By: Emme Rose Santiagudo
WEST Visayas State University (WVSU) and the rest of the Ilonggo community rejoiced as the fully furnished WVSU Cultural Center was inaugurated on Monday.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Alexei Nograles led the inauguration ceremonies on October 9, 2019 together with Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairman Julian Prospero De Vera and Dr. Luis Sorolla Jr. president of WVSU.
Nograles, who paved the way for the P50 million rehabilitation of the cultural center recalled that the center once used to be a venue for the campaign of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte for the presidential elections.
“Today, we rehabilitated this WVSU Cultural Center. During the time of President Rodrigo Duterte when he was campaigning as President, this was used as his venue to address the Iloilo City. During the time, it was very dilapidated,” he said.
After the elections, he said he committed to help the school rehabilitate the cultural center by looking for funds for its rehabilitation when he was still the chairman of the committee on appropriations of the Congress.
Nograles emphasized that it is his one way of paying homage to the school which produced many outstanding students and scholars where it got its rightful tag as the “Home of Topnotchers”
“This is our way of saying thanks to WVSU for being the home of topnotchers. Alam natin na maraming graduate ng WVSU ang nagta-top ng board exams especially sa education, medicine kaya ito bilang ganti at pasasalamat natin sa WVSU,” he said.
He added that the rehabilitation was also a tribute to the WVSU President Sorolla for his many years of service and achievements for the Ilonggo community.
With the newly rehabilitated cultural center, Nograles said he hopes that it will enhance the quality of education in the school.
Sorolla thanked the cabinet secretary for his invaluable support to the school.
“The whole WVSU community is very happy about it and we are really grateful to Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles because this was in a deplorable condition many years ago so the P50 million that he put in enabled us to rehabilitate it so that this facility would continue to develop the unique Ilonggo culture that we have and also develop the Filipino culture as a whole,” he said.
Sorolla said the cultural center will not only serve the whole WVSU population but also the whole of Western Visayas.
The cultural center was originally constructed in 1978 and was one of the first cultural centers in the region.
