By: Genevieve B. Kupang and Ma. Ditas A. Fernandez
Calasiao, Pangasinan, July 12, 2026. In the fertile plains of Pangasinan, one title has come to face for resilience translated into an establishment: Dr. Lourdes S. Fernandez, founder and President of the Philippine College of Science and Technology (PhilCST) in Calasiao, Pangasinan, Philippines, now a first-class municipality on the coronary heart of the province. Her story started within the rubble of Dagupan’s devastating 1990 earthquake. Before she grew to become an academic chief, she was a hotelier and a religious follower of St. Joseph. When the earthquake left Dagupan in ruins, Dr. Fernandez regarded on the devastation surrounding them and noticed a gap, a likelihood to construct one thing new for Dagupan City’s displaced college students, dad and mom, and professionals simply outdoors Dagupan.
Rising from an Earthquake
The wreckage of the Magsaysay Bridge is a stark reminder of the destruction the 1990 earthquake left throughout Luzon, together with in Dagupan City. Photo credit score: Edwin Tuyay.
On July 16, 1990, a highly effective earthquake tore via Dagupan City and many elements of Luzon, decreasing colleges, companies, and houses to ruins in a matter of moments. The destruction was so extreme that the town reportedly resembled a struggle zone within the earthquake’s quick aftermath (Sotelo, 2016). For three years, Dagupan City rebuilt itself slowly, sustained by the bayanihan spirit of communities decided to get better what the earth had taken.
It was within the shadow of that devastation that Dr. Fernandez made a choice that might alter the academic panorama of the area. Rather than anticipate Dagupan’s establishments to get better totally, she resolved to construct one thing new, a few kilometers away, for these whose schooling and livelihoods couldn’t merely pause. Her imaginative and prescient was additional formed by then-President Fidel V. Ramos’s nationwide program “Philippines 2000,” a name to remodel the nation into a modernized, globally aggressive nation by the flip of the century. Where others noticed solely earthquake aftermath, Dr. Fernandez noticed a gap to construct one thing new in Calasiao, at the same time as Dagupan was nonetheless rebuilding what the quake had destroyed.
PhilCST’s first constructing was constructed in 1993 in Nalsian, Calasiao. Pangasinan. Photo credit score: PhilCST.
In 1993, she constructed a four-storey constructing in Nalsian, Calasiao, Pangasinan, the primary faculty establishment ever established in that municipality. On June 4, 1994, PhilCST formally opened its doorways, turning into a beacon in a city nonetheless discovering its footing 5 kilometers from a metropolis in restoration.
Building Beyond the First Foundation
What started as a single construction grew, yr by yr, into an establishment outlined by growth matched with intention. In 2008, PhilCST added a second four-storey constructing alongside the southern edge of its campus, housing twenty-eight lecture rooms, an amphitheater, and a totally computerized speech laboratory, together with devoted house for the Mother Lourdes Learning School’s (MLLS) youngest learners. A 150-meter multi-purpose gymnasium quickly rose between the 2 buildings, constructed to carry the whole lot from sporting occasions to commencement ceremonies, proof of a founder who understood that a faculty just isn’t solely lecture rooms however a group that wants an edifice to collect and have a good time.
By the beginning of the 2009-2010 tutorial yr, Lourdes Building IV opened its doorways, a three-storey construction including sixteen extra lecture rooms, an indoor firing vary, a TLE simulation room, an accreditation room, a chemistry laboratory, and the Office of the Research Director. Each addition traced the identical throughline: a founder constructing for scale and what her college students and college would wish subsequent.
A Mission Rooted in Human Dignity
Dr. Lourdes S. Fernandez, the beloved founder-president, with directors and college after a Baccalaureate Mass.
