Silliman’s best for 2004

Every year, the best of Silliman University’s alumni are sought out and given awards. This year’s awardees will be honored at ceremonies to be held on August 28. The conferment will be a highlight of the 103rd Founders Day celebration of the oldest educational institution in the South.

Founded in Dumaguete City on August 28, 1901 with a gift of $10,000 from philanthropist Horace B. Silliman in New York City, Silliman is world-renowned for its quality education and the evenness of the temper of people from far and wide who have passed through its portals, like its outstanding alumni.

There are six awardees this year: Cresencio C. Bendijo, for his work in marketing management; Bishop Hilario M. Gomez Jr., for peace advocacy; "Junix" Inocian, for theater arts; Prof. Priscilla Lasmarias-Kelso, education; Dr. Rowena Tiempo-Torrevillas, literature and creative writing; the Rev. Edmundo A. Pantejo, counseling ministry, and Leticia Catacutan-Jue, nursing advocacy and outreach.

Bendijo graduated in 1967, then taught economics and history for eight years at the Silliman High School. He went on to become executive vice president of the College Assurance Plan, his management style contributing to the success of the pre-need plan company.

Bishop Gomez, Class ’61, has a doctorate in church and society/phenomenology religion. He became General Secretary of the United Church of the Philippines. He is being awarded for his work in peace advocacy in the conflicted Muslim Mindanao areas through the Bishop-Ulama Conference of which he is a convenor. He is also a member of the Joint Enforcement and Monitoring Committee implementing the Peace Agreement signed in December 2000 by the Philippine Government and the revolutionary proletarian movement’s Alex Boncayao Brigade.

Inocian went to Silliman as though it were a reformatory, and it did make him a better young man. Later, with Repertory Philippines, he proved to be an excellent actor. He became widely known for his acting performances, such as being the "Engineer" in the Broadway show Miss Saigon, and as Old Deuteronomy in the musical Cats at the New London Theatre.

The Reverend Pantejo, Bachelor of Theology, 1957, has served United Church of Christ churches in Surigao, Davao and Gingoog City, and in the United States, where he worked with the Federal Government for 20 years. From 1991 to 2001, he served as Silliman’s university pastor. He wrote a book, Toward a Dream Church.

Catacutan finished nursing in 1965, worked at the Silliman University Medical Center as a staff nurse and the College of Nursing as a faculty member. She moved to Los Angeles, where at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she rose from staff nurse to education program coordinator. She served as president of the Philippine Nurses Association of Southern California, and now she does volunteer work for that association as well as for the Silliman University Alumni Association of Southern California.

It’s pretty hard talking about two awardees without being carried away. Lasmarias was my best friend in college, and Tiempo-Torrevillas is my sister-in-law. Let me do my piece on Rowena on Thursday.

Priscilla finished her bachelor’s degree major in English in 1961, magna cum laude. She excelled in everything she did, as editor of The Sillimanian, as the central role in Medea, and winning the gold medal in the Columbia University Scholastic Journalism competition (this she never told me when we were in college), and an international scholarship to Stanford University for her master’s in English. She returned to Silliman to teach English and edited the Silliman Faculty Journal.

She moved on to Newtonville in Massachusetts in the US, where she lives with her husband, Presbyterian minister Bart Kelso who looks like a Hollywood movie actor (they have one daughter, a lovely and passionate fund-raiser, Rachel). For 20 years, she taught literature and writing with emphasis on cross-cultural values, multicultural heritage, and the power of story, at the Middlesex Community College in Bedford. She is listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers in 1995, and in 1997, she received an Award for Excellence in Teaching.

From 1997-2001, she was program director of the Asia Pacific Home Country Placement at Northeastern University in Boston. From 2001 to 2003, she was program director of NU’s International Cooperative Education during which period she formed for NU inter-institutional partnerships with universities in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Priscilla’s writings are warm, beautiful, and full of metaphors. Once she wrote about her being a "bicultural" person juggling two realities. She said, "The two cultures that define my identity can be dissonant, adversarial, and rife with conflict. Or they can be irenic and harmonious, with possibilities for life-giving growth. I live in the creative tension of both and I rejoice in the moments when identity issues find some resolution. In all this, I affirm the fact that being bicultural is exhilarating, exhausting, and worth it!"

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