The Time I Got a President to Come to My School

July 31, 2025

Back in 1997, I had just wrapped up my graduate studies at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (then IRPS) at UC San Diego (it has since been renamed as UCSD’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, or GPS).

My wife was also finishing her PhD at UCSD, and we’d been in the US for more than five years at that point. Any Filipino who’s spent that kind of time abroad will get this: you start looking for and clinging to anything that reminds you of home. Whether it was renting Filipino videos from Blockbuster (later killed by the Internet), making the pilgrimage to Seafood City for rice and pork with the fat still on, or best of all, the occasional visit from family or friends – those small comforts meant a lot.

So, we also had a subscription to Filipinas Magazine, which arrived maybe once or twice a month. One day, flipping through an issue, I spotted a one-page ad. The Asia Society was putting together a major conference in Los Angeles, and President Fidel V. Ramos, then pretty popular internationally, was slated to give the keynote.

Now, LA’s just an hour and a half from San Diego. So I had this thought: what if I could somehow get him to speak at our school, as part of his official schedule?

Some background: IRPS was still a relatively young grad school focused on public policy, business, and tech in the Pacific Rim. I had studied comparative public policy and political economy in the Southeast Asian region, and had already graduated the year before. The School had already pulled in some heavy-hitting professors, a few of whom were close advisors to U.S. Presidents, and it was starting to build a serious reputation. Big-name speakers visited now and then, but it had not yet had the honor of hosting a sitting President.

So I called my father. He got in touch with Ben de Leon, who was then an undersecretary and close to, if not part of, Ramos’ inner circle. The message came back: it’s possible, but we’d have to make it worth the President’s time.

I brought it up with my course advisor, Professor Andrew MacIntyre, who got really excited about the idea. I asked him, “Can we offer the President a doctorate in humanities, honoris causa?” He said he’d bring it up with the higher-ups.

What happened next was surprisingly quick. Within a week or two, the request moved up from IRPS to the UCSD administration, and then to the UC system heads. The response came back: the University of California doesn’t give honorary degrees - but they could award the UCSD Medal instead.

“What’s the UCSD Medal?” I asked. It was the university’s highest honor, they said, granted very rarely and only to highly distinguished individuals. At that point, if I recall correctly, it had only been given five times, including to a couple of Nobel laureates and one other head of state.

So I went back to Ama, passed along the offer, and before long, it was confirmed: President Ramos was coming to our school.

We were very thrilled, of course. But for me, it wasn’t quite enough. I remember telling my wife, “I have to speak at the ceremony.” She was slightly mortified. Huwag na. Ok na yan. Nadala mo na siya dito. Haha.

I managed to wrangle my way into the program, and on that glorious sunny day, I found myself seated next to President Ramos on the dais, at the school’s open amphitheater. I was slotted in to deliver a speech on behalf of Filipino students studying in the US.

I was given two minutes to speak, and naturally, I took four.

I talked about the significance of the President’s visit, of course, but more than that, I spoke about the young Filipinos I personally knew who were studying in the U.S. and who, like me, were choosing to go home rather than stay. A lot of that, I said, was because of the reforms he’d pushed through during his presidency. And I told him that our collective decision to return, to help rebuild, was a legacy that would surely outlive his presidency.

The speech was very well received, and reprinted in its entirety the following day in several major dailies back in the Philippines.

Pres. Ramos personally signed and gave me this print, at the reception following the program. His team had with them a digital camera and a color printer - all new technologies back then - and bragged to the crowd as he gleefully showed it on stage, that it was printed with Japanese and American technology, and made with Filipino ingenuity. :)

President Ramos passed away on this day three years ago, and so the anniversary has me reminiscing. His was a kind of steady, forward-looking, professional leadership that was new then, and remains painfully rare today. That’s part of why I wanted him to come to UCSD in the first place: he represented something we weren’t used to seeing, and that we still very badly need today.

The whole experience – of coming up with and chasing a wild idea, leaning on relationships, taking a chance, and seeing it come to life – is a life highlight because it planted something in me.

It showed me the difference between having ideas and actually moving on them.

It taught me that relationships really matter – without my advisor’s belief, or my father’s connections, or Ben’s access to the President, none of it would’ve happened.

It showed me what’s possible when you act with purpose, and it continues to shape how I try to move through the world to this day.