Columban College

It was in 1947 when the Naval Reservation Junior College (NRJC) was founded by Mr. Pedro Mendoza and Mr. Dionisio Lindayag. It was the only junior college in the Zambales and Bataan areas and its establishment was largely due to their efforts in meeting the needs of the U.S. Naval Base employees at Subic and the people of Olongapo City as well as the demands of time.

As a Catholic educational institution, foremost in her task is the integral formation in faith not only of her students but of the community. Thus, the Catechetical Center was formed in 1972 to professionally train catechists, to assist in the evangelizing mission of the Church and serve the community with special preference for the poor. The catechists once they graduate from the degree program in Religious Education, are fielded to teach Religion in schools and parishes in Olongapo City and Zambales. The Center is financed by Missio Germany.

In `1983, the Vincentian Fathers took over the administration of the College with Rev. Fr. Constancio Gan, CM, as the Rector and Rev. Fr. Justo Moro, CM, as the Vice Rector and Treasurer. The Daughters of Charity took over in 1989 with Sister Stella O. Real, DC, as Directress and Sister Teresita Abastillas as the Treasurer. The shaping of the College was substantially fast grounded to the educational administration expertise of the executive officers: curricular programs were improved and new programs, including the Graduate School, were developed and offered; the second campus located at Bo. Barretto in Olongapo City was taking shape; substantial improvements in the physical plant and other facilities were made in the midst of national economic crisis, most especially after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo and the pull-out of the U.S. Naval Base. All these improvements were geared towards better service to the community and in preparation for accreditation.

In 1993, the Daughters of Charity turned over the administration of the College to the Diocese of Iba where Most Rev. Deogracias S. Iňiguez, Jr., D.D., Bishop of Iba, appointed Rev. Fr. Daniel O. Presto as the first President and Rev. Fr. Amado Cenzon as the Treasurer. It was during this time that the third campus, located in Sta. Cruz, Zambales was established. New offices were created: Research and Development, Community Extension, Alumni and External Affairs, Accreditation Office, all geared towards the attainment of the goals and objectives of the College.

From its inception as a humble academic institution in 1962, Columban College has become the frontrunner in the education of the youth with an enviable reputation of commitment to serve the community of which she is an integral part. The College, over the last several years, has enlarged its operations to accommodate the growing number of its clientele. By virtue of the parents’ trust in her ability to imbue their children with strong Christian values and sense of nationalism, she has enjoyed tremendous success in the face of an uncertain national economy. The new challenges that accompany the advent of the Century, the College recognizes the need for modernity and social progress but remains committed to the preservation of tradition and values. Thus, the College continues to provide society with civic-oriented professionals having Christ at the center of everything.

PRESENT TIMES

Columban College today has three campuses with a total land area of 16.71 hectares. The main campus is located at the heart of Olongapo City just outside Gate 1 of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) with a land area of 6,307 square meters. The second campus is located at Bo. Barretto, just at the outskirt of the City, with a land area of 88,387 square meters. And, the third campus with a land area of 72,440 square meters is located along the major highway at Bo. Naulo, Sta. Cruz, Zambales. The Sta. Cruz campus was established to cater to the students from the capital town to the nearby towns of Pangasinan.

Today, Columban College has more than 6,500 students enrolled from the various professional academic and basic education programs. The quality formation of the students is supported by 132 college faculty members, 84 basic education teachers and 136 non-teaching personnel. These people are the moulders of the minds, body and spirit of the students and the community following the vision, mission and goals of the College. Everyone in the College strives to work for quality education, for culture and tradition, for peace, and the attainment of the core values Maka-Diyos, Maka-Bayan, Maka-Tao, Maka-Kalikasan at Maka-Buhay.

The administrators of the College, wanting to strengthen quality education, have recently pursued the direction of accreditation of its various programs. The Philippine Association of Accredited Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU) is assisting the College towards this objective and has given the programs in education, arts and sciences, and management the candidate status. In addition, the College takes pride of the physical facilities, particularly the new four-storey Nursing building and the four-storey Columban College Laboratory Hotel (with two restaurants, two conference/lecture rooms, well-furnished hotel rooms - laboratory for the HRM and Tourism programs), which boasts of the newest materials and equipment. The CC Laboratory Hotel is the first educational hotel in the Bataan – Olongapo – Zambales areas. The four-storey Engineering and Architecture building and four-storey Computer Studies building house the state-of-the-art computers and technology gadgets, the Industrial Technology Center whose faculty members are trained in Germany and equipment from the grant of Deutsche Gessellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and Kreditanstalt fur Wideraufbau (KFW), the CISCO certification, three-basic education libraries and three-collegiate libraries (where the collegiate library occupies a whole floor located at the main campus), an airconditioned well-equipped strategy room for the Education program, a radio FM station laboratory for the MassCom program, a Travel Agency for the Tourism program, a wide array of computer technician materials and equipment for the computer and internet laboratories, a PLDT WeRoam for the internet laboratory of the Sta. Cruz. Campus, and a lot more to ensure quality academic formation.

For the physical well-being of the students and personnel, as well as the commitment to share the resources to the community, the College takes pride of the gymnasium housing two volleyball courts and one basketball court with 500 sitting capacity bleachers, two outdoor volleyball courts, two outdoor basketball courts, an athletic field with track-oval, and a body building gym with respectable machines. With these, the College hosted several regional athletic meets like the Private Schools Athletic Association (PRISAA) of Region three and the Central Luzon Regional Athletic Association (CLRAA). The College varsity teams always landed within the top three from among the 16 member schools of PRISAA. Team Columban bagged the 1st runner-up in the recent PRISAA meet with 45 golds, 50 silvers and 9 bronzes. The gold medalists are sent to the national meet. One reason why the College is always sought to host the meet is because of the safety since all athletes and coaches are housed inside the Barretto campus.

