Dr. Claro R. Ceniza

On My Tito Clary
By Esther “Terry” Ceniza Windler
Environmentalist, Tree Hugger, Columnist, Niece 

Since I was 8 years old, I lived in the mountain of Mt. Malindang, in Sinampungan which was 11 kilometers from the highway. This place was where my grandparents built the family home. This was where I came to know Tito Clary, who came home for the holidays from Silliman University in Dumaguete City. 

He was the third son of Judge Patricio Ceniza and Vivencia Rafols and the brother of my father, Ben. Already as a young law student at Silliman, where all the five Ceniza boys went to college, Claro was a popular guy, being tall and handsome and bright. He was president of the Student Council, besides being a radio announcer at DYSR, the Silliman radio station. 

Many a young woman’s heart beat fast when encountering Claro. A story is remembered of a young woman who drove their jeep into a canal when she saw Claro walking, for her eyes were no longer on the road. I remember him as quiet, gentle, and soft-spoken, often seen with a book contently reading. Reading was a Ceniza trait but more so for Tito Clary. When with a book, he was oblivious to all the noise around him. 

The family bookcase was full of books owned by the five boys. I found Tito Clary’s books, one which I borrowed and read and which I kept for years even bringing it to Switzerland and which I returned to him later. This was Jacques Maritain’s “An Introduction to Philosophy”. This probably saved the book from the moths and humidity. 

At some point he became interested in photography, even developing his own prints in the darkroom he built. His favorite subject were his children. Tita Rio and Tito Clary were great together as a team as a family and in their careers.

Dr. Claro R. Ceniza, Truly a “Man for all seasons”
By Rolando V. del Carmen

Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice (Law) and Regents Professor College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University Huntsville, Texas, U.S.A.

I came to Silliman and Dumaguete from Ozamiz City in 1949, after my high school graduation. I mention this geographic family background because it was an important link in my initial association with Dr. Claro R. Ceniza. He was from Oroquieta, the capital of Misamis Occidental, and less than an hour’s bus ride from Ozamiz. Although I did not personally know him or his family, I was aware that he was the son of Judge Patricio Ceniza of the Court of First Instance in Oroquieta City. His father was a well-known figure in the province because he occupied a high judicial position and enjoyed a reputation as a kind, fair, and knowledgeable judge. As is endemic in Philippine culture, then and now, province mates are automatically drawn to each other when in distant places even without previous personal association, a bond akin to instant friendship. Such was the case between Claro and me.

Claro was in Silliman when I arrived in 1949, but I did not really know him that well during my pre-law years (1949-51). We met a few times, however, because I worked for a year in the Silliman Cooperative Store, which students frequented. It did not take long for me, however, to know Claro had a special niche even then at Silliman. He was a BMOC (Big Man on Campus), a brilliant writer who was popular among his peers and involved in a myriad of campus activities. It was at about that time that I had a most memorable meeting with Claro which I vividly remember until now as though it took place only yesterday.

At that time, I was a working student in the office of Dr. Robert Silliman, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. One Friday afternoon, Dr. Silliman asked me to contact Claro immediately because he needed to confer with him about something important related to the Student Government. Dr. Silliman was a powerful figure on campus; his command was law, at least to me and his other subalterns. I did not know where Claro lived, but upon inquiry I learned he was renting a room in one of the fancy homes along the Dumaguete boulevard. I hastily boarded a tartanilla from Hibbard Hall (where the Dean of Arts and Sciences Office was located) and told the cochero to hurry to where Claro was living. The house was a two-story building near the end of the boulevard and Claro was staying on the ground floor. I knocked and somebody answered for me to come in, the door was in fact unlocked. I saw Claro sitting on a chair, without a table, and totally focused on something. True to my urgent mission from my boss, I immediately and, in a loud voice, yelled, “Clar, Dr. Silliman wants to see you right now.” I made it sound like a mandate from God because in my mind it was. I expected Claro to jump up, hastily put on his shoes, and then take off in the same tartanilla with me to the campus.

