The 12th Silliman president

The 12th president of Silliman University, Ben Malayang III, accepted his election "with both troubled thoughts and hope about the state of education in the Philippines." He said many say that Philippine education has lost its quality, i.e. teachers do not teach, schools don’t educate, school administrators don’t understand education, and students end up being shortchanged by schools. But the problem is not money, he told a jampacked Luce auditorium during his investiture August 28, which was the highlight of the university’s 105th founders day celebration.

Rather, the problem of a fundamentally flawed educational landscape lies in piling up information living "little room for critical scrutiny and interrogation of claimed truths," of institutions being preoccupied with preparing for immediate employment abroad, and missing "promoting a tension of the mind," and "spurning creative anxiety in favor of conforming opportunities."

But there is hope, he said. Philippine society and the government put value on education, and there are educators who continue to search for better ways of educating people "for more effective ways to achieve true learning."

And hope is provided by institutions, among them Silliman, that, "over the years, against many odds, have continued to commit to shaping the full range of humanity in each human being, and to shape our wondering youth into persons that appreciate the good and the beautiful, and who are not timid in differentiating these from the bad and the ugly."

‘Malayang takes on the task of steering Silliman to "greater heights" with a well thought-out five-year plan that integrates academic goals with Christian values. This commitment to a ministry of holistic and wholesome education carries on a tradition established by Presbyterian missionaries from New York who founded the institution in Dumaguete City on Aug. 28, 1901.

He is the ninth Filipino to administer the institution, the others before him being Drs. Leopoldo T. Ruiz, Cicero D. Calderon, and Quintin S. Doromal; Justice Venancio D. Aldecoa Jr., and Drs. Pedro V. Flores, Angel Alcala, Mervyn J. Misajon and Agustin A. Pulido. All of them had been elected by boards of trustees in line with the policy of giving the top leadership to Filipinos. They had been preceded by three American presidents - Drs. David S. Hibbard, Roy H. Brown and Arthur L. Carson.

Several persons served as acting presidents in interim periods. These were Charles L. Hamilton, Louis C. Winterheimer, Proceso U. Udarbe, Angel C. Alcala, Lourdino A. Yuson, Juan B. Escarda, Betty C. Abregana, and Ma. Teresita Sy-Sinda.

Silliman Institute began as a vocational school for boys and in 1938, became a university. Today it provides varied extension services in and out of the province of Oriental Negros. It has a graduate studies program and nine colleges - of agriculture, arts and sciences, business administration, education, engineering, information technology and computer sciences, law, nursing and allied health sciences, performing arts, and lately, communication. In addition, it has schools of basic education, medical education, and divinity.

Silliman runs a two-hectare experimental farm about two kilometers from the 33-hectare downtown campus, which provides a base of operation for the college of agriculture. It also operates a marine laboratory for marine research. Its coastal resource management, along with nursing education and teaching education, has been cited national centers of excellence by the Commission on Higher Education. CHED has also given the university, as well as 29 other institutions of higher learning, autonomy, enabling it to pursue policies and academic programs independently.

Grants and gifts from the US built up Silliman’s facilities and supported its American faculty and staff. In 1957, the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (based in New York City) channeled all American grants to the university. Local support is received through the Silliman University Endowment Foundation . Foreign and local support is needed for the institution’s needs since a student pays only about 65 percent of the cost to educate him.

Over a hundred members of four generations of the Malayang family of Oroquieta, Misamis Occidental, have attended Silliman. Ben III, born in 1953, finished at Silliman’s high school (Class ’70), and earned his bachelors, major in philosophy, at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. His wife, former Gladys Fe T. Rio, also graduated from Silliman (BSGS ’75) cum laude.

Ben earned two master’s degrees in international affairs (Southeast Asian studies, major in economics and political science), and philosophy, from Ohio University. He worked for his Ph.D., major in wildland resource science, from the University of California at Berkeley, his studies supported by doctoral grants from Ford Foundation, the Agricultural Development Center, and Winrock (Rockefeller) International.

He first worked at, then became the first dean, of the Institute of Environmental Science and Management of the UP Los Banos, where he also served as coordinator of the Program on Environmental Security of the UP System for Integrative Development Studies. He was among the UP System faculty that developed the programs of the university in Mindanao. For a brief period, he served as Undersecretary at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), his boss there Secretary Angel Alcala, a former Silliman president.

Ben has published over 30 major works and taught graduate courses on the environment and governance. He has been a member of study, research, review and consulting teams of international organizations, among them the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, US Agency for International Development, and the Asian Development Bank.

Ben is a lead author of the recently published Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a five-year examination of the state of the earth’s biophysical and socio-ecological conditions conducted by a team of 1,500 scientists from over 50 countries in the world. He is also lead author of "Philippine Agriculture 2020," which identifies options for sustainability and competitiveness of Philippine agriculture in the long-term, with support from the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) of the Philippines.

Ben, 56, is a jolly, likeable fellow, given to wearing casual shirts, and likely to hit it off with the 7,000 students (from the grades to college and coming from different parts of the country) and faculty and staff. The Trustees chair, Leonor M. Briones, a Silliman alumna and former National Treasurer who is also known for her strong commitment to the Freedom from Debt Coalition, said at Ben’s investiture: "We are confident that with full support from the Board, cooperation from the university community, and encouragement from our alumni here and abroad, he will continue Silliman s’ priority goals of Christian witness, excellence in academics and university operations, and relevance and reach."

Alumni form the backbone of the institution’s continuing impact and good reputation. They come from near and far for the founders’ day celebrations. Those living abroad have been generous in their giving to their alma mater’s programs. At the centennial celebration in 2005, nearly 10,000 alumni came by plane, boat, or tricycle to honor their alma mater and hobnob with co-alumni.

Among the 1998 Outstanding Silliman Alumni awardees who was also present in this week’s festivities was Luth Mendiola Tenorio, who is dean emeritus of Seattle University, Washington State. She told this columnist, "Silliman gives students a strong foundation in the liberal arts that help them to be good, critical thinkers, which is important in one’s adult life."

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