Dr. Javier, 98, still drives a car from his home in Quezon City every day, and another brother, who is 91, still teaches at Fordham University in New York.)
“You should also know how to lie. I mean, you should sometimes lie about age,” Javier said in jest.
His many years abroad has kept Javier from attending the annual alumni homecoming at UP.
And like a son who has long been away from home, Javier was delighted when his niece, Maria Lourdes, and her husband, Alex Brillantes, dean of UP’s National College of Public Administration and Governance, told him that he had been chosen one of the torch bearers at the launch of the centenary celebration.
“I’m just thankful that I was invited to participate in the alumni homecoming after so many years of being away,” he said.
As UP turns 100, Javier said, it should take on a noble challenge: “UP should produce great leaders who will steer this country to greater heights. We need another Carlos P. Romulo, Rafael Palma and Wenceslao Vinzons.”
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