Dr. Jun Cuenca

Remmon Barbaza, PhD

WRITTEN BY TATIANA L. MALIGRO AND IRA NEPOMUCENO

Live your life beautifully and have the courage to live beautifully. That’s the best wish I can have for anybody— to live a beautiful life.

FOR MANY Ateneans, college life has been reduced to dispassionately accomplishing one academic requirement to another; day in day out, week by week. Amid heavy workload that batters a student’s state of mind, encountering a mentor that inspires students to savor each passing moment and see the beauty in everything proves to be a comfort.

One such example would be Remmon Barbaza PhD—a philosopher, associate professor, and mentor who wields the power of his lectures to prepare students to live beautiful poetic lives