To my surprise and dismay, he did nothing and was unmoved. Instead, he told me, “Lando, come here. I want to show you something.” This better be very important, I said to myself, to warrant this delay in our trip to Dr. Silliman’s almighty office. He was sitting down and showed me a drawing he had just made. “Here,” he said, “is the earth and there is the sun. There is a strange and mysterious relationship between the two heavenly bodies for them to keep spinning past each other without colliding. I want to know more about what that is.” My reaction was, “My God, here I am with an urgent mission for him to see Dr. Silliman without delay, and here is Claro – totally absorbed in the laws of physics and relationship among heavenly bodies that I do not understand.” He then told me he would get dressed and soon follow. I left in the same tartanilla, but told the cochero to take it easy! I was still in shock and mystified over what I had just seen and witnessed.

I left Claro that afternoon in total awe about two things. First, I marveled at how he could keep Dr. Silliman, this virtual “White God” on campus, waiting for an important meeting. I would have jumped and rushed to the waiting tartanilla were I in his place. Beyond that was a second and more puzzling thought – how could a college student from my home province of Misamis Occidental ever have the mind to think about physics and those celestial mysteries on a Friday afternoon and just a few hours before classes started in the College of Law? Were I him, I would doubtless have been probing into the legal complexities of tort law or knowing the meaning of corpus delicti in preparation for that evening’s classes.

That episode spoke volumes about Claro and instilled in me a deep respect for his “cool” demeanor and extraordinary mind. It also told me his mind was not made for the inanities of law; instead, it was meant to delve into the mysteries of abstractions and the fascinating world of philosophy, the “heavy stuff’. I was mentally hooked to him as a person to whom I could look up as an academic. I worked in various offices at Silliman for years, but never had a meeting with anybody, faculty or student, who impressed me more than that Friday afternoon brief session with Claro. I realized then he had an extraordinary mind; I resolved to know him better.

I did get to know Claro better over the years, although time blurs as to exactly when and how that took place. He seemed omnipresent and omnipotent on campus in those years, particularly in the College of Law. Claro wrote occasional pieces for the Sillimanian which made a lasting impression on faculty and students. One time, he wrote a series of articles with Reuben Canoy, then a student and Claro’s peer in the College of Law. Reuben, from Cagayan de Oro, was another campus superstar. Together, they critiqued some goings on in the Silliman Board of Trustees. The piece was mild by later standards, but it was a breakthrough because no student writers had previously dared to write anything critical of the administration or the mighty Board of Trustees. The campus authorities must have been miffed, if not alarmed and angry, but the series led to needed reforms. Working together, Reuben and Claro’s became Silliman’s version of the “dynamic duo.”

Another fond memory of Claro was when he participated in the annual ORADEC (Oratorical and Debating Club) contest in the College of Law. The contest, a major event in the university, was held in the ground floor of Silliman Hall. I was in the vast audience that night and remember well Claro’s oratorical piece and masterful delivery. He talked about the need for change and how Filipinos and the Philippines are slow to embrace it. “Look at the way we make clay pots in Daro,” he intoned. “That is exactly the same way those pots were made when Magellan first landed in Cebu centuries ago. We need change!” That elicited instant laughter and drew loud applause from the audience. “What a classic line” I remember thinking. “It captures the theme of his oration through scenes and words the audience can relate to and understand.” That was oration and exhortation at its best. (From what I understand, however, the pots in Daro are still made that way today and so Claro’s oration did not have much of an impact on the local pot makers. But Claro had made his point dramatically and won the gold medal that night.)

Winning the gold medal made Claro an even more popular figure on campus. Soon after that he ran for the presidency of the Silliman Student Government, the most coveted and respected office any student could hold. He won handily and was a popular president. He knew how to deal with people and get things done. Among students of that era, Claro is perhaps best remembered as an ORADEC gold medalist and a Student Government President, a feat equaled by just a precious few gifted students in the history of Silliman. To his friends, however, Claro was a lot more than that. There was a private dimension to his goodness. In my own case, it was “up close and personal.”

