Once upon a reunion weekend

What have you really achieved with a little moxie, grit and a University of Santo Tomas diploma?

It's the question to ponder among UST's alumni cohort of high achievers, known far and wide but were now all back to school to share their success stories over dinner.

The Distinguished Thomasian Alumni Awards by the UST Alumni Association celebrated this year some largely unsung pillars of the country's success in science and the arts, and a purpose bigger than many great leaps forward: a pro bono lawyer, a social entrepreneur, a publisher duty-bound to the truth, a bishop, an artist with renegade ideas and a musician who doesn't have a 9-to-5 job, but landed a career.

Some missus hollered at a "doctor for the poor": "For the grace of St. Thomas Aquinas, who must be very proud!"

The saint couldn't make it to the banquet, nor send a kiss by wire. But he was able to transmute his pride and vindication into an alum's "commencement speech" after tumbling off his mighty perch in heaven for the breadth of the credit he's receiving.

The address evoked the collegiate nostalgia of troublemakers and straight-A students, of "trauma essays" and standardized tests.

It evoked a motherlode of lessons in failures and victory laps, the ceremonial passage through "the arch" before they're handed over to the "real world," and the definitive feeling upon their return that they never really ever leave school.

That's the prestige of a UST education and the association that goes with it — for most alums, it's only like moving out of your parent's home, where, whether or not you had it all figured out, the marching order is to be a force for good, when it's never a path of least resistance.

Some of the over 60 distinguished Thomasians this year are Msgr. Nilo Peig, Most Rev. Manolo de los Santos, Atty. Renato Cuisia, Dr. Ramon Panlilio, Engr. Elvira Arceo, Jovenal Francisco Jr., Maribel Nonato, Wilfredo Sevilla, Reynald David and Pacifico Eusebio.

Their names are enshrined in the fellowship of notable people UST has ever produced, such as Justice Bernardo Abesamis, Dr. Patricia B. Navarro, Jollibee's Tony Tan Caktiong, renowned glass sculptor Margie Organo Tajon, former Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez, former beauty queen Miriam Quiambao-Roberto, veteran journalists Jullie Yap-Daza and Francisco Tatad, actor Jonathan Anthony Lapuz, Cong. Ferdinand Hernandez and DAILY TRIBUNE executive vice president Maria Bettina Mangcucang-Fernandez.

The award qualifies them as potential contenders for The Outstanding Thomasian Alumni Awards, the highest honor bestowed by UST to its alumni.