Blue day

Last December, I mentioned that the Ateneo de Manila University will be celebrating its sesquicentennial, its 150th anniversary, on December 10, 2009. Yesterday was the grand kick-off celebration for this once-in-a-lifetime event. Since the Ateneo is a Roman Catholic university, it was but fitting that the day began with a mass. And since Intramuros was where it all began in 1859, the mass was held at the Manila Cathedral. It was concelebrated by about fifty Jesuit priests (I didn't get an exact count) and the main celebrant was Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, the Archbishop of Manila. The mass was at 7:00 a.m. but we were there at 6:00 a.m. to greet and welcome all who were attending.



I posted a photo of the ruins of the Jesuit San Ignacio Church last week and wrote that the Intramuros Administration would be building an ecclesiastical museum on the site and that the groundbreaking ceremony would be held on the day that the returning Jesuits set foot in Manila in 1859. That was yesterday too. After the mass at the Manila Cathedral, there was a procession to the ruins a few blocks away. The land was blessed anew by Cardinal Rosales and four Jesuits, the Pangkat Kawayan bamboo orchestra performed for the crowd, and breakfast was served on the old walls of the city fortress.



After breakfast, the motorcade began. It stopped at all the past and present campuses of the Ateneo de Manila University. When the Intramuros campus of the school was destroyed by a big fire in 1932, it was relocated to Ermita, Manila along Padre Faura Street. Since the school again transferred to Quezon City in the 1950s, the lot was sold to the Gokongwei family which owns a chain of malls and department stores in the Philippines. So, yes, the first stop was at a mall: Robinsons Place Manila. There was a simple ceremony to unveil a brass marker beside the mall's Padre Faura entrance. On the marker was etched an image of the old school building and an explanation of the school's history in that location. What made the ceremony memorable was the presence of about two dozen alumni who studied in the Padre Faura campus. They even sang one of their favorite Ateneo cheers after the unveiling of the marker.



Unfortunately, I missed the rest of the motorcade because of my assigned tasks for the day. In fact, I missed all the ceremonies yesterday except the one at Padre Faura. I was at the Manila Cathedral, but wasn't able to attend the mass. I saw the procession begin, but wasn't able to join it. I walked to the San Ignacio ruins, but only to immediately get in a car to go to Padre Faura, so I missed the performance and the breakfast. Yesterday was work for me and for everyone in our office, after all. But once it 's produced, we can all watch the video of yesterday's events and be proud of the fact that everything came to be because of us.