During my first year in the College of Law, I participated in the ORADEC oratorical contest which Claro had won just a few years earlier. We had become great friends by then and so I asked him to coach me, which he willingly did. At his suggestion, we practiced for hours in the dimly lit Assembly Hall several times a week and for a couple of weeks before the contest. Those lengthy practices started past nine o’clock in the evening when classes in the College of Law had ended. I later had the privilege of coaching contestant orators and debaters when I worked as a faculty member at Silliman, but never did I have the same amount of goodness as Claro. He was amazingly generous with his time and talent.

My oratorical piece was written by Reuben Canoy, also a superb writer and one of the country’s best then and now. With Claro and Reuben on my side, I felt I could not lose that contest. But lose I did despite Reuben’s masterpiece and Claro’s superb coaching. Blame that on my own shortcomings and nervous delivery, not on the efforts of my mentors. The first place that night went to Jeng Elbinias (who later became Chief Justice of the SO-member Philippine Court of Appeals) with a piece he personally wrote titled, “The Temper of Our Time.” Decades later, then Justice Elbinias told me he does not even remember the title of his winning piece, but I do. It was classic and delivered flawlessly. Jeng and I were good friends then; we continue to be great friends now despite his later ascendance to heights of greatness as a jurist. Although I lost, Claro and I later went to lunch that week to celebrate my winning the silver medal. He paid for lunch, another insight into his generosity to a friend and co-provinciano with whom he had just spent hours mentoring and in whom he must have been disappointed.

Throughout my years at Silliman, I do not remember Claro having had a girlfriend or “sweetheart” (as we then called them on campus), although it was not for lack of personal attributes. He definitely had what it took to be a high-profile palikero had he wanted to be one. He must have been a dream husband for campus and local beauties because he was tall, good looking, endowed with a big booming voice, a paragon of rectitude, and possessed a distinguished family background. He seemed impervious to earthly temptations and riveted on academics and intellectual concerns. In later years, however, he met and was smitten by lovely Riorita Espina from Cebu, doubtless a soul mate and Clare’s equal – in mind and stature. A brief courtship ensued, they got married, and lived happily thereafter. That marriage must have been pre-ordained and arranged by some celestial being. It came out so well and is blessed with gifted and loving children, not surprising when one considers their ancestral pedigree.

Despite his other accomplishments, I will always remember Claro as a kind friend who never said anything unkind about anybody. He personified the total gentleman who was always encouraging and ready to help. Claro towered above the rest of us on campus, both intellectually and in stature, but he never made us feel inferior when with him. He later went on to finish a Ph.D. in Philosophy in the United States and wrote philosophical books and articles which, sad for me to say, I cannot understand even now. His mind was way above mine, which is why I considered him a great and influential mentor during my formative years at Silliman. He was indeed a legend in his own time, while some of us are but legends only in our own mind.

A wise person once said that anybody who has had a good role model in academic life is terribly lucky and thoroughly blessed. Indeed, I have been amply blessed, thanks to a giant of a man named Claro. He made a big impact in my life as a friend, and mentor. Claro was an authentic Titan in mind, body, and spirit. He made this world a much better place because he lived and shared his greatness selflessly with others less endowed. Those of us who knew him will remember Claro throughout our lives and in our own version of eternity. Though now gone, he continues to be a part of his family and friends in meaningful ways. Thank you for everything, Claro, and praise God Almighty for your wonderful life. May you rest comfortably in peace and glory with the angels and saints in God’s Kingdom. Those of us lesser mortals whose lives you touched know you so richly deserve your heavenly reward.

