Oftentimes, we blindingly do something out of tradition. No questions asked, just execute the work because the people who came before us did the same. Because of this, we tend to disregard the possibility that there could be a deeper meaning or a significant reason behind an act, one that is worth knowing and most especially, worth sharing to others.
The annual Silliman MassCom Week for the last three years, which falls in the month of February, senior students would conduct a clean-up at the gravesite of Henry W. Mack, best known to us as one of the pioneers of local radio station DYSR in barangay Banilad.
That fact was most of what my batchmates and I knew of the person. We knew nothing more about this man, after whom one of our classrooms, the air-conditioned Henry Mack Studio on the 2nd floor of Guy Hall, was named.
In our freshman year, someone shared with us a horrifying story of how Henry Mack died. In my mind, I envisioned him as a lonely man who died an agonizing death.
This time three years later, I learned that the story was a sensationalized version of the real story.
Prior to the clean-up, our teacher in Environmental Communication instructed us to bring sacks, rakes, broom sticks, and bolos — which made us wonder how this gravesite really looked like. Why do we have to bring such tools? Apparently, it wasn’t simply a four-walled chamber with a tomb.
We got to the American Cemetery inside the Chinese Cemetery in barangay Daro in the early morning of Saturday, Feb. 18. We easily found the place because the previous SU Masscom batch had hung a neat signboard on its short wrought iron gate that was now beautifully covered by the pink flowers of cadena de amor.
The American Cemetery has a refreshing overlooking view of the red rubberized oval of the Perdices Stadium, and is the only shady portion of the Chinese Cemetery because of the full-grown mahogany trees and indian trees lining its fence.
The heavy rain that poured the previous night made the ground soft, the knee-high grass wet, with the air embracing us with its humidity. We were welcomed with mounds of cut grass almost a meter high.
We learned that a day earlier, Ruben Bokingo, president of the SU Masscom Alumni Association, his father Ben, and their workers had started clearing the area of waist-high grass. The Bokingos were Silliman colleagues and neighbors of Henry & Margaret Mack.
Other Americans who had made Dumaguete their home were also buried in the same grave yard. We saw tombs of T. S. Dodd, W. M. Baugh, Ila Smith-Munn, Cal Reed Cole Sr., Elena A. Cole, Cal Reed Cole Jr., Charlie Bell Cole Sr., Rev. Lapsley Armstrong McAfee, Robert Sherry Matheson, and Elliot Thomas Bell.
With our bare hands or with sticks or broken tiles, we began clearing the slashed muddy grass, plastics, broken bottles, even rotten underwear, for the SU Buildings & Grounds personnel to collect. We were hesitant to do the literal “dirty job” at first, not to mention the disturbing stench of the unimaginable. We were guessing it was the easiest candidate for the cemetery’s dumping ground because hardly anyone visited the graves there on Mondays nor on All Saint’s Day.
We persisted, however, because we only wanted to get it over and be done with it so we could all go back to our beds and resume our sleep. It was a weekend after all.
While we were gathering the muddle of grass and stones, at least one of us must have been wondering who Henry Whitcomb Mack was, the very person, the very reason why we were at the American Cemetery at that time.
In Margaret Patterson Mack’s My Heart’s Recollection, she remembered her husband’s hobby and enthusiasm: Henry’s mind was constantly at work, thinking up things to write… He wrote study books for the students on Practical Christian Living from Jesus’ teachings. He wrote Ten Commandments for Husbands and Wives.
When Henry Mack took over the helm at DYSR started by Roy Bell, he embraced with gusto the challenges that came with the responsibility, such as programming, equipping the personnel, and expanding the reach of the audience.
Henry Mack also put a lot of effort for the beautification of the transmitter site at Camp Seasite. In her book, Margaret wrote that her husband envisioned the area as a “place where people from the towns could come for retreats and conferences….He enjoyed donning shorts and wading into the lake to pull out the millions of weeds that were choking the waters.”
Henry Mack’s dedication to the improvement of the radio station and in the spreading of the Word was indeed admirable. A man on a mission, he came up with ways how to reach out to communities and to interact with them.
The Wayside Chapel, an audio-visual trailer which he built with his Theology students, brought movies and Bible teachers to the small villages. Margaret described the set-up as “a wonderful training and outreach” program.
Now we are aware of the deeper meaning and significant reason behind our clean-up activity that Saturday morning, in celebration of the 46th year of the SU College of Mass Communication.
And to have taken part in it was a great honor for us seniors because we did it for a man who bravely accepted the responsibilities given to him — and maybe unbeknownst to him — inspired many other student journalists with his work ethics and journalistic ideals.
