Like us, he is a full-bred Bikolano. He has the unhurried stance that the Bikolano carries, one that takes time to listen to people’s woes and keenly feels the plight of the downtrodden. To the Bikolano, time is more often than not made available for those in need. After all, in Bikol, the breeze blows gently and lives unfold slowly. Rarely does one feel the need to rush.

Like us, he is proud bearer of the name “Bikolano”, son of the land where the world-renown Mayon Volcano stands. And yes, there is elegance and majesty in this volcano of the perfect cone. But lest we forget, it does not come without volatile passion. So it is with Sec. Roco, the Bikolano. Like the Mayon, whose recent eruption was bannered over the national newspapers, he is fuelled by passions that, when aroused, overtake his gentle countenance. When the wrong is blatant, the oppressed laid too low, the truth perverted, the passion in him rises to the surface and the stage is set for reform. We Bikolanos take this as no surprise. Patriots from our region who have come before him delivered the message that death was not something to fear when one had a cause worth dying for.

Bikol also claims him with fierce possessiveness. In this place of a people who know the ravages of poverty and calamities, Sec. Roco is regarded with esteem that borders on being considered a hero. And he could very well be one even as, in Robert Frost’s words, he still has “miles to go before (he) sleeps.” Who can forget the events of a little more than a year ago when the country was in the throes of making a stand to impeach a president? By and large, the collective voice of the people was that impeachment was the right course to take. But the alternatives differed from group to group, region to region. Bikol’s option was unique. It stood behind the moves for impeachment but with a twist: It wanted a new wave of elections so they could get Sec. Roco into the presidency. If there was any doubt that Bikol loved Sec. Roco, this unique alternative that reverberated all over Bikol erased all that.

He is one of us. More than just being a Bikolano, he, too is an Atenean. Like us, he walked through these Pillars where Ateneans across six decades have received their diplomas. He has studied, worked, prayed, laughed, and perhaps wept on these same grounds we now stand. Who knows, he may even have played some harmless pranks, have had his first unspoken crushes, or even broken a heart or two while on this campus.

As an Atenean, he shares with the tradition of academic excellence and spiritual formation that every Atenean undergoes. Certainly, he was drilled in the eloquence that is a legacy to every Atenean, taught the life and spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, pushed to excel, and honed towards being a man of leadership and service, all marks of a Jesuit education.

Ateneo de Naga University claims him as its son and friend. He has sat as one of our Board of Trustees for many years. And today, we honor him with a doctorate degree in recognition of how far he has come. For indeed, he has gone far in ways that have made the hearts of Bikolanos and Ateneans expand with a sense of dignity!

He is one of us, Bikolano and Atenean. And we are proud. But beyond that, Sec. Roco gives solid witness to what a Bikolano and Atenean can become. For Sec. Roco exemplifies that which is possible for a Bikolano and Atenean like us. He joins us today, not so much to be honored but to remind us that dreams are possible, that greatness can be carved out of our lives, that diplomas are not to be hung on walls but in hearts and minds where we can be instruments towards a better life for our people.

Sec. Roco’s life gives us much to learn from. His mother, when asked of her memories of him, shakes her head and insists, “He was ordinary, just an ordinary boy, like any other boy.” Yet granted that he was ordinary, there are heights he has reached that bear witness to the young in search of a model of a life well- lived. It is a life which is exceptional in at least three ways.

First, it is a life that has not hesitated to take risks. He seems to have had a decisive grasp of what he wants and what are important to him. Guided by this, he has boldly and, with hardly a second wavering, translated these into action even when defeat or the loss of popularity has loomed as possible consequences.

He started schooling as a Grade 1 student at the age of 5 ½, a happy accident, his mother says. He had tagged along when his sister was being enrolled, and in jest he was asked, whether he already wanted to go to school. Resolutely, he said, “Yes, I wan to study.” The bishop asked whether he could at least recite the Our Father. His mother exclaimed, “Oh, he can even already recite the rosary.” He was taken in.

Six months later, shortly after his 6th birthday, he was accelerated to the second grade. He subsequently finished elementary at the tender age of 10, then moved to the Ateneo de Naga where he completed high school at 14.

Sec. Roco than finished an AB English degree, Magna Cum Laude at 18 and a Law degree with an Abbot’s Award for Over-all Excellence at San Beda College. He then took his Master of Comparative Law as a University Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been awarded five honorary doctorates to date by various universities.

In his college years, he was the youngest president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines as well as one of the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines in 1964. He then went on to becoming the youngest Bikolano delegate to the Constitutional Convention and the youngest president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

After working as a lawyer for many years, he cast his lot into the political arena. This allowed him to represent the 2nd district of Camarines Sur. In his capacity as congressman, the Ford Foundation and the UP Institute of Strategic and Development Studies (ISDS) adjudged him as first in over-all performance among legislators at the Eight Congress for the period 1987-1992.

In 1992-2001, he served as a Senator, two terms capped by an award called the Bantay Katarungan Award for his “exemplary performance in the Senate Impeachment Trial.” Prior to this, the Free Press had also cited him twice, in 1992 and 1999, as an Outstanding Legislator, one that was subsequently echoed and reechoed by various other publications and awards bodies.

During his senatorial stint, Sec. Roco funded through the budget the increment mandated by the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers for those about to retire. He pioneered the computerization program for schools and meal scholarships at the Philippine Normal University for poor students. He also abolished the NCEE to give opportunities to students to enter college and helped private schools through the automatic release of the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Program (GASTPE) funds, a law which widened access to schooling.

