Daily TribuneSy turned his vision into a reality through a milestone partnership between SM Foundation Inc. and IBM Philippines.
Asia Pacific College campus stands as a beacon of hope for over three decades, molding leaders of tomorrow. APC came into being through a partnership between SM Foundation Inc. and IBM Philippines.
Photograph courtesy of SM Foundation
A few years after the first SM mall opened its doors, its founder Henry Sy Sr. revealed a vision that is bigger than the company’s push to create the country’s biggest chain of malls.
When SM City North EDSA opened in 1985, the vision was clear: people’s access to products is important but Filipinos’ access to quality education is priceless.
In 1991, Sy turned his vision into a reality through a milestone partnership between SM Foundation Inc. and IBM Philippines. This collaboration led to the establishment of Asia Pacific College (APC), embodying the timeless adage: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
“Right from the start, the vision was very clear — it was inclusivity,” said APC president Dr. Teresita ‘Tata’ Medado.
“Quality education should be available to all and this was APC’s way of helping the youth to be competitive IT professionals for the industry.”
The SM group emphasized this commitment to inclusivity when the company insisted that APC operate as a non-profit and non-stock institution.
It was the ‘90s, and the boom of the information technology (IT) sector was in full swing.
Countless theorizing and key innovators have alluded to interconnectivity beyond anyone’s imagination.
Encapsulated in APC’s core values of industry, integrity and innovation, it became the College’s mission to educate students to become world-class with a strong IT-based foundation.
Today, APC continues its legacy of providing quality education, earning a perfect QS 5-star rating in four categories: inclusivity through a wide array of scholarships; online learning via Hyflex (Hybrid-Flexible), which emphasizes empathy, equity, and engagement; flexible teaching methods; and, employability with 92.8 percent of graduates securing key positions in the industry.
QS Stars is a world university rating system that was developed to allow educational institutions to showcase their strengths.
The institution has upheld its legacy of inclusivity, supporting 9,300 scholars: 7,000 from public schools, 1,000 from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP), and over 1,300 from SM Foundation.
Overall, APC provides scholarship support to 80% of its students, with P9 million awarded in 2023 and a total of PHP 700 million in scholarships over the last 18 years.
What started with only a handful of around 15 students, today, APC has over 7,221 graduates.
Beyond SM’s scholarship program through its corporate foundation, its advocacy to promote quality education through APC also allows any accepted public school student to pay only half of the posted tuition fee.
APC’s world-class students
Among the graduates is Rey Buyco, a former SM Scholar and cum laude graduate back in 2017. Buyco recalled that his journey, albeit tough, did not deter him from giving up on achieving his dream.
Looking back, Buyco shared how his mother and he had to sleep on a cardboard box along the streets of Manila when their home burned down (due to an accident near the firecracker store they used to own).
He also remembers when Mr. Sy used to attend APC’s general assembly.
“It was very inspiring for him to do that,” he added. “It goes to show that SM wants to help us and ignited our passion to continue our studies.”
Buyco is currently based in London, England as a senior qualified auditor for Ernst & Young.
APC’s excellence and impact on the IT industry marked another milestone with one of its alumni Rom Gapuz, whose path to success was also supported by SM and APC.
A couple of months ago, Gapuz achieved the feat of becoming the first Filipino to earn all 15 Amazon Web Services (AWS) certifications including three who are already retired.
Gapuz and Buyco are only two of the many successful graduates of APC. In fact, from the graduating classes from 2020-2022, the employability rate of APC students is at 92.8 percent within 24 months from graduation.
“We are immensely proud of Rom and Rey,” Medado said. “Their journeys echo our core values of industry, integrity and innovation. Successes like these, with the likes of Rey and Rom, serve as inspirations not only to our students but also to us, their teachers.”
Championing education
With over 20 million enrollees this past school year 2023-2024, and classroom deficits reaching the thousands, the SM group continued its support to the educational facilities and capabilities of the country to address these challenges.
