REQUIEM TO A FRIEND

 

 

She was there as a silent witness to the century past,

Long before Bienvenido N. Santos’s “Volcano”.

 

 

She was there when records for Guinness was made;

To shield proud parents from the heat of the summer sun,

Sharing the joy of college days coming to an end.

 

 

 

 

She was there for the last moment but nobody noticed,

Perhaps sharing the President’s emotions

in announcing her term to end.

 

 

She was there, she was there … with the times well spent in the University.

 

 

Now she had been there.

 

 

“She had been there…” old timers of Bicol’s premier university may nostalgically point to freshmen or visitors where an icon, a friend, a legacy once stood.

Perhaps next to the four pillars (scholarship, leadership, character and service) which are the core values of the Bicol University, it is the 113 years Acacia Tree (Samanea saman) that unofficially symbolizes the University, rather than the carousel and ice cream cart inspired steel and concrete monument.

It is fondly referred to as the “Centree” of the Bicol University main campus located in Legazpi City, Albay, Philippines.

The ground where the tree is located used to be the sprawling site of the Albay High Schools, adjacent to the Bicol Teachers College (formerly the Albay Normal School), which had become the central of the Bicol University, merging with the Bicol Regional School of Arts and Trades, College of Fisheries, College Agriculture and other local public educational institutions.

Who is the student from Albay High School to the present University status that has no story to tell or his academic life not impressed on by the Centree?

Memories have been fashioned in many ways by the tree that it has been endeared in the hearts of many, like an assuring friend in all times.

The tree may have been witness to many college romantic relations, sweet promises as well as broken ones. It has shaded tired bodies after a soccer game, a  hectic P.E. class or just a break between classes.

My fond memory of the tree is viewing it from a distance, from the classroom windows of the Bicol Teachers College Laboratory School.  Its embracing crown gives comfort even from a distance during those quieter and simpler times.  Walking home from school in the afternoon the tree looks resplendent in the setting sun.

Too bad that my student teacher in Grade 5 has disapproved of my crayon drawing of the tree when he asked us to draw a sunset.  He had seen only the tree in my drawing but not its interplay with the setting sun. Ah, my first frustration in the graphic art world, maybe a prelude to one of my acrylic on canvas paintings being taken out from an art exhibit because some conservative religious are to view the exhibit.

Trees gives comfort as a friend would in one’s academic life that  I immensely enjoyed early morning walks in the University of the Philippines underneath the acacia tree lined Osmena and Roxas Avenues.

I would usually get off the bus at Quezon Hall and walk to the National Center for Transportation Studies to enjoy the cool air and be cheered by the dew laden grass glistening in the morning sun.

The trees has inspired me in my design for a bicycle lane for the Diliman Campus.

This routine I do even during my previous stints at the National Engineering Center or Bocobo Hall, but not so for almost three years at NCPAG when I preferred to sleep before my 9 o’clock Saturday classes.

Now we may cease to wonder why school campuses are not without any tree, though in my entire stay at MLQ University I saw no tree to really speak of.

The Centennial Tree at the Bicol University has finally said goodbye after enduring more powerful storms.  It has been uprooted by Typhoon Glenda (Typhoon Rammasun) on July 15, 2014.

Many have been saddened by the bowing out of a true friend that an alumni may have.  But as a song goes, “nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky”.