N.B. – This is the eulogy read by Associate Dean Danilo Arao during the necrological service for Dr. Herminia Corazon Alfonso, retired professor at the UP College of Mass Communication.
EULOGY FOR MA’AM HERMIE
(June 30, 1929-August 11, 2014)
Danilo A. Arao
Ascension Chapel, Claret Church, UP Village, Quezon City
August 14, 2014
This is a moment to mourn the death and to celebrate the life of Dr. Herminia Corazon M. Alfonso or Ma’am Hermie to many of us.
Remembering her life cannot be separate from the history of the UP College of Mass Communication where she was witness to its beginnings as an institute and elevation into a college in 1988. Official records show that she started as publication assistant at the Office of the Registrar in 1951, immediately after she earned an AB English degree, cum laude, from UP. She started working as an instructor at the then Institute of Mass Communication in 1967, or two years after the latter’s establishment. Incidentally, she concurrently served as Acting Institute Secretary from 1967 to 1969. With the help of then IMC Founding Director Gloria Feliciano, she was given a grant to study at the Annenberg School of Communication in the University of Pennsylvania. That was where she earned her MA and PhD Communication degrees in 1971 and 1992, respectively.
When she retired as a full professor in June 1996, she actually did not leave the College as she still served as a professorial lecturer from June 1997 to March 1999, teaching courses at the Department of Communication Research which has been her second home for much of her professional life at UP since the 1950s.
Her having a second home in this College would perhaps explain why, from time to time, she would visit our College to talk to our faculty and staff, as well as stay at the library to read books and to use the computer to write her memoirs.
Our college library, incidentally, is privileged to have on file a bound compilation of her memoirs written in 2010 and 2011 titled Sum and Substance. If you’re intrigued by the title, Ma’am Hermie explained that this is the definition of the word “résumé” in Roget’s International Thesaurus (1977).
Her bound compilation is full of anecdotes about her professional life, as well as the circumstances behind the founding of UP CMC from her own perspective. For the senior faculty who are here right now, there is no reason to worry: She did not give any incriminating or damaging information to anyone. That’s how kind-hearted she was. She only had nice things to say to her colleagues.
Of course, she did provide some personal details about her colleagues. For example, she mentioned that the first IMC secretary, Anne Solis, was sent to the US to pursue an MA in Journalism. Ma’am Hermie wrote: “That plan for her was nipped in the bud by marriage to an American, and she had to stay on in the United States.”
At this point, let me just cite another anecdote worth telling based on what she had written: When Martial Law was declared in September 1972, Ma’am Hermie was scheduled to deliver a paper in Singapore. She explained: “On the day of my departure we in Greater Manila woke up to a media blackout…and a travel ban. Possible travel was stringently allowed only to a few for important and urgently needed reason.”
That was when she turned to her brother, Brig. Gen. Jaime Alfonso who was, at that time, Assistant Secretary for National Defense. To make the long story short, she was able to get a travel pass despite the tight security. Even then, she had to fall in line under the scorching heat of the sun to get the travel pass. Indeed, just like any UP professor, she had a sense of diskarte to get her way out of a bind and, at the same time, be one with ordinary citizens despite the personal inconvenience.
There are many lessons we can learn from our senior counterparts, and Ma’am Hermie’s sense of commitment to the College is worth emulating. For those left behind, we can only hope to measure up to her high expectations of honor and excellence in the service of the people.
It is unfortunate that her death comes nine days before the launch of the 50th anniversary celebration of our college. She would have been happy to be either physically present or to see the pictures of how the UP CMC community is currently united toward a vision of relevance, as may be seen in the tagline of our celebration: “Midyang malaya’t mapagpalaya.”
You will be sorely missed, Ma’am Hermie. We will always have that picture of you in our mind as you spend time at the College library, your favorite refuge in the twilight of your years. I will not anymore talk about the numerous personal advice you have given to me and my wife Joy, but rest assured that we are following them to the letter. I can only say at this point that, on a personal note, our marriage has become stronger because of your sound advice.
Paalam na po, Ma’am Hermie. Panahon nang magpahinga.