At the core of PhilCST’s id is a mission that Dr. Fernandez embedded from its earliest days: the popularity of each human being as a potential agent of constructive change. It is a philosophy that reads much less like a slogan and extra like a founder’s private conviction translated into institutional coverage. Under her management, PhilCST has grown into what its group now calls a premier increased schooling establishment within the North, identified for educational packages spanning engineering, criminology, enterprise, schooling, and the sciences, alongside a monitor file of graduates who’ve gone on to go licensure examinations administered by the Professional Regulation Commission and technical assessments below the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
A Leader Who Still Shows Up
Dr. Fernandez’s management has by no means been confined to the boardroom. In the aftermath of extreme flooding that positioned Calasiao below a state of calamity, she and the Gironella household, PhilCST’s senior officers, personally coordinated the donation of 100 sacks of rice to the Local Government Unit of Calasiao, standing alongside Mayor Patrick A. Caramat in a gesture of bayanihan that echoed, three a long time later, the very spirit that led her to discovered the college within the first place (O. F. Gironella III, private communication, July 3, 2026). It is a small however telling element: the lady who constructed an establishment out of the ashes of one catastrophe was nonetheless, a long time on, the primary to reply when catastrophe struck once more.
Dr. Fernandez leads by instance, instilling the values of empathy and management in her kids, son-in-law, and grandchildren. Together, they stand on the entrance strains of the college’s reduction and gift-giving missions, guaranteeing that care reaches the group when it issues most.
Her management is, in essence, a masterclass in turning a founding story into lived influence. More than thirty years in, she stays a president nonetheless hungry to deliver new concepts residence to her college.
A Legacy Still Being Written
The PhilCST tutorial group in the course of the thirty second Moving-Up Ceremony and Commencement Exercises, June 25 and 27, 2026. The theme: “Beyond the Degree: Advancing Communities Through Academic Excellence”.
Unlike establishments whose founding tales fade into archival footnotes, PhilCST’s historical past stays visibly, tangibly alive in Dr. Fernandez’s continued presence on the helm. Dr. Lourdes Fernandez continues to put in writing her personal chapter in actual time, nonetheless strolling her campus, nonetheless receiving her college’s gratitude in particular person, and nonetheless, evidently, unwilling to let catastrophe have the ultimate phrase in Pangasinan.
Hers is a story that deserves to journey past Calasiao’s borders: of an earthquake that might have ended chance, and of one girl who selected, as a substitute, to construct a four-storey reply to it. Three a long time later, that reply has turn out to be a faculty, a group, and a persevering with act of religion in what schooling and one decided founder can do for a province nonetheless rising into the whole lot Fidel Ramos as soon as imagined for a nation getting into a new century.
To us, because the authors, she is an distinctive girl of peace, grit, and love!
#TatakPhilCST #TatakUbe #YourFutureStartsHere
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References:
Philippine College of Science and Technology. (2026). About us. https://philcst.edu.ph/
Sotelo, Y. (2016, July 16). Rising from the 1990 quake, Dagupan reveals toughness. Inquirer.web. https://newsinfo.inquirer.web/796321/in-rise-from-1990-quake-dagupan-shows-toughness
About the Authors:
Genevieve B. Kupang, PhD, is an utilized cosmic anthropologist and cultural mapper whose work bridges historic knowledge and postmodern innovation, from AI to peace scholarship and world increased schooling. She serves as Dean of the Graduate School and International Relations Officer of Baguio Central University, WURI Historian, and Secretary of the World University Network of Innovation for Leaders. She is a member of the choice committee and management workforce of the Exceptional Women of Peace Awards below Pathways to Peace, Minnesota, USA, and Peace Education Chair of the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction. As a common contributor to Pressenza, the worldwide press company for peace and nonviolence, she has documented the tales of empowered girls leaders and others whose work has made a vital influence on society
Ma. Ditas A. Fernandez, EdD, serves because the Director of Research and Educational Programs at Philippine College of Science and Technology, the place she evokes innovation in instructor coaching, inclusive schooling, and lifelong studying. Her honors embody Outstanding Educator of the Year, Outstanding Professional, Boy Scout of the Philippines Service Award, JCI Philippines Outstanding Student, and CUM LAUDE – Civil Service Eligibility. Through instructional visits throughout ASEAN, she has strengthened her experience in classroom supervision and instructional management. As former Ambassador for T4 Global Teachers and Tech and Kids for Peace, she continues to advance her establishment’s mission and create a lasting distinction for college kids and college, each domestically and overseas.