Testimonials for Dr. Claro Ceniza
Jeremiah Joven Joaquin, PhD

I have never met Ceniza, but his works strongly influenced me to pursue a career as a professional philosopher and specialize in logic and metaphysics, the same philosophical areas Ceniza specialized in. In October 2012, I was invited to deliver the Horace B. Silliman Lecture at Silliman University. My lecture was on the adequacy problem in logic, which Ceniza has touched on in his 1987 logic textbook, Elementary Logic (published by De La Salle University). Here are excerpts from my ‘Claro R. Ceniza on Conditionals, Probability, and Modality,’ an essay that I published in the “Philosophia Journal” in 2022:

Ceniza is arguably one of the most prolific and original philosophers the Philippines has ever produced. He started working on philosophical topics in 1943 when he was sixteen. He was influenced by Rene Descartes’s Discourse on Method, which he read while enrolled in a stenography class at Saint Paul’s College in Dumaguete City. From then on, philosophy became his chief preoccupation, even during his study and practice of law in the 1950s and 1960s. He received his Bachelor of Laws in 1953 and placed 17th out of 3,000 examinees in the 1954 Philippine Bar examination. During this time, he organized his philosophical ideas into the manuscript “The Rational Basis of the Problems of Philosophy,” which was listed in The Review of Metaphysics in 1954. Sadly, there is no copy of this early work – even Ceniza has confessed to having no copy.

In 1958, he published the pamphlet “The Relation of Man’s Concept of Space to Metaphysics,” which was later published as “Metaphysics” in Silliman Review in 1968. 1965, after eleven years of practicing law, he quit and devoted his time to philosophy. In 1969, he obtained a Syracuse-in- Asia Fellowship that enabled him to study at Syracuse University for his M.A. and Ph.D. His 1971 M.A. thesis, “The Argument of Parmenides,” and his 1974 Ph.D. dissertation, “Some Basic Presuppositions of Classical Philosophy,” form the basis of his later works on metaphysics, whose culmination is found in his final work, Thought, Necessity, and Existence, which was published in 2001, the year he died.

Ceniza saw that the task of philosophy is not only “to make sense of human experience, and thus to provide a guide to practical living and decision-making” but also to make sense of reality as a whole and our place in it. He offers two models of how to go about doing this task. According to his jigsaw puzzle model, the task of philosophy is to make sense of reality by examining each of its bits and putting them together to get an accurate and objective picture of reality. Like a jumbled jigsaw puzzle that needs to be solved to see the complete picture, the reality is a puzzle that, once solved, would be seen as structured and ordered in a particular way. Moreover, just like solving a jigsaw puzzle by making progress from educated guesses as to which pieces go together, one solves the puzzle of reality by looking at its bits to see how they all hang together. However, Ceniza notes that some philosophers have rejected the jigsaw puzzle model for being “too idealistic a notion of philosophy.” These philosophers claim that reality “is perhaps unlike a jigsaw puzzle with a unique solution” because reality itself is simply meaningless – it has no objective structure that needs to be uncovered. Despite this, however, we can still give meaning to it. We can still make sense of reality by humanizing, personalizing, and interpreting it using our inner, subjective reality. Ceniza calls this meaning-giving view of philosophy the inkblot model of doing philosophy – an allusion to Rorschach’s inkblot test in psychology.

For Ceniza, the jigsaw puzzle and inkblot models of philosophy have their respective uses. The inkblot model helps us in highly interpretative and, arguably, human-centered disciplines like history, political theory, ethics, arts, literature, and the humanities. Since “subjectivity” is a powerful element in these disciplines, the philosophical method that must be employed puts a premium on personal, psychological, and social factors. On the other hand, the jigsaw puzzle model might be a better fit for the natural sciences, mathematics, logic, and other highly impersonal disciplines. Since “objectivity” is the distinguishing feature of these disciplines, using a philosophical method where evidence, justification, and truth are essential is beneficial.

Ceniza’s body of work covers different areas of inquiry, from abstract topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and logic to more practical issues about morality, marriage, education, social transformation, nationalism, religion, and spirituality. However, to my mind, his lasting philosophical contributions are in his discussions of the paradoxes of material implication, the nature of probability, and the metaphysics of modality, where he presented innovative ideas. Ceniza’s contributions may not be that well-known. However, they still warrant not only a place in the pantheon of the pioneers of Filipino Philosophy but also a place in the global philosophical community.”