Called the “Honorary Woman”, Sec. Roco authored the Women in Nation Building Law, the Nursing Act, the Anti-Sexual Harassment Law, the Anti-Rape Law, and the Child and Family Court act.

He likewise authored the New Central Bank Law which earned him the name “Father of the Bangko Sentral.” In related moves, he liberalized the banking industry, strengthened the Thrift Banks, and authored the Intellectual Property Code and the Securities Regulation Code.

For overseas contract workers, Sec. Roco abolished double taxation. He has also authored laws to speed up the administration of justice and repealed the Anti-Subversion Law.

Sec. Roco is presently at the helm of the Department of Education under the Arroyo Administration. As Education Secretary, he heads the Philippines’ largest bureaucracy with more than 500,000 public school teachers plus 200,000 non-teaching staff. Though barely a year into this position, Sec. Roco has overturned the department from being the third most corrupt bureaucracy in the country, according to the polls, to topping all departments with a +61 approval rating according to Pulse Asia’s survey last December.

With “Bawa’t Graduate, Bayani at Marangal” as its mantra, his department has shown greater concern than his predecessors for the welfare of the half a million public school teachers in our country. His department has stopped deductions on their salaries for such items as loss of textbooks by their students, excessive x-ray fees, and shortfalls in the collection of fees that were subsequently declared illegal and unauthorized deductions. It has freed teachers to teach by relieving them from many non-teaching duties so that they can concentrate on instruction and the preparation for their classes. It has trained more than 70,000 teachers and non-teaching personnel in short-term courses and given 619 others scholarships mostly on science and math courses.

His department has also enabled more students to have free access to schooling by removing the previous hindrances to study such as compulsory contributions, presentation of a birth certificate, and the like. Programs such as the building of classrooms, 850 of which will be finished this year, the Multi-Grade Educational Program, and the already existing Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Program have been fast tracked in implementation so as to catch up with the country’s vast educational needs.

The curriculum merits priority attention in his department, too. It continues to be studied and reviewed for a higher quality of education by his department. As a result, its present vision is to streamline the subject offering so as to return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The goal of this is the mastery of essential competencies and the honing of analytical skills. To Sec. Roco, no less is required of education in the Philippines which presently boasts of a 95% literacy rate.

Meanwhile, a policy of transparency has governed bidding procedures for textbooks, desks, armchairs, and the like resulting into the reduction in the costs of these. Big and small, reforms have swept over the department. Morale is on an all-time high, and for the first time in many years, teachers wear their profession with self-respect! On a continued banner of reform, he plans to steer his department into the place where education becomes the forefront of nation building – perhaps to the point where there may be little need for military arms.

All told, Sec. Roco has discharged leadership through a solid grip of what is important and the political will to take necessary action, no matter how tough or unpopular. It is said that great love and great achievement involve great risk. No risk has been too great for this man. This is the first lesson his life gives.

Second, his is a life that has seen the joyous blend of both magis – the mark of nothing less than excellence in all things, and cura personalis – the tradition of working as much from the mind as from the heart, making a difference on a wide-scale level while also palpably touching human lives. His accomplishments line the events of his life, but beyond that, he has reached out to people, united himself with their plight and aspirations, and carried these into where legislation and policy could liberate oppression, fulfill people’s dreams. It is such that wherever he goes, but especially in Bikol country, he is mobbed by teachers, farmers, fish vendors, and the common tao with both adulation and feeling that he is “one of them”. Indeed, he is everything a Bikolano is- gracious and endearing in his ways, everything an Atenean is – passionate and revolutionary in thought and action.

Finally, his is a life that knows the power of prayer. When his wife, Sonia and sister-in-law figured in the 1992 Baguio earthquake which claimed his sister-in-law’s life and found Sonia stranded under the rubble for 37 hours, among his first acts was to phone his mother and say, “Go to every church in Naga and pray. Sonia and Peachy are in the Baguio tragedy.” And as if in retrospect on how own life, he penned a song called Kaunting Dasal with words that are almost autobiographical as they are inspiring. It goes:

Sa gitna ng paghihirap
Paano mo kaya mahahanap
Ang iyong mga pangarap
Parang kay ilap-ilap

Sa gitna ng pagdarahop
Paano mo kaya maabot
Ang mga bituwing hangad
Parang kay taas-taas?

Sa kaunting aral
Kaunting sipag
Kaunting dasal
Walang hinding makakamtan
Kahit mayroong hadlang

Sa Kaunting aral
Kaunting sipag
Kaunting dasal
Walang hindi magagawa
Sa mga taong may pagkukusa
Sa kaunting sipag
Sa kaunting dasal.

Kung talagang nanaisin
Kung talagang may hangarin
Tagumpay mo’y mararating
Kung yan ang tangking
layunin.

In recognition then of the inspiration that this man is to the Filipino people, his bearing testimony to a life that fulfills its goals through “a little study, a little diligence, a little prayer”, his legacy of restoring to the Filipino soul a fierce pride in being a Filipino who can stand upright astride global brothers and sisters; his sharing with us the gifts of being both Bikolano and Atenean, showing us that it is our birthright and responsibility to go forth, reach for the stars, and become heroes, the Ateneo de Naga University is most privileged to confer upon Raul S. Roco the degree of Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, in this City of Naga, this sixteenth day of March, in the two-thousandth and second year of our Lord.