How does one make someone’s 86th birthday extra special and memorable, in the process, paying tribute to the person not only for having reached that age, but recognizing as well the significant contributions he has made to society?
Such — and more — was how the family of retired Justice Venancio Duran Aldecoa Jr. “conspired” to make his natal day more than the ordinary celebration they used to have. That his children were able to also keep the whole shebang a secret up to the very last minute was a marvel. As daughter, Assistant Court Administrator of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, Hon. Jenny Lind Aldecoa Delorino, shared: “Papa kept on asking us what we would do for his birthday. We would deliberately answer him in an unclear, vague way, careful not to mention any detail — except that I told him he does not need to do or worry about anything. All he needed to do was just to stay alive!”
Thus, to perpetuate the legacy of this gentle and genteel man of the Bar and of the Bench, the Moot Court/Multipurpose Hall of the Silliman University College of Law located in Villareal Hall is now named Justice Venancio D. Aldecoa Jr. Moot Court/Multipurpose Hall, which was dedicated right on his birthday on March 11.
As Atty. M. Mikhail Lee Maxino, dean of the College of Law stressed, whose idea it was to name the Hall after Justice Aldecoa, who served as the seventh president of Silliman University: “Names are of high importance, and very often, the rituals and ceremonies are elaborate. It is a bestowal of soul on the one who receives the name. It gives identity and a place of the person within society. In fact, it is a symbolic contract between society and the individual. This is not just a ritual for show, but we are being true to the same ideals and principles our honoree holds dear.”
Going by its motto of “law with a conscience” vis-í -vis the motto of Silliman University, “Via, Veritas, Vita,” university president Dr. Ben Malayang III acknowledged that the soul and spirit of the university lie on the people who struggled to create the anathema of the kind of personalities that represented many other Sillimanians. “Let this Hall bear witness to reason with clarity, with dignity, and with integrity. Let the arbiter of what is the truth be the Word of God, the highest arbiter of justice.”
The Moot Court was referred to by Dr. Betsy Joy Tan, vice-president for academic affairs, as “the academic training equivalent for law students to cultivate and turn into razor-sharp legal eagles.” Recalling the 20 years that Justice Aldecoa devoted to teaching law, she also called him a legal eagle himself. Then a boy of 17, Dodong — as family and associates fondly call him — already had an inclination toward law and order when in World War II, he was assigned to the Intelligence Section of the 75th Infantry Regiment during the Resistance Movement. Less than a decade later, at 26, he had graduated from Silliman University with a law degree in 1952. He became a senior lecturer at the Silliman College of Law for 20 years, was an elected member to the City Council of Dumaguete for four consecutive terms, and a member of the Silliman University Board of Trustees for 15 years, functioning as Board secretary when martial law was proclaimed in the country. He eventually became president of Silliman University, the seventh and the fourth among Filipino presidents.
He fulfilled a succession of legal appointments, namely as presiding judge of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Dumaguete and Negros Oriental, Regional Trial Court Judge of the National Capital Region in Quezon City, and as Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals, the first among three today who come from Negros Oriental.
Calling such feats as “multiple intelligences at work,” Dr. Tan said that Justice Aldecoa likewise did not leave out his faith and his being a family man. Comprising part of the Aldecoa Family Singers with his wife, the late voice teacher, Nelly Romano and their four children, the family won first place in a national competition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and performed in concerts here and abroad, thus, earning for them the title of “Philippine Ambassadors of Goodwill” (as souvenir for the guests, the family gave away the CD version of a tape recording of the Aldecoa Family Singers during their concert tour of the United States in 1979, which daughter Jenny was able to preserve).
Justice Aldecoa has been recognized as the Outstanding Dumagueteno Awardee for Public Service in 1998, the Outstanding Oriental Negrense Awardee for Law in 2004, and the Presidential Trophy Awardee for Meritorious Government Service in 2005.
Officiating in the naming and dedication ceremony was the Rev. Jonathan Pia, Minister of the Parish of Silliman Church. Being a musically inclined family, daughter Jenny, a coloratura soprano, rendered song tributes befitting the occasion — “Dela Fantasia” and “Because We Believe,” as well as granddaughters Jemina Carina Aldecoa Delorino and Jessica Ann Aldecoa (daughter of the Justice’s son, Michael and wife Diolie), with the former playing the ukulele and the latter singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Claiming to be “bereft of words” and assuring everyone that “conspiracy is not a crime in the Philippines,” the honoree confessed that everything that happened in his career were all unplanned. “Being the person that I am today and all that I have accomplished were not even a figment of my imagination. It just happened; things just happened. God made it happen,” said this humble boy from Daro, Dumaguete.
Son-in-law Chito Delorino, a bank executive in Manila, said it succinctly on behalf of the family: “Indeed, the Lord provided, delivered, and protected. To our great relief, our secret was safe up to the very last minute! Papa’s surprised reaction and happiness is the best reward we could ever hope to get for the fruit of our labors and voluntary vow of silence.”
