This is the story of the defunct Gold Ore, the small Baguio community newspaper (circulation: 5,000 copies) that was printed weekly from 1975 to 2001. It was published by Benjamin Romero Salvosa, founder of the Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF), the forerunner of today's University of the Cordilleras (UC).
There is a whole article about this school--and that one is short--in my post on November 24, 2010 and reposted on September 3, 2020 entitled "The bold vision of Benjamin Salvosa" Click the title in the archives index on the left to read the full article.
We all called him Daddy Ben--he insisted we do. He founded the first tertiary educational institution in Baguio in 1946, predating even Saint Louis University, the biggest in the city today. For that pioneering achievement of blazing the trail that all other institutions followed, he was formally recognized by the very religious order that established SLU itself, the CICM, as Father of Higher Education in Baguio and Northern Luzon, in elaborate conferment ceremonies held right at the Baguio Cathedral.
That alone was enough distinction to cement his legacy and assure his permanent place in the pantheon of the city's Founding Fathers. He was an author of four books, and a prodigious scribbler of handwritten memoirs that have yet to be compiled into even more books today. In fact, when he died in 1994 it was a challenge to put together a definitive book in a fitting tribute to him. His youngest daughter Nene S. Bowman and I have not given up trying. Availability of materials and information resources about the man was not our problem at all. Quite the opposite, it was the rich trove of materials and resources he left behind that overwhelms.
I have tried the approach of walking away--taking a break as it were--from the effort in the hope that a mental "reset" was what I really needed. I could not embark on the project by myself. I didn't have authority or the wherewithal to write the story of a man who led a life too grand and too deep it had eluded for many years the valiant efforts of other writers before me to grasp and consolidate it into a book.
Why would it be so difficult, I wondered. The best answer I could come up with is that it is difficult to write about a legacy that is perpetually a work in progress. The man has died, but his vision lives. And that vision grows. If you managed to capture that vision in eloquent expository today, it would be obsolete by tomorrow.
Not only was Benjamin Salvosa's vision uncontainable, he was indescribable. He was familiar as he was mysterious. He was candid as he was profound. He was blatant and enigmatic at the same time. I realized that after working for him and with him in newspaper journalism or fourteen years, from 1980 to 1994, I finally got to the point when I knew everything about him. Except for who he was.
Of all the titles and accolades given to him, Daddy Ben was only really happiest and proudest of one: "Publisher of the Gold Ore." He spent the most time in his last years writing, and raising writers--myself included.
NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:
Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON
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