When I first entered the University of the Philippines? veterinary school in 1971, I realized I had walked into a haven of machismo. The tiny college had mostly male students and had three frats. Get hold of yourself now as I name them.
First, there was the Society of Men, or SM, one of whose better known members being former secretary of agriculture Salvador Escudero III (a.k.a. father of Chiz). Then, there was SAVER, which meant Society for the Advancement of Veterinary Education and Research. The two frats had links with the bigger Greek letter types; I think SM was close to the Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternity and SAVER to Beta Sigma.
Finally, there was a third frat called VKV, which stood for Venerable Knights Veterinarians. Long before the ?Sir Mike? and ?Sir Jorge? (our opinion editor) era, VKV had appropriated the imagery of knights, even if they rarely rode horses and if they did it was for the rodeo. (Okay, since I named the three frats I have to name the other two organizations. One was a sorority, the Lady Vets, and the other was a co-ed organization, the Rodeo Club.)
I remained non-affiliated throughout college but got along pretty well with all the organizations. VKV did mean something different to me because these were knights with a soft spot in their heart. I had joined an inter-university group called Integrated Volunteer Services of the Philippines (IVSP), which used semestral and summer breaks to mainly extend medical services to rural and urban poor areas and when I recruited volunteers from among the veterinary students, all the groups responded, but the largest contingents came from VKV and the Rodeo Club.
Those fieldings were not easy, involving some of the most remote areas in the country and we had our share of many unforgettable adventures (imagine, for example, operating on a carabao without dextrose).
Cinco
Fast forward to 2008. I was attending the wake for Dr. Rodolfo Peneyra, one of the best-loved professors at the veterinary college. As Filipino wakes go, it was a time for storytelling as well, and I found myself getting the most fascinating anecdotes about University of the Philippines (UP) vet school from the widow, professor Irma Peneyra, who recently retired from teaching linguistics at UP Diliman.
When you put someone from linguistics and anthropology (that?s me, in my second life after vet med) together, it?s inevitable that the conversation will stray into word analysis. It just had to happen, with Professor Peneyra asking if I knew where VKV?s name came from.
I was baffled. I knew what it meant. I mean, how can you forget Venerable Knights Veterinarians? But its etymology? King Arthur and Camelot?
I came to learn that VKV was started by veterinary students who had gotten grades of 5 (a failing mark in UP). I can almost hear these brods-in-the-making when they finally agreed on a name and proclaiming, ?Cinco con Cinco!? (5?s with 5?s), and why not, vet school is even tougher than med school because you do all the dreaded subjects like anatomy over and over again for dogs and cats and carabaos and cows and pigs and horses and sheep (no goldfish ? we left that to our neighbor, the College of Fisheries).
It was all so wonderfully Pinoy, not only lifting yourself from adversity but banding together with other ?failures? and vowing to help each other. Not satisfied with organizing, they just had to poke fun at each other and themselves, turning the tragic ?cinco? into an organizational name.
I was able to get more information about VKV?s name from an organizational history compiled by Dr. Jose Molina and other VKV members. The Cinco con Cinco group eventually modified their name to ?5 Kappa 5,? with members calling themselves Kappans. There was still parody here on the Greek letter system of the more elite student fraternities. With time, the ?5? was Romanized to ?V? to produce VKV. In another fascinating twist, the organizational name came after the abbreviations. Looking for something to fit VKV, the brods hit on ?venerable? from the ?kagalang-galangan? in the revolutionary Katipunan?s name, and ?knights? from, yes, Camelot.
Mind you, VKV initially remained faithful to its ?Cinco con Cinco? roots. Their organizational history proudly notes that membership during the early years of the frat was actually limited to students who had the distinction of obtaining at least one grade of ?5.?
That requirement was later removed and VKV?s graduates, with or without a ?5,? have gone on to leaving their mark on the veterinary profession. They now have a VKV-VLV (Venerable Lady Vets), with chapters in 19 veterinary colleges. With more than a thousand members now, including too many accomplished ones to name, VKV and VKV-VLV members are to be found in the private sector, in government and in the academe, both here and overseas.
A different frat
A few weeks after I learned about Cinco con Cinco, one former classmate and VKV member, Venancio ?Boy? Garcia Jr., e-mailed me asking if I could write about them as they mark their 50th anniversary. My regular readers know I?m generally wary about fraternities but I thought I?d make an exception with this very different frat.
As Boy reminds me, VKV did help its members not so much with avoiding 5?s but surviving the many challenges, including financial ones, of college life. The brods also were around to help new graduates find jobs and set up businesses. Boy, who is based in the United States, says this network extended overseas.
Now in its golden anniversary year, VKV and VKV-VLV are living up to its long history of helping out by establishing a foundation that aims to raise P10 million for scholarships, as well as rabies control programs and livestock livelihood projects in poorer communities.
I know the more elite frats and sororities have similar projects but VKV?s example is all the more touching given their humble (and humbled?by a 5) origins.
I?m going to end with a call to the alumni to join VKV?s 50th anniversary activities. There?s an ongoing photo exhibit at the UP College of Vet Med in Los Bańos. On Friday, Feb. 13 at 10 a.m., they?re inaugurating the Jose Solis Museum of Veterinary Anatomy, built with VKV donations. On Feb. 14, the De la Salle Araneta chapter is sponsoring a VKV Family Olympics and that night, there will be an anniversary ball at the Crowne Plaza Galleria Hotel on Ortigas Avenue, including a recognition of the nine brave VKV founders who refused to be cowed (sorry, I couldn?t resist, this is a veterinary article in the year of the cow) by a mere grade of 5.
For more information, call Drs. Joey Molina (+63917 8807577), Will Maligalig: +63920 9217306 or Dante Palabrica (+63922 8130351). You can also email jqm09@yahoo.com or circle_of_willis@msn.com (See how VKV loves anatomy? That circle is found in the brain.)
