Churchill’s message to today’s graduating class

LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte –While war raged in Iraq, and everyone back in Metro Manila had eyes glued to television sets, watching the fighting in the desert sands like a war movie, it was an inspiring sight to see 817 young men and women, who had earned their degrees the hard way, march up a stage in a wide-open oval field to receive their diplomas.

Progress, not just life, in the north goes on. More than that, it soars.

At the 71st graduation rites of Northwestern University, one of the few ISO - certified institutions in our country, several of the eight hundred crimson - gowned grads received their Ph.D’s in various disciplines, others Masters of Arts in education or public administration.

The rest graduated in Law, Engineering, Architecture and Technology (electronics and communications; electrical engineering; civil engineering; geodetic engineering and computer engineering), Nursing, Physical Therapy, Medical Technology, Arts, Psychology, Biology, Mathematics, Education, Accountancy, Tourism, Hotel and Restaurant Management, Elementary Education, Secondary Education, Criminology, Maritime Transportation, Marine Engineering (most of the latter grads in their smart, dress-white officers’ uniforms), Electronics Technology, General Radio and Communications, Secretarial and Midwifery.

The roll call seemed endless in the warm night, but it was a period of joy for the graduates and their parents (and families, since some came with wife and children, or husband). One of the graduates, a successful practicing medical doctor, had even studied and completed law (on to the Bar) in a surprising change of profession.

They came from small municipalities and big towns, and from other provinces, as well.

It was great to be back among fellow Saluyots in the heart of Ilocoslovakia, feeling anew the pulse of the Ilocano Nation, and finding all, as always, diligent, patient and optimistic. Pardon my hometown chauvinism. It’s, alas, bred in the bone from childhood. The Ilocanos, including those here in still Marcos Country, believe without a twinge of conceit that they are the salt of the earth – with, or course, a few above-mentioned aberrations.

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What was this jaded old fellow, yours truly, doing there? I had been inflicted on the graduating classes by their University President Ben A. Nicolas, his brother Chairman Wilfredo Nicolas, the Board and the Faculty members, as their Commencement Speaker.

Ben gave me, as a reward for having made the pilgrimage, a lengthy and laudatory introduction which was longer than my own speech. Indeed, realizing that graduates and their families are usually bored with commencement speakers, wishing not-too-secretly that they would cut their remarks short, so everybody could go out and celebrate, I remembered what Great Britain’s former wartime leader (not this war, whose admirable and brave leader is Tony Blair) had said.

I refer to Sir Winston Churchill, the doughty British statesman and "fighter", who when he took over the Prime Ministership of embattled England (standing alone – with the European continent already under the bootheel of the Nazi Fuehrer Adolf Hitler) told his nation "to wage war, by sea, land and air," and said, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat".

I recalled that the nation rallied to Churchill’s challenge, but in 1945, after Britain was saved, and the war was won, the British people, who had hailed him on Victory-in-Europe Day only a few months earlier, when the general elections were finally held in 1945, kicked him and his Conservative (Tory) Party out of office – and elected the opposition Labour Party into power by a landslide!

How short-lived is gratitude, I noted, and how fickle the public can be towards those who served them in time of crisis and need. Churchill’s defeat was so stark: Labour won a majority of 146 parliamentary seats over all other parties, while, in contrast, Churchill’s Conservatives, who used to have 585 MPs in the House of Commons, found their numbers shrunken to only 213. Clement Atlee became the new Prime Minister.

In this period, Churchill was invited to give the Commencement Address in Oxford University. After he was introduced lengthily, and in glowing terms, the redoubt-able "Winnie" marched up to the podium. He looked at the audience, and declared: "My dear graduates: Never, never give up!"

Then he bowed, thank you, and returned to his seat.

I guess the large audience in the Northwestern University Oval was vastly relieved when I ended my Churchillian anecdote with that same message to the graduates: "Never, never give up!"

I confess I added a few more words before I sat down. My sitting down so quickly, of course, garnered the most applause of the evening.

I failed to recount, for it would have ruined my pithy punch line, how Churchill was, years later, vindicated.

On November 30, 1950, Churchill had turned 77 years of age, making him the oldest member of a parliament which he had first entered 50 years earlier. There he was, a veteran of 15 elections, at an age when most people would have gone into retirement.

In October 1951, however, he led his Conservative Party into its sixteenth election. The Conservatives came out of that fight triumphant, winning 321 seats against Labour’s 295. Winston Churchill became Prime Minister for the second time in his life!

In the Royal Navy, each ship sounded its horn and the word flashed everywhere: "Winnie’s back!"

Never, never give up, his slogan, is what we can, we must adopt as a nation. Even in the hour of deepest disappointment, it was his admonition. And, by golly it works.

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I found in this visit that the Fort Ilocandia Hotel has been remodeled, refurbished, and become truly an efficient – and more than that – a pleasantly charming and, yes, "romantic" hotel. There are lavish sprays of bougainvilla flowers spilling down every exterior wall, bursting it seems out of the red brick, the gardens are flourishing, the greens are – well, verdant and green, and the baroque fountain in the central nave is rippling with water. And if your verandah is properly situated, your gaze is drawn down to the sparkling blue vista, specked with dancing motes of light, of the South China Sea.

In such a setting, it finally resembles the beautiful Spanish-Moroccan resort-hotel, after which this resort hotel cum golf and country club, was reputedly modelled. (No, I didn’t get a freebie, you naughty readers, but the University – which footed the bill – got a discount, something which never fails to warm the cockles of the heart of every true Ilocano.)

Fort Ilokandia, naturally, boasts not only its famous (notorious?) Casino, but the 18-hole Paoay golf course founded by the late Apo Ferdinand E. Marcos and designed by Gary Player.

You also meet over there the most interesting people. Walking into the lobby, enroute to my "speech", I encountered the former Superma’am, Imelda (who else), mother of the present Governor Ferdinand "Bonget" Marcos, Jr.

The onlookers were whispering that Imeldific still looked "glamorous". I greeted her. We exchanged a few pleasantries. I won’t elaborate, since I don’t wish to get entangled with any inquiries from the PCGG, the Presidential Commission on Good Government which ought to be retired by now but still remains confrontational.

Yesterday, I had breakfast with the gentleman who cheerfully calls himself as "the original Alikabok", Ilocos Norte Congressman Roquito Ablan Jr. Roquito wanted to know, he said, why Paul Ng – remember the Malaysian fellow who owns Laoag Airlines (whose aircraft plunged into Manila Bay killing 19 passengers, including a number of Australian tourists) – is now happily going around free as a bird.

Ng was "arrested" and placed in detention by the Bureau of Immigration after that airplane disaster but somehow managed to arrange "bail". What does this mean? He was said to have pleaded illness, but Ablan revealed that this guy Ng is showing up in public, almost everywhere (with his luxurious mansion, by the way, just outside the front gates of Fort Ilokandia Hotel) and frequently in the company of Laoag City Mayor Roger Fariñas.

That’s something, perhaps, our friend Immigration Commissioner Andrea "Deedee" Domingo can enlighten us on. She wasn’t the official, I hasten to say, who "released" Ng – it was somebody else – but my question remains: Why does Ng seem to have such influential backers?

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THE ROVING EYE . . . I’ll return forthwith to the ranks of military "experts" and Iraq War watchers. But here’s a question which nags at me: With the Yanks and Brits already deep into Iraq, where are Saddam’s touted "weapons of mass destruction"? Hope he doesn’t pick on my query as the excuse – if they exist – for trying them out.