Half a century ago when former tourism undersecretary Eduardo Jarque was a student, De La Salle was still an all-boys college.
Around 1968 or 1969, La Salle for the first time accepted four female students: cross-enrollees from neighboring all-girls college of Saint Scholastica. The girls took only one subject, History. But every time they entered De La Salle, Edu Jarque says it seemed like the buildings tilted from the weight of the boys looking out and watching the girls.
There were only three degree course choices at the time in De La Salle, Edu recalls: Commerce, Liberal Arts and Engineering.
I’m not sure if the situation was similar in other colleges during the same period. There must have been a wider choice of courses at Spanish-era schools such as the University of Santo Tomas and Ateneo de Manila and at the one established by the Americans in a city that would later be named after Commonwealth president Manuel L. Quezon, the University of the Philippines.
But the choices were still limited by the time I finished high school, when I wanted to try something different from the usual diploma courses.
I would have wanted to be a chef, but there was no bachelor’s degree specifically for culinary arts at UP. Hotel and Restaurant Management would be introduced years later. I hoped to study filmmaking. But what passed for a film center at the time in Diliman was a room in the College of Arts and Sciences with black curtains, and it was not a degree program either.
So I took up Broadcasting, and then shifted to Journalism after an ogre professor let loose a string of p***** i** in my TV production class because I made a mistake.
The UP Film Center now has its own building, and UP has a wide range of specialized degree courses.
Today De La Salle also offers not only a slew of specific courses under Engineering, Commerce and Liberal Arts, it has separate schools and campuses (with another one under construction) for a dizzying range of degree courses, in its College of Saint Benilde, named after the first Christian Brother to be canonized in 1967, who devoted his life to teaching children.
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Edu Jarque is now Saint Benilde’s strategic adviser. Like the rest of the school’s management, he is clearly proud of the growth of the school over the past 30 years.
Visiting the college in Malate, Manila last Saturday, I wished it had been around in my student days. Its culinary school has a tie-up with the Vatel group in Switzerland and France, and students get to train in the Hotel Benilde Maison De La Salle. It’s a real commercial boutique hotel with rooftop pool, gym and function rooms where the entire entourage of Pope Francis, including the Swiss guards, stayed during his Manila visit. Occupancy over the weekend was around 70 percent, according to resident manager Juan Paolo Sumera.
Opened in 1988, Saint Benilde now has about 3,000 students. Patterned after Europe’s renowned culinary schools, Benilde has regular and short courses on a wide range of subjects, from classic French cooking to confectionery and pastry making.
College dean Angelo Marco Lacson said they are working on their next project: a course on professional plane cabin service, with parts from an actual commercial aircraft, courtesy of Airbus, to be installed in the school.
In 2007, another building was added to Benilde, housing its School of Design and Arts. The 14-story building has an origami-inspired motif designed by Ed Calma. Among their lecturers are Kenneth Cobonpue for industrial design, Jose Javier Reyes for filmmaking and Lulu Tan-Gan for fashion design. This September, Benilde students of fashion design are going to France for Paris Fashion Week.
When Robin Serrano, vice chancellor for advancement, took me on a tour of the new building, there were mannequins draped with clothes made of plastic, leather and indigenous hand-woven fabric – part of a course on encouraging students to innovate using different materials.
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For someone like me whose idea of relaxation is learning new skills, the range of available courses at Benilde is a dream.
And for many, enrolling in Saint Benilde will remain a dream. The school, like De La Salle University, is one of the most expensive in the country. Tuition in the culinary program can average P100,000 per trimester.
If the college had been open in my student days, when my tuition in UP cost less than P400 per semester, my Tondo household income would not have allowed me to enroll in Benilde even for a short course.
The school is aware of the problem. Dean Lacson and Serrano said Benilde sets aside about 30 percent of enrollment slots for scholars from low-income families. Culinary scholars who excel are fully sponsored by the school for apprenticeship with partner institutions in Italy, the US and Dubai.
Lacson said applicants must submit sufficient documentation to qualify, including the household’s electricity bills – an indication of how many electrical appliances, notably air conditioners, are being used.
Mindful of the need for quality education to be inclusive, Benilde is also developing a culinary program for the deaf.
Saint Benilde, however, is just one school. I know schools in other places such as Cebu are also offering a large selection of regular and short courses on a wide range of subjects. Today’s students are luckier. Especially if they can afford the course they want.