Of school homecomings and class reunions

Tomorrow, the twenty-fourth of January, the Southwestern University High School Classes, including my class of 1966, are coming together inside a hotel in Metro Cebu in order to celebrate our GAHOM or Grand Alumni Homecoming.

- Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez

A number of our classmates are flying in from the US, from various parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Many of them were already here for the SINULOG.

Homecomings are always occasions for coming together and sharing poignant memories and nostalgic moments shared when we were young, innocent, reckless and filled with so much idealism and boundless hopes. The organizing committee has given me the honor and the privilege to give an inspirational speech. Perhaps they are all wondering what I did to my life from a mere high school library janitor in 1963 And so, I will indulge them with a brief story of my life.

In 2004, when I was appointed by the President as DOLE Undersecretary, SWU, led by its owners, the Aznars, gave me the honor of being the Commencement Speaker of the Joint Graduation Exercises by all the colleges and departments held in the iconic Aznar Coliseum. All the members of the Aznar clan were there and I told them that in the year 1963, there was a small boy in slippers and tattered clothes, who knocked at the Aznar Mansion in Villa Aznar. He was applying for the position of school janitor and working student. The Aznars opened the door for that boy.