For culture and tradition, the College, through Dr. Marcelino Miguel Damaso, Jr., the Director of Research, Planning and Development since 1992 established the Zambales Cultural Affairs Office, Zambales Studies and the Zambales Museum of Natural History in 1997. To date, several hundreds of artifacts have been collected ranging from the camisa de chino of the Spanish era, World War II relics, plates and jars from the sunken ships recovered along off-shores of Zambales, priests’ habits and religious materials, Zambales farm implements, stalactites from caves, and others of historical and scientific values. At present, aside from more collections, the Office is busy with the collation of political and religious histories of the different towns of Zambales. The recording and validating of the relics and artifacts is done by Mrs. Eva M. Cruz, Curator and Research Assistant.

For peace and the attainment of core values, the Community Extension Services Office (CESO), through its Director, Prof. Cita Flores ensures that the students and personnel are given chores for the community, programs that are viable and sustainable. Several groups belonging to the economically deprived communities were identified to be adopted for assistance. Foremost of these groups were located at Barangay Pag-Asa, Purok 7b in Bo. Barretto, Sampaguita in Bo. Sta. Rita, Samahang Damayan ng Purok Tres in Bo. Barretto, and Pag-Asa at Pagkakaisa ng Purok 1 in Old Cabalan. These groups were adopted for over three years now and were trained in livelihood and other skills. When everything else is in place, the Basic Ecclesial Community concept is implemented to attain the goal for the Christian community.

COURSES OFFERED AND PERFORMANCE

Columban College has nine major undergraduate divisions, five non-degree programs, and four graduate degree courses. The undergraduate divisions includes engineering (civil, computer, industrial, electronics communication, and electrical), architecture, computer studies (information technology, computer science, information management, office administration), accountancy, business administration (accounting technology, management, hotel and restaurant management, tourism), secondary education (English, Filipino, mathematics, general science, physical education, social studies, library science, religious and values education), elementary education, arts and sciences (social work, mathematics, mass communication, English, political science), and, nursing.

The non-degree programs include midwifery, caregiver, industrial technician (electrical technology, instrumentation and process control, electronics technology), associate in hotel and restaurant management, and associate in office administration.

The graduate courses are Doctor of Education, Master in Business Administration, Master in Public Management, and Master of Arts in Education (educational administration, English language, science education, and religious education)

All of these courses has given pride to the College most notably are the consistent passing in the board examinations for civil engineering, electronics and communications, secondary and elementary education, social work and library science. The joint report released by the CHED and PRC on the performance of schools in various licensure examinations from 1994 – 1998 listed Columban College nationally placing 4th in Social Work (Category 4), 11th in Teachers – Secondary (Category 2), 14th in Teachers – Elementary (Category 2), 14th in Civil Engineers (Category 2) and 88th in Accountancy (Category 2). Within Region 3, given the same period, Social Work was ranked 1st, Teachers-Secondary was ranked 1st, Teachers – Elementary was ranked 1st, Civil Engineers was ranked 1st, and Accountancy was ranked 8th in their respective categories. Today, graduates of these courses were consistently passing the board examinations and on the average garnered scores above the national passing mark. The College has produced top passers foremost in the Civil Engineers were 3rd placer Engr. Armando Gonzales, 7th placer Engr. Renato Gopez, 9th placer Edwin Grate and Engr. Michael Gura to name a few. The new board course, Library Science, just recently produced passers and the newest courses in Architecture and Nursing are ready to face-off the challenge of the board examinations come 2008.

The Business Administration, through Dr. Susan P. Alegoria, intensified the linkages for her group resulting in the signing of several agreements for the international practicum in Singapore and the United States of graduating Management, Accountancy, Tourism, and, Hotel and Restaurant Management students. Through the EA International Services, the students who qualify are deployed in international hotels and restaurants such as Marriott Hotel, Crown Hotel, Indochine, Al Dente Trattoria all of which are in Singapore and Bausche Gardens in Virginia, USA. Aside from this, the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) received grants from Hongkong and China Banking Corporation for their research and community projects for organizing and implementing cooperative livelihood at Cawag resettlement in Subic, Iram resettlement in Cabalan, and Upper Jolo in Tabacuhan for three consecutive years.

The centerpiece programs of the College are the Religious and Values Education, and, Special Education for the Hearing Impaired adhering to the Catholic character and community service of the College. The academic part of the course Bachelor of Science in Religious Education and Values Education is under the College of Education but the formation is under the Catechetical Center. The present Director of the Center is Rev. Fr. Roland M. Almo, Ph. D. All students in this program are admitted as scholars where in turn the graduates devote themselves to the Catechetical Apostolate of the diocese. As a consequence of the need to keep abreast with time and changes, a Master in Education major in Religious Education was offered in 2005.

The Special Education for the Hearing Impaired was started in 1996 as a Segregation Program with Prof. Emilia P. Sanchez as the Coordinator. Assisting in this endeavor is the Rotary Club of North Bay District 3800. In 2000, the Mainstreaming Program was introduced. Para-teacher volunteers mostly parents, brothers or sisters assist in the classrooms with the hearing impaired students. To date, 15 of the special students have graduated in high school. There are at present 11 hearing impaired students enrolled under the Mainstreaming Program and one student under the Segregation Program. A testimony of the effectiveness of the Mainstreaming Program is Jesel Ariola (Business Administration) and Arnold Quimson (Accountancy) who are about to graduate at the St. Benilde College of DLSU.