From Ben S. Malayang III, PhD
Past President of Silliman University

Dr Claro R. Ceniza was a systematic and creative thinker. He framed innovative questions on epistemology and ontology (like how could something be deemed to truly exist) and formed original thoughts to answer the questions (like linking the conceivable, the possible, and the real). He was immersed in deep philosophical investigations yet, with hardly any anxiety of contradictions, held on to spiritual truths that formed his faith (and even, to me, the threads of his philosophical discourse). He taught philosophy in Silliman University and De La Salle University, where in both institutions he was highly esteemed. His thoughts continue to be discussed in philosophy circles in the country. Dr. Claro R Ceniza was a great Filipino Philosopher and Christian Thinker.

From Cesar J. Unson, Jr., PhD

I knew Dr. Claro Rafols Ceniza. And because I knew him, I had the privilege to witness how excellence and humility can exist within the same individual. He was an exceptional teacher, an accomplished scholar, and a true Filipino philosopher. Despite all this, Dr. Ceniza remained humble and was always willing to offer a helping hand to those who needed it.

Dr. Ceniza was my professor in graduate school. He was also a major influence in my decision to pursue postgraduate studies and to become a Philosophy teacher. He was strict when the situation called for it but you would always feel that he cared about you specially when he gave constructive criticisms regarding your work. I adopted some of his teaching methods when I started my career and I consider him a good role model as to what a great teacher should be.

It was unfortunate, however, that Dr. Ceniza passed away shortly after I started my teaching career. But even if he was no longer around, I still had some connection with him because I would always use his textbook on Elementary Logic every time I taught Formal Logic courses. His book was very helpful as it was able to present Logic in such a way that students would be able to understand even the more complex ideas. I used it for many years up until such time when Formal Logic was removed from the college curriculum.

Today, in the Department of Philosophy at De La Salle University, there are still some of us left who were fortunate enough to have known Prof. Dr. Claro Ceniza personally. We still talk about him specially when we recall fond memories of him debating with us or sharing words of wisdom. And although he is no longer with us physically, I know that we will always have a place in our hearts for this great man from Dumaguete.

From Jaime P. Guevara, PhD  

But rarely do you find a professor who thinks his own thoughts, publishes them, and gets them accepted by prestigious journals; who knows his limits, is humble, is eager to learn more.

From Dr. Edith L. Tiempo, PhD
National Artist for Literature, Philippines  

I have not perused Claro’s works, but I do remember him as a remarkably bright student. He wanted to tease his mathematics teacher in high school by sleeping in class, but when the teacher asked him to solve the current mathematics problem in class, Claro was always ready and his solution precise and well performed. I am of course not surprised that he did well in his post-graduate work. We should all be proud of him and his memory.

From Dr. Levi V. Oracion PhD
Past president, Union Theological Seminary, California  

One of the pleasant memories I treasure in my mind is that of my good friend, Claro Ceniza. My first encounter with him was in my class in existential philosophy where most of my students were the young intellectuals of Silliman. It was Claro who always raised the difficult questions. He was no smart aleck—that category of students who raised questions to answer to which they already know; Claro was an authentic seeker, and his questions would always plunge our class into a lively discussion into the search for truth. Of the principal tenets of existential philosophy is ‘existence precedes essence,’ which is radical inversion of the metaphysics of the Greeks that ‘essence precedes existence.’ Claro schooled as he was a lawyer that truth had an essence which was unfolded by the lawyer’s arguments, felt uneasy about existentialism. Yet, he was fascinated by the new perspective existentialism offered that put a very high premium on freedom, and Claro loved that.

Later on I heard he was about to leave for higher studies in the USA. I thought he would go into further studies in the field of jurisprudence. No, he would not; he had decided to go into the study of metaphysics. “Metaphysics,” I exclaimed, “why modern philosophers have already declared that it is dead! In fact, the study of metaphysics has become scientifically baseless so much so that even theologians say that God is dead. Claro thought for a while, then   responded, “I do believe that God is alive, and if God is alive then metaphysics is a very important subject.”