Balik-Tanaw: Celebrating 50 Years with Fr Ting and Fr Ben
18 Oct 2023 | Dr Lester Hao
The School of Science and Engineering (SOSE) celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Fr Antonio “Ting” S Samson, SJ and Fr Bienvenido “Ben” F Nebres, SJ’s ordination as Jesuit priests last 29 September 2023 (Friday; 5 – 6:30 p.m.) at CTC 413-414.
“Balik-Tanaw: Celebrating 50 Years with Fr Ting and Fr Ben” was held in cooperation with the Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics and was hosted by Dr Fabian Dayrit and Dr Catherine Vistro-Yu. It was an event of jubilation and reminiscing, as both Fr Ting and Fr Ben shared their personal stories and insightful reflections on the past five decades. More importantly, Balik-Tanaw provided a platform for the honorees and attendees to remember, as we traversed through significant milestones and challenges in the last 50 years, not only as an academic institution but as one people and nation.
Knowing Our Honorees
Dr Vistro-Yu opened the event by introducing the two honorees; this highlighted their roots and engagements as Jesuit educators and administrators.
Fr Ting finished both high school and college at Ateneo and obtained the degree AB Chemistry in 1958, cum laude and class valedictorian. He then joined the Society of Jesus at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches, Quezon City in May 1958 and was ordained in April 1973. He began to teach Chemistry during the second semester of School Year 1970-1971 and was appointed as the Director of the Office of Admission and Aid in 1973. He then took on key administrative positions: Executive Vice President of Ateneo de Manila (1977-1986), President of Ateneo de Davao (1986-1993; late 2004-2011), and Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan (1993-2005).
Fr Ben graduated with a degree in Philosophy from Berchmans College in Cebu in 1962. He obtained both his MS and PhD in Mathematics from Standford University (1965-1970). He was ordained in 1973. Also in 1973, Fr Ben was appointed Dean of Ateneo de Manila University's College of Arts and Sciences, a position he held until 1980. Following this, he served as the Rector of the Loyola House of Studies (1980-1982), Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in the Philippines (1983-1989), President of Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan (1990-1993), and President of Ateneo de Manila University (1993-2011).
Reminiscing: Recollections and Stories
After the introduction, Dr Dayrit prompted the beginning of the program’s main focus: the honorees’ sharing of stories and recollections through the past fifty years.
Fr Ting began his recollections with Ateneo’s history. He narrated how the Spanish Jesuits originally set up Ateneo to be a public school in Intramuros in 1859. With the takeover of the United States after the Treaty of Paris in 1898, the American Jesuits owned and ran Ateneo as a private school. In 1932, the Intramuros campus was destroyed by fire, and this led to the transfer of Ateneo to Padre Faura. In 1952, Ateneo moved to its present site in Loyola Heights; Fr Ting was a second-year high school Atenean. He recalled the small population size back then and how the primary focus of Ateneo was on the formative years of people: for them to become better by receiving good training.
In 1970, he came back to Ateneo to teach chemistry. In 1973, he took on the additional position of Director of the Office of Admission and Aid where he was introduced to the task of doing budgets for scholarships. He eventually mastered this task. Even after leaving Ateneo de Manila, he stayed as a member of the Finance Committee from 1977 to 2015. To this, he humorously mentioned how he took on work in finance without even attending a single course in economics or accounting. But on a more serious note, Fr Ting shared that “whatever I learned, I learned from other people.” He then added that he worked in education his whole life, highlighting the 25 years he spent at Ateneo de Davao University and Xavier University. As to how he ended up in Chemistry, he replied: “I don’t know.” The audience erupted in laughter at his candid remark.
Fr Ting also recounted his involvement in the 70s and 80s with the first science consortium among the University of the Philippines (UP), Ateneo de Manila University, and De La Salle University (DLSU) for doctoral programs in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. He also shared his involvement with the construction of the Philippine Institute of Pure and Applied Chemistry (PIPAC) building and Faura Hall through grants from Japan and the United States, respectively. He concluded his sharing by describing the 70s as a time of big moves for Ateneo. This included the start of co-education in 1973 and the steady increase in the school population.
