R. Dante O. Perez: A Librarian Par Excellence

R. Dante O. Perez: A Librarian Par Excellence

by Melchor F. Cichon

updated, Jan. 25, 2021

I have been writing profiles of great and near-great Filipinos. And I found it very challenging.

But when I decided to write the profile of one of the most intelligent Filipino librarians, I did not know where to start. This problem was compounded when I received a copy of his 12-page full-packed curriculum vitae.

I am referring to R. Dante O. Perez, a scholar, a bibliographer, a compiler, a leader, a lecturer, a professor, and a librarian par excellence. Dean Rosa M. Vallejo calls him Junior Gabriel A. Bernardo, E. Arsenio Manuel and Isagani R. Medina.

I wonder what that R. in his name. It reminds me of Dr. E. Arsenio Manuel, that Filipino librarian, anthropologist, historian, linguist and multicultural professor.

Dante told me that: "It's one of my baptismal names but I only used R. I used it during the second semester of my freshman year when I learned that I have a maternal grandfather, brother of my maternal grandmother whom I didn't meet 'coz she died early. Dr. E. Arsenio Manuel is the one I'm talking about and I dreamt to follow his footsteps. He inspired me together with his student and my Philippine History 1 professor, Dr. Isagani R. Medina, a librarian turned historian."

Today, Dante said that he lives in Guam, particularly in the "Island of the Chamorros” and former Typhoon Capital of the Pacific, the island where Ferdinand Magellan landed on March 6, 1521 and where Saint Pedro Calungsod met his untimely death on April 2, 1672. Known as the "Island Where America's Day Begins", Guam was also the island where 58 Filipinos, notably Apolinario Mabini - Sublime Paralytic, Brains of the Revolution, First Foreign Affairs Secretary; and Melchora Aquino, a.k.a. Tandang Sora - Mother of the Katipunan, were exiled in 1901."

Dante, as I call him, was born on May 30, 1955 in Sta. Cruz, Manila, grew up in Caloocan City and raised a family in Quezon City.

He graduated valedictorian at Tala Elementary School in Tala, Caloocan City in 1968. He then proceeded to Lourdes School of Mandaluyong in Mandaluyong, Rizal and graduated honorable mention. In 1972, he enrolled at the University of the Philippines under the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Accountancy. He was a student assistant at the College of Law Library from January 9, 1973 to June 30, 1975 and during the early years as a working student, he was encouraged by the then law librarian, Miss Myrna S. Feliciano, to shift to library science.

While in college, he was a recipient of the Grant-in-Aid Program for a semester, and one of the two scholars of the Philippine Library Scholarship Council, Inc., from 1974 to 1976. Not only this, Dante was declared a College Scholar, for four semesters and became a university scholar for three semesters. He was also elected president of the U. P. Library Science Association in 1975-1976, and became a College Representative to the U. P. Student Conference in 1975-1976.

In 1976, he graduated with the degree, Bachelor of Library Science (BLS), cum laude, being the first honor graduate since the Institute of Library Science was established in 1961. Because he graduated with honors, he was automatically granted a First Grade Eligibility by the Civil Service Commission, pursuant to the provision of Presidential Decree No. 907 which was signed by Pres. Ferdinand Marcos on March 11, 1976.

It was also in UP Diliman where he graduated with the degree, Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) in Summer 2004 where he was awarded Best Thesis entitled “Philippine Libraries and Librarianship, 1900-2000: A Historical Perspective”.

So when he took the 7th Librarian Licensure Examination in 1998, he was in the 18th place, with a rating of 81.65% having no practice in the last fifteen years.

Immediately after his graduation, Dante served as the Chief Librarian of the Institute of Labor and Manpower Studies, Department of Labor and Employment, from April 1, 1976 to December 31, 1983. In November 1977, he was sent to Geneva, Switzerland and attended the IILS/AIL Advanced Training Course on International Documentation.

After this, Dante worked as a library consultant, cataloger, historical researcher, manager in a private enterprise, and a University Librarian of Virgen Milagrosa University Foundation, San Carlos City, Pangasinan, in January 2007-March 2009.

Dante has attended numerous seminars and conferences in the different parts of the Philippines and abroad. He involved himself in the Guam Library Association where he is serving his fourth term as president and has attended five annual conferences of the Pacific Islands Association of Libraries, Archives, and Museums (PIALA), three of which he was a paper presenter.

He was either a member or officer of the different professional organizations in the Philippines such as the University of the Philippine Alumni Association (UPAA), University of the Philippines Library Science Alumni Association, Inc., the Association of Special Libraries of the Philippines, Philippine Librarians Association, Inc., and the PLAI-Ilocos Region Librarians Council.

As mentioned earlier, Dante was a lecturer in different fora and conferences in the different parts of the country.

Starting with his inspirational message delivered during the SOCOLA's 15th Anniversary Solidarity Night, in Koronadal City, South Cotabato, on October 25, 2001, this was followed by an unending list of talks after that.

As a bibliographer, Dante was a contributor to the Annotated Bibliography on Philippine Labor which was published by the Asian Labor Education Center, Law Center, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.

But his most popular work is the Directory of Licensed Librarians in the Philippines. Board for Librarians, Professional Regulation Commission, 2002. He also wrote "Half a Century of the University of the Philippines Library Science Alumni Association, Inc.: A Glimpse of the Past, 1950-2000".

At present, he is updating the said directory. And he has been calling for the cooperation of every Filipino librarian to send to him the necessary information that he needs for that directory.

I asked him what he thinks of the present Philippine librarians.

He said that, "Our librarians today are too dependent on technology. Gone are the days when we concentrate on our stock knowledge, being analytical and critical of every information we have. Just the making of the directory, many are hesitant to send their entries and are not really proud to be part of this intellectual endeavor."

He further believes that today's Filipino librarians should be trained as "a total person complete with physical, mental, emotional and spiritual intelligences."

He must have been thinking of the strong general education like in the University of the Philippines System's curriculum, where the students are well-trained on the various general education subjects, like English, math, humanities, history, philosophy, etc.

When I asked him on the communication and personnel management skills of the present library science graduates, his answer is clear: "yes those are part of the intelligence capacities, pero puro technical ang seminars natin dyan. We should train our librarians as real front liners of information dissemination and equip them with the knowledge of how to be a true professional."

This led me to ask him this question: " How about their compensation in general?"

"That's the problem, we're not properly compensated. If there's only a fee for every information that we provide like what doctors and lawyers charge their clients for information, we really can move on. But honestly, as the late Quintin Eala said, 'LIBRARIANSHIP IS PRIMARILY SERVICE TO FELLOWMEN".

Indeed, if only we librarians would demand for our rights, we will be able to get what is due to us for as Dante has said, "Librarianship is a unique profession."

He said that our profession is unique because we have to know all disciplines of knowledge and how to deliver them to the right person at the right time.

This indeed is in line with his philosophy which is to live, to love and to serve.

Before migrating to Guam in March 2009, he was fortunate to have visited libraries and librarians in 71 provinces out of the 82 provinces. At present, he works as librarian/archivist/alumni coordinator of Father Duenas Memorial School, the oldest Catholic school in Guam. He is also the president of the University of the Philippines Alumni-Guam (UPAG).