Negrense general
promoted

Former Maj. General Rey Ardo was promoted yesterday to Lt. Gen. and chief of the Western Mindanao Central Command and flew to Manila to take his oath of office with other newly promoted generals and officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines before President Benigno Aquino yesterday.

Ardo, son of a fish vendor from Barangay Paraiso, Sagay City, has climbed to the top rank of the AFP since 1987 when he was born in the barrio.

Precisely because it was a cosmopolitan barangay, the then Insular Lumber Company-owned world's largest sawmill spawned hundreds of successful graduates who were not fazed when transported for higher education in the cities.

The atmosphere in Fabrica as the barrio and Paraiso, was middle class where there were no clear class distinctions.

In fairness to the former American managerial personnel, Pinoys from various parts of the country were the workers of the sawmill.

And they did not have reservations about answering their American counterparts. I recall how a Mr. Reid, reportedly a top echelon graduate of an American university, asked for the drawing of the sawmill when a piece of equipment went haywire and caused temporary breakdown.

He told management that he needed two weeks to go over the drawing of the equipment.

Tio Paus Castellano, the sawmill operator, simply swore an oath, then asked the personnel of the unit to move aside. He then tinkered a bit with the equipment and voila, the sawmill was operating once more.

Promoted by President Benigno Aquino were, aside from Ardo, Generals Abraham Bagasing, commander of the Scout Rangers Regiment; Rolando Picar, chief of the AFP Finance Center; Roberto Demines, deputy of the 7 th Infantry Division, and Juan Sumagaysay, deputy commander of the AFP Central Command.

Saturday, Ardo was the guest speaker at a reunion of Fabrica's former residents at the Bacolod Pavilion.

It was the first time Ardo admitted that he finally had found time to return home and renew acquaintances and friendship with former classmates, kin and friends.

He also met with Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr., himself a resident of Takas, Barrio 3, of Fabrica.

Marañon, recalled his trips to the upland area of Minapasok, the logging map of the ILCO in Calatrava.

“We travelled there by railroad car, because there was no roadway going up. And we returned to Fabrica atop longs on railroad wagons,” Marañon said.

Marañon did not recall anymore the tragic crash in Tadlong that snuffed out the lives of scores of upland residents whose remains were recovered crushed to a pulp by rescuers after they were pinned down by the logs.

Gen. Ardo was clearly overjoyed that his mother, Ofelia Ardo, an American citizen was also in town when he came in Saturday.

An American citizen, and now retired from work, she commutes from the States to Negros every year to attend to the “grandchildren” she had picked out to help.

Actually, Ardo had to help his fish vendor parents sell fish daily to augment the family income.

Later, when he took up Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the Cebu Institute of Technology, Ardo applied for and entered the Philippine Military Academy.

“It was not so much because I wanted to be a soldier, but it was the way out to enable my sister to complete her nursing course at the Silliman University, Ardo said.

But Ardo pointed out that poverty is not something we should deplore. “It is a gift that has enabled many Fabricanians to strive hard for them to be able to liberate themselves from its clutches.

He enjoined the Fabricanians, whom he joined as member Saturday, to share with their children the values that we have been impressed with by our forebears and that they should work hard to translate what Rizal had written – those who do not know where they came from will never be able to reach their destination.

The fact that he had signed up as Fabricanian, hints that Ardo will be able to mobilize “Fabricanians I have meet in the past from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to form chapters of members so that we can give back to Fabrica, especially to those left behind as less privileged, what help they need,” was the message from Ardo.*

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