Dr. Wilfrido V. Villacorta

I would like to thank God for my having been blessed with the opportunity of becoming a professor at De La Salle University. I had just gotten married in 1970; I was a Ph.D. candidate who needed a job. I was fortunate that Brother Francis Garvey, then Dean of Arts and Sciences, invited me to help in building the Political Science and the Asian Studies programs.

In the following year came this intellectual giant, Brother Andrew Gonzalez. He had just finished his doctorate in Linguistics at Berkeley and was appointed as Academic Vice-President. He was a visionary leader who appreciated the challenges and possibilities facing our College. In 1975, De La Salle was accorded the status of a university. Among the measures introduced by Brother Andrew was the further enhancement of academic standards by actively recruiting more faculty members who were research-oriented. It was also at that time when De La Salle began admitting female students. He also presided over the establishment of additional campuses in order to reach out to more sectors of the population and increase access to quality education and La Sallian values.

Through the years, he was my academic mentor who inspired me to hone my restless mind. His advice was: Focus, Focus, Focus. He and his predecessor, Brother President Gabriel Connon, constantly urged me to finish my doctoral dissertation.

Brother Andrew nominated me to be Chair of the Philippine Social Science Council in 1980. It was a great honor because the Council, founded in 1968 by prominent social scientists such as Dr. Mercedes Concepcion, Fr. Frank Lynch, Dr. Bonifacio Sibayan, and Dr. Cristina Parel, had just celebrated its 12th anniversary.

Brother Andrew and I got along well. We shared many interests: politics, international affairs, history, arts and culture and, of course, food. He, Victor Ordoñez and I were the only academic representatives in the first Philippine educational delegation to China in 1976. My mentor complimented me for my initiative in organizing the delegation

The liberal climate in De La Salle encouraged faculty members and students to express themselves even during the martial-law days. In the EDSA people-power upheaval, De La Salle’s contingent was one of the largest. From Taft, we met up with students of La Salle Greenhills and marched to the area of Camp Aguinaldo. In the transition period after the dictatorship ended, the 1986 Constitutional Commission was formed. The Christian Brothers, my colleagues in the faculty and the non-teaching staff supported me when I was entrusted by President Corazon Aquino to be a member of this Constitutional Commission.

When he was President, Brother Andrew appointed me Dean of the reorganized College of Liberal Arts and later, Senior Vice-President for External Relations. As always, I benefitted from his advice. A lesson I learned from him: keep meetings short; if an issue cannot be resolved, delegate it to an ad hoc committee and ask its members to report their recommendations as soon as possible. He endeared himself to the faculty, fellow admistrators and staff by sending them small notes of encouragement and congratulations for their achievements.

He sent me to AIM for the Executive Course in Management Development. Brother Andrew and I worked together to raise funds for professorial chairs, buildings (e.g. the Computer Studies College and the Yuchengco Hall, and the A. King Medical Research Center in Dasmariñas), TV studios (e.g. Communication Arts) the libraries and laboratories, as well as faculty development and academic exchange for faculty and students. Brother Andrew also set the example of an administrator who continues to do research — a tough act to follow. One of my fulfilling projects was co-authoring with him the book on the development of the national language provisions in the Philippine Constitution. Most of my other publications were on ASEAN, Japan and Philippine foreign relations. He also helped me in approaching Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco to support the formation of the Yuchengco Center, a research center on East Asia based in the University.

Working with Brother Andrew broadened my horizons and motivated me to contribute to public service. I was fortunate to have been selected by then Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople, my former colleague in the Constitutional Commission, to be the ASEAN Deputy Secretary-General from 2003 to 2006. It was the Philippines’ turn to assume that Jakarta-based position. The posting gave me the credentials to be later appointed by then President Benigno Aquino III as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the ASEAN.

Brother Andrew fell ill in 2005, and I was able to visit him in December of that year. A month after, he passed away. Like all those whose lives were touched by him, my grateful family and I miss him to this day.