Remembering Brother Ben
A Eulogy for Br. Benedict by Elfren Sicangco Cruz
Last Saturday, January 3, 2004 Brother Josiah Benedict FSC
passed away, at the age of 76, while vacationing in Baguio City. He
first arrived in the Philippines more than 45 years ago on September 28,
1958 on a mission which started in 1911, the date the first La Salle
school opened in the Philippines.
In 1905, the recently
appointed Archbishop of Manila, Monsignor Harty first wrote a letter to
Brother Gabriel Marie, superior general of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools asking that a La Salle school be established in the
Philippines.
At that time, the Catholic faith in the country
was being slowly eroded because the Spanish-style, Catholic-supported
education was losing ground to the increasingly popular secular
education established by the arrival of nearly a thousand American
teachers or Thomasites, who were mainly Protestants.
Archbishop Harty realized that only new educational centers superior to
their secular counterparts could restore confidence in the values of a
Christian education. But, it was a personal letter from Pope Pius X that
motivated the Brothers to finally agree and the American Brothers
started arriving in the Philippines with Brother Benedict as part of the
last wave.
Today De La
Salle University Manila has become the best private university in the
country as attested by the fact that it is the only university that has
attained a Level IV PAASCU Accreditation. It owes this stature to the La
Salle Brothers, past and present, who dedicated their lives to the sole
mission of educating the youth.
There is no more graphic way
to describe Brother Ben, as he was popularly known, except to say that
he was an institution in the De La Salle family. He was the embodiment
of the mission of the La Salle Brothers which is to provide the finest
possible Christian education to society.
There are those who
may look for the best words to describe him. But, to me the best
description of his life was that he was a teacher. His greatest legacies
are the thousands of La Sallians that were influenced and touched by
his life.
Aside from teaching, he is best known of his
stewardship of the De La Salle Alumni Association from 1978 to 2002. He
provided the emotional and physical link between the school and its
thousands of alumni.
Brother Ben was born in Chicago,
Illinois and entered the Junior Novitiate at the age of thirteen. He
finished his B.S. Mathematics at St. Mary's College, a La Salle school
in California where Brother Andrew Gonzalez would also finish his
college education. He finished two MAs: a Teaching major in Mathematics
at the University of Kansas and the Notre Dame University.
After arriving in the Philippines, he became the principal of La Salle
High School (then located in Taft) from 1959 to 1963. Many of his
students became prominent names in business and government like Peter
Garrucho, Ronnie Zamora, Bomboy Araneta, Jose Cuisia, Ramon Del Rosario,
Jr., Joey Laurel and Bobby de Ocampo.
After that, he became
Dean of the College of Engineering and Chairman of the Mathematics
Department of De La Salle College (now DLSU). I remember that he was a
highly visible personality in the campus. He was faculty adviser of
several campus organizations, especially those geared for engineering
students. He even participated in intramural games. I still recall a
soccer game where I played for the Engineering team.
My elbow
was fractured after a bad fall when Cheche Olives, of the Engineering
team, tripped me. This was a common occurrence during those days when
intramural rivalries were as intense as the UAAP games today.
Anyway, Brother Ben physically carried me to the parking lot and put me
in a vehicle to go to the hospital. However, after seeing me off he
naturally went back to finish playing in the game.
The '60s were
exciting times in all campuses throughout the world. La Salle had its
first student strike and its student leaders were at the forefront of
the First Quarter Storm protest movement. Brother Ben did not exactly
share their views. But even Chito Sta. Romana, who was then La Salle's
acknowledged activist leader, today has found memories of Brother Ben.
According to Chito, "He was an icon in his own right. He molded many La
Sallians and not just the engineers."
But, Chito had one
interesting anecdote. He was able to return the Philippines only after
the first EDSA Revolution, after fourteen years exile in Mainland China.
Shortly after his return, he remembers receiving a letter from Brother
Ben asking donations for computers for the university.
Aside
from his students, Brother Ben's two other obsessions were computers and
raising funds for the school. He became Director of the University
Computer Center from 1973 to 1979.
He started the
university's journey to its present status as the leader in information
technology education in Southeast Asia. He was talking of gigabytes and
database management years before the term IT revolution was coined.
But during the last decade in his life, Brother Ben's primary
obsession were the alumni and the De La Salle Alumni Association. He had
been active in alumni affairs since his arrival in 1958 and was, in
fact, the alumni moderator from 1963 to 1969. For a long while, he ran
the Alumni Association almost single handedly and saw it grow to a
network of close to thirty chapters in six countries.
Danding
Lucero, a former DLSAA president, worked closely with him in the
restoration of the Chapel of the Most Blessed Sacrament at the Taft
campus. He says, "Brother Ben's network of friends among the alumni is
unparalleled. He was the one willing to spend time with them. They were
his family."
Brother Lucian, who was his closest friend,
said: "No one has ever organized and followed up the Old Boys, the
alumni, better than Ben. He has the record for rattling off hundred of
nicknames of former students. He has the record for having the greatest
number of warm beds awaiting him anywhere in the world when he is
traveling."
Danding Lucero once suggested to Brother Ben that
he spend more time in Chicago with his mother and sister. His reply
was, "My family knows that the Philippines is my home."
Until
his passing away, Brother Ben was still going regularly to his office
at the Alumni Association and still answering calls from his La Sallian
family. Tonight, at six p.m., will be the alumni mass at the Chapel of
the Most Blessed Sacrament.
On Wednesday, January 6, 2004 is
the date of his funeral which will be in Lipa City.
Brother
Benedict, FSC may have been born a Polish American. But he will be
buried as a Filipino in the country he has learned to call his home.
Elfren S. Cruz is a professor of Strategic Management at the De La Salle University Graduate School of Business.