By Professor Danton Remoto
The death last August 15, 2021 of Father Roque J. Ferriols of the Society of Jesus was a source of grief for many of us. Not just the Jesuits, the faculty and staff of Ateneo de Manila University, but also his thousands of former students and alumni who remember him as a memorable presence on campus. He passed away at the age of 96.
Father Ferriols pioneered the teaching of philosophy in Filipino not just at Ateneo but also in the country. At a time when Filipino was seen as an inferior language that could not capture the shapes of thought of so arcane a subject as Philosophy, Father Ferriols sailed full steam ahead and taught it. Father Horacio de la Costa, S.J., another towering intelligence and an accomplished historian, called Father Ferriols “the only true genius of the Society of Jesus.”
Later, I was privileged to publish five of Father Ferriols’ books when I was the Director of the Office of Research and Publications at Ateneo. People had warned me about his volcanic temper, but I wanted to publish his manuscripts and made an appointment to meet.
It seemed he had already read the poems in my first book, Skin Voices Faces, and he welcomed me warmly. He said he would be happy to entrust all his manuscripts to me, with the caveat that his Filipino is a mixture of Zambales and Sampaloc, Manila, Tagalog and should not be touched. I did not allow anyone to edit his books, which went to award after award every year from the Manila Critics Circle’s National Book Awards.
I also bought him three short-sleeved polo shirts every year during his birthday, as presents from my office for our best-selling and famous author. Dr. Leovino Maria Garcia, then Ateneo dean, was the one who told me that Father Ferriols would be happy to receive short-sleeved polo shirts as birthday gifts.
As a professor without peer, Dr. Garcia recalls Father Ferriols.
“There are as many Ferriols as there are many people who love him. People who did not know Fr. Ferriols in the early sixties will have to summon their creative imagination to see and believe that the ‘Apo’ went to class actually wearing ankle-length black boots and dark-rimmed glasses (like Ninoy Aquino’s). Fr. Ferriols had not yet taken seriously T.S. Eliot’s line “I grow old. I grow old. I shall wear my trousers rolled.” Some days, he even looked impeccable in his newly-pressed white sutana.
“At this time (1962), he felt secure without his umbrella and bag. His Ilocano sounded Greek to me and yes, his Greek Ilocano to me. His fiery temper had not yet become legendary. Later, when his students sank into dogmatic slumber, he rudely awakened them. Before he became regarded as an ‘institution’ walking on campus, he struck everyone as a regular genius who smoked Camel cigarettes and enjoyed a few drinks, like any respectable Jesuit.
“I first met Fr. Ferriols as a 17 year-old sophomore at Ateneo; he was 37 at the time. As a Humanities major, he taught me nearly all my philosophy courses—all the four History of Ideas courses, Ontology, Philosophy of Religion, Gabriel Marcel, Teilhard de Chardin, Søren Kierkegaard, Indian Philosophy, and the Greek Classics. He fired my imagination, gifted me with the passion for philosophy, and inspired me to dedicate my life to philosophy.
“There is an instance when Fr. Ferriols struggled to literally reserve a space for me and my parents. Just after my graduation, my parents and I were returning to Tuguegarao. Fr. Ferriols and Fr. Jose A. Cruz, then teaching philosophy, offered to drive us to the Rural Transit bus terminal near the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan. To reserve seats for us in the bus, which was on a first come-first served basis, Fr. Ferriols tucked the lower part of his sutana and ran alongside the arriving bus and clambered up the window, head first, legs dangling out. Later, we saw Fr. Ferriols and Fr. Cruz (in their sutana) standing on the roof of the bus, arranging and tying our luggage. I will forever remember the two figures silhouetted against the afternoon sky.
“Early on, I had caught a glimpse of Fr. Ferriols’ priestliness. In July 1964, I invited him to visit my family in Tuguegarao. He stayed in the convent with his cousin, the late Monsignor Ricardo Jamias, then parish priest; my older brother-priest, Quintin, was one of the assistants. During his stay, I accompanied Fr. Ferriols to give extreme unction to a dying child, and then to a dying policeman. After that, he cut short his stay to immediately go on a retreat.
Fr. Ferriols has written many letters to his protégé, Dr. Garcia. Here is one of them.
“Last night the world was losing itself in soft, black rain. Now it is a rain-washed morning. Dustless, cool, a new birth. Cloudy still, with slight promises of wet. But life comes from the sea. So, still a new birth. Still a fitting time to wish you the best of things as you count twenty two years on this exasperating earth which God has prepared for us with His so unexplained and stubborn love.
“Camelot is playing on the phono. (I wangled the record from Fr. Cebrero). The trumpets and voices are so heavy with past and future, with what I cannot understand, but is true and precious. The truth I thought to forget like the peasants of Yevtushenko: In wanderings finding fortitude to forget what each of them loved more than his life.’
“But it seems it will not be so. I have to look for the fortitude that is without wandering and forgetting. But your life is still new. May you feel it as new. And when your old years come, may you still be new inside. May you be alive and new as only the old can be. May you never have to try to forget by wandering through mud and rock, beyond cliff and upland, but (to use an old Irish blessing): May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back and may God ever hold you in the hollow of His hand.”
Danton Remoto’s novel, Riverrun, and book of stories called The Heart of Summer have just been published by Penguin Books. He also translated three Tagalog classics into English for Penguin SEA. All books are available at www.acrephils.com and Fully Booked Online.