Fr Ben opened his sharing by mentioning he never studied in Ateneo. He took his high school at the Vigan Seminary and then joined the Jesuits. Fr Ben recounted a brief history of the Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics, with Fr William Schmitt, SJ and Fr Wallace Campbell, SJ as key leaders of each department, respectively. Fr Ben described Fr Campbell as an advocate of doing serious mathematical work. He reformed mathematics for grade school and high school and developed a strong BS Mathematics program at Ateneo. He recalled how Fr Campbell was “a very good salesman” as he would always teach the honors class in 4th year high school and convince the brightest pupils to enroll in the program since “the best course is BS Math.” Fr Campbell likewise endeavored to recruit excellent teachers for the program, such as the late Dr Mari-Jo Ruiz.
When Fr Ben started at Ateneo in the 70s, he saw that Mathematics already had a good undergraduate program. He saw that the next challenge was to develop a PhD program. Since the Philippines had only two PhD’s in Mathematics at that time, they had to bootstrap by first establishing the Mathematical Society of the Philippines (MSP). This allowed them to connect with the Southeast Asian Mathematical Society based in Singapore, from which they would regularly invite their international friends to deliver seminars in the Philippines. Fr Ben also mentioned the MSP allowing them to connect with influential figures for financial support in order to ensure that the PhD students would be able to study full-time. He then recounted a major breakthrough: UP Statistics had funding from the Asian Development Bank to offer a PhD in Statistics, but due to not having enough students, they had available funds for the proposed PhD Math program. However, this came with the condition that students must finish in three years. The first batch of graduates included our very own Dr Norman Quimpo and Dr Mari-Jo Ruiz. Fr Ben then enumerated three arrangements that made this feat possible. First, he confided that with regard to the computation of units, they “had arrangements then that wouldn’t be possible today with the Curriculum Committee and with the CHED.” For him, the most important objectives for the PhD were to pass a comprehensive examination and to produce original work. Second, the consortium with UP and DLSU accorded the PhD students the flexibility to enroll for a course in any of the schools and have it credited to their program. Lastly, the Consortium pioneered the sandwich program, wherein the PhD students were given the opportunity to conduct research in a partner university abroad as part of their PhD program. Fr Ben noted that by the time the consortium concluded in the 80s, it was able to produce a sizable number of graduates who served as the backbone of mathematics, chemistry, and physics in UP, Ateneo, and DLSU, along with the Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT). The almost 100 PhD graduates of the Consortium provided the base numbers needed to kick-start many science programs in the Philippines. Hence, he remarked, “If you want to do something new, and you have limited resources, you really have to say to yourself ‘What is the most essential?,’ and find a way around the bureaucracy… Otherwise, you’d never do it.”
![BalikTanaw_Fr. Ting Samson, SJ and Fr. Ben Nebres, SJ](/sites/default/files/inline-images/IMG_3119-1a.jpg)
Ateneo and Social Movements of the ‘70s
Recalling the 70s, Fr Ben noted how it was a period of activism, co-education, and Filipinization. He remarked that while the Filipinization for religious orders meant ensuring that provincials and presidents of universities of religious orders were Filipinos, for Ateneo, Filipinization meant getting the school, faculty, and students involved in the country. To this, he recounted the establishment of the Office for Social Concern and Involvement and reminisced how the Social Development Complex was very vibrant during that time. Fr Ben further clarified that Ateneo’s preoccupation during martial law was to engage Ateneans with the poor, thereby resulting in engaging martial law from a Christian point of view. Quoting Fr Ben: “We had to find a way for Ateneo to really take care of our people, the poor in particular.” He then lamented how the memory of martial law nowadays is a bit limited and emphasized that Ateneo’s preoccupation was truly on living out Fr Arrupe’s Men and Women for Others, together with academics. In this regard, he recommended reading Down the Hill: Ateneo in the First 10 Years of Martial Law, which was edited by Dr Cristina Montiel and Dr Susan Evangelista.
Academic and Social Reflections
Following the honorees’ sharing, Dr Dayrit inquired them of their reflections given the current academic and social climate.
