In its 100th-year anniversary, the University of the Visayas stands strong, proud, and happy for what it has accomplished since 1919 when it started as the Visayan Institute with only 37 students. After a hundred years, it has touched and changed the lives of a million or so alumni, both living and departed, many of whom have become the pride of their families and country. There are many schools that made much more profits and built many more modern buildings. UV builds characters of leaders, public servants, entrepreneurs, and pioneering men and women in education, business, law, medicine, engineering, maritime, and vocational and technical training, and helped build a just and humane society. UV is a pillar for national development. UV is not for business, UV is for public service. Why is UV successful?
The answer can be summarized in 12 core principles. First is the principle of a leadership that is visionary, strategic, and purpose-driven. They always look at the big picture. They are focused on the long-range and are not hampered by myopic, parochial, and selfish interests. Second; UV, led by the Gullases, upholds the core principles of love, leadership, and service to humanity in its people and organization development. Third; UV considers values and virtues as more important than technology and techniques. Fourth; the Gullases believe in character first, competence follows. They adhere to the credo that you can buy skills but not integrity.
Fifth; the Gullases remain faithful to the fundamental principle of Don Vicente and Lady Josefina that education is not business but advocacy and service, that money does not take precedence over service, and that wealth will just be a blessing, after conscientious has been delivered. Sixth; UV believes, as exemplified by the Gullases, that people takes precedence over profits. UV was first to offer “study now, pay later” schemes and pioneered in granting scholarships to deserving poor and lowly public servants, like teachers, policemen, janitors, messengers, and clerks. Seventh; UV is an inspiring and nurturing community of God-fearing people. Eighth; UV is inclusive and non-discriminatory. It accepts LGBT, PWD, and seniors who want to learn more.
Ninth; the administration nurtures the faculty and non-teaching personnel, UV considers them family. Tenth; the faculty and non-teaching personnel care for the students as if they were their own children. Eleventh; the students and alumni, once outside the campus, bear the credo of UV, which are love, leadership, and service to humanity. The alumni are the living testimonies to UV's role as a pillar in nation-building and fountain of wisdom, where future national and local leaders drink from and are nourished with solid values and virtues that the Gullases exemplify. Twelfth; UV embraces the role of being one of the builders of the nation. The students it develops are now the leaders in many towns, cities and provinces, and even higher. They live and serve with honor, integrity, and self-sacrifice.
I have been a trustee, faculty and official as well as instructor, lecturer, and guest in so many schools around the Philippines and the world. I have lectured in many colleges and universities in Manila, Davao, Baguio, Iloilo, Geneva, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, Kuala Lumpur, Taiwan, Beijing, and all over the Middle East. But I always long to come home to UV, my second home and home of the people whom I truly love and value.