THIS AFTERNOON I SHOULD LIKE TO GET EVEN WITH VICENTE
Guzman Sinco. No, not vengefully but gratefully, as an acknowledgment of debts left unacknowledged for much too long. Talking of him as educator might help even up matters somewhat.
Should this talk get to sound openly adulatory, let me say at once that this is not the intention. What I have to say rests on knowledge informed by reason, working on hard historical data. Some of the material comes from President Sinco's contemporar- ies, and many of them are still hale and hearty enough to be cross- examined. Though sadly now beyond our reach, some others left behind thoughtful accounts about life in the company of Presi- dent Sinco. And I have my own memory of the man. All these of course can be subjected to the most stringent critical analysis. At this conjuncture, let us not forget that knowledge is a function of the quality of the knower's dealings with the object of his know- ing. All these accounts, for all their differences and contradictions, agree on one point:Vicente G. Sinco had been, in his time, Educa- tor par excellence. Some even called him an Educators' Educator in much the same manner that he is also spoken of as a Lawyers' Lawyer. The first among equals. Extravagant as this might sound in these days of the bald assertion and the matter-of-fact praise, the accolade that this epithet amounts to does not seem to come out of enthusiasm blinded by wild partisan admiration. He had earned it, as the record amply shows, in the long haul and under the most trying circumstances. And he received it from the community of academics which is known to all everywhere to this day for its thoroughgoing skepticism and tough-minded conclusions arrived at in the heat of sharp arguments and scathing debates.