Fr Ben identified two problems arising from the international ranking systems of universities, such as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (known as THE), which weigh publications as the biggest component. First, since Ateneo focuses on the formative undergraduate years, this is not counted in the rankings. He posited that excellence in publication is individualistic, whereas formation is collective. To this, Fr Ben posed the following challenge for everyone to ponder: “How do you find the correct balance between paying attention to our rankings and not lose track of what is really distinctive about us --- real care for our students and nurturing and formation for them?” Second, Fr Ben contrasted how in the 70s and 80s, Ateneans were brought down the hill due to the country’s prevalent social problems. However, he lamented that nowadays, the disconnect between education and society is becoming wider, as evidenced by more families opting to use English, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the increasing number of our potential young leaders just wishing to go abroad. He then posed another point of reflection for everyone: “I hope we find a way to engage our students to love our country and the poor and to see what they can do for them.” Nonetheless, Fr Ben recognizes that these are external pressures, such that he asks the following: “How far do we yield to these pressures? How much do we say, ‘That’s not totally us.’?” How much do you look at who we really are, and not lose what makes us really Jesuit and Ateneo?”
For his part, Fr Ting sounded the alarm on the declining number of Jesuits in education: “How do we maintain what we feel is important in Jesuit education if there are no Jesuits?” He noted that in this reality we are facing, the small number of Jesuits in the academe can only do so much; hence, there is the need to work closely in tandem with the faculty. To this, Fr Ben reacted with a reflection --- that the laypeople are the future: “...if you believe that the Holy Spirit is still with us, it’s really telling us that more and more of this work will go to laypeople.” Thus, he encouraged the faculty and staff to engage and pass down the values of Ignatian spirituality to our students.
These reflections of Fr Ting and Fr Ben sparked the interaction with the audience. Dr Norman Quimpo, reacted to the rankings, saying that “we were being pulled in the wrong direction.” In addition, he mentioned the possibility of exploring Jesuits training laypeople to conduct retreats. Fr Ben responded, saying that one of the things he owes to Dr Quimpo, Dr Ruiz, and Dr Jose “Joe” Marasigan was that of academic cura personalis in the Mathematics Department. He saw that senior faculty members took care of the next generation of mathematics faculty, therefore passing down the culture and values of the department as an academic community.
Dr Maria Luz Vilches, Vice President for Higher Education, deviating from the serious tone, asked Fr Ben and Fr Ting what their experiences were that they found most fulfilling and most challenging, and how these impacted on their lives as Jesuit educators. In response, Fr Ben found it fulfilling to succeed in Xavier University’s land development problems, as they had to negotiate with 300 urban poor families about their relocation to avoid creating segregated communities. He acknowledged that there have been a lot of challenges along the way, but because he found solving math problems challenging and cracking them as fun and rewarding, the adversities he faced did not daunt him. For his part, Fr Ting found it challenging to do a lot of things that he was not prepared for since he was assigned to different universities that each had its own problems. He recalled the labor strike in Davao as a serious challenge as it involved winning back the confidence of the people. Among the things that he found most fulfilling were the scholarships that were awarded to students for them to receive an Atenean education. He mentioned how it began with a scholarship foundation that supported graduate students with 60% tuition off. He was elated with the increasing proportion of students (around 20%) who are receiving some form of scholarship today. To this, Fr Ben also echoed how it was a challenge for them to integrate students from the poorer sectors, and that one of the things he is very proud of is that 15% of tuition is allotted for scholarships. This serves as a testament to our Atenean culture of having as many scholars as possible.
Finally, Fr Bill Kreutz, SJ fondly shared that 60 years ago, he and Fr Ben were co-teachers in high school and that years later, he took the helm of the Office of Admission and Aid as well. He noted the social direction of Ateneo, and how it is a blessing to engage with scholars as it allowed him to gain a sense of the social dimension. He happily cited the Ateneo Alumni Scholars Association (AASA), as it was able to turn the dream of scholars paying it forward into a reality.
Of Gratitude and Inspiration
![Dr. Guerrero, Fr. Ting Samson SJ, Fr. Ben Nebres SJ, and Dr. Vilches](/sites/default/files/inline-images/IMG_3179-1b.jpg)
As part of the closing remarks, Dr Vilches expressed her gratitude to the honorees. She thanked Fr Ben for inspiring her with his stories, and more importantly, for tapping her potentials to be where she is right now. She likewise thanked Fr Ting for his wisdom on administrative matters, especially with respect to accreditation efforts. Dr Vilches also expressed her appreciation to SOSE and the Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics for serving as their academic home. Lastly, Dr Raphael Guerrero, Dean of SOSE, thanked the honorees for embodying our vision of excellence and living the mission of service, and that Fr Ting and Fr Ben continue to serve as inspiration for us all.
If you were unable to attend the live stream or wish to view the event once more, the recording has been uploaded to the School of Science and Engineering's YouTube channel.