OFW, 72, Receives college diploma

MALOLOS CITY – A 72-year-old farmer and former Vietnam rehabilitation worker became the oldest graduate of the Central Luzon State University (CLSU) yesterday at the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, highlighting the university’s weeklong centennial celebration.

To the cheers of classmates more than 50 years his junior, Rodrigo Custodio, of General Luna, Llanera town received his diploma while escorted by his granddaughter Erica, to whom he dedicated his final term paper.

A graduate of Cabiao High School in 1952, Mang Rod – as he is fondly called by classmates – declined a scholarship offered by the then Central Luzon Agricultural School (CLAS), forerunner of CLSU.

He instead attended the Araneta Institute of Agriculture (now Araneta University Foundation), where he completed a two-year associate in agriculture course.

"CLSU made a nice offer but at that time, because we were poor, I chose Araneta and became a working student so I could afford the daily commute," Mang Rod told The STAR.

Although he only completed two years of college, he took the Civil Service Examination in 1958 and topped it.

The years that followed in Mang Rod’s life were of challenges and victories.

He worked in the Presidential Assistance on Community Development (PACD), where he started as a community organizer in 1959, then later as a training and information officer.

According to Ben Domingo, a mass communications professor of the CLSU and one of the coordinators of the university’s Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP) —the program that that enabled Mang Rod to finish his college education —the graduate also worked as a rehabilitation worker in Cholon Thieu Hoi, Vietnam from 1967 to 1971 and helped former Vietcong rebels return to normal life.

Upon his return to the Philippines, Mang Rod busied himself with Manila-based Eastern Construction Co. as a community development program adviser.

At present, he is the project officer of the General Luna Rural Development Center and Tour Farm, an ecology tour initiative.

Domingo describes Mang Rod as a tireless worker, who still manages to work almost full-time despite his age.

As one of the coordinators of the ETEEAP program, Domingo and his colleagues met Mang Rod in many training programs they sponsored for students and farmers alike at least four years ago.

"He used to work with us as our resource person in our trainings because of his massive experience," Domingo told The STAR.

In one of those meetings, they asked Mang Rod if he was still interested to go back to school, to which the experienced farmer and community organizer reportedly replied: "Do I still need to?"

Eventually, Mang Rod was persuaded and ETEEAP personnel started processing his documents and credentials last August.

After evaluation of Mang Rod’s papers, he was made to take 12 units of agricultural extension subjects.

Domingo said it was necessary to update students like Mang Rod in the latest farming technologies.

Yesterday, Mang Rod earned his Bachelor of Science in Extension Education diploma through the ETEEAP, which allows students to earn degrees by giving equivalent academic credits to their actual work experience.

Hours after he received his diploma yesterday, Mang Rod told The STAR that he had actually yearned to go back to school.

But at age 72, the question that confronted him was: what would he do with the education?

"I still want to help young people and I hope CLSU will understand me," he said.

Mang Rod said he discovered that the system of education today seems to confine students mostly to classroom instruction. "The kids lack outside exposure very much."

Because of the seeming weakness in the educational system, he wants to come up with training programs to complement the classroom setting.

For one, Mang Rod has put up an impromptu museum of old farm equipment and a library documenting the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption in his six-hectare farm in Llanera town.

He hopes that the old farm equipment that he saved will help the next generation appreciate the methods and equipment used by farmers in the past.

When asked how his classmates treated him in class, he said with a laugh: "I could still keep up because I’m still young."

Mang Rod easily became the darling of the class because of his years. Many confessed to him their fears about life after graduation.

"They were anxious how to repay their parents," he said, adding that many hoped to find jobs immediately.

On that point, Mang Rod’s years of experience was his edge. He plans to help his classmates find work in companies that offered him big projects in the past.

"Back then I couldn’t accept them because I didn’t have anyone to help me with those projects."