Where the Sun Rises

Until now my vivid memories of my dear maternal grandmother, Lola Andrea Rivera, and my mother, Mama Pining, remain. Their advice, uttered in their own words, still rings in my mind – that when the time would come that I’d build my own “payag” (dwelling place), “the door must face where the sun rises.” The reason, according to Lola and Mama, is to ensure that the house dwellers would receive boundless graces and blessings all throughout the days… in their lifetime.

My elders’ advice resurfaced in my consciousness when I had a design made for the Centennial Gate in time for the University of the Visayas’s 100th anniversary this year. It occurred to me that the gate is the “door” to the University, to welcome students and alumni who are coming back to visit their ‘dwelling place’ for four years previously or even longer with some. As such, I thought, a gate facing mid-East/South exudes a welcoming feeling to countless Visayanians who are to pass by it… for a hundred years and more to come.

I also remember, with bruised feelings, the condescending and unkind comments hurled against the UV in the past. The University used to be labeled “Ateneo de Colon” and “eskwelahan sa pobre (school for the poor),” among others. My reaction to these is not to answer back with mere words but to have something for their eyes to see.

It had become a challenge – a “tahas” in Cebuano – for UV to rise above the scorn. Thus, we endeavored to have an eight-storey building constructed, dedicated to my mother, the University’s co-founder and inspiration, Inday Pining Rivera Gullas, who with Papa Inting, worked hard and they together dreamed of a University producing “kings and queens who do not wear crowns but are royals just the same.”

When Papa Inting passed away in the 70s, Eddie was a neophyte congressman, starting his eventual long years in public service. When Mama Pining followed Papa in 1984, Eddie was the Governor of Cebu, serving for three terms. It was then that I realized that on my shoulders and wisdom, in my mind and heart ultimately rests the daunting task of setting the direction of the University, steering the wheels, and guiding the oars, through unchartered and at times troubled waters, keeping pace with the demands of the times, addressing the changing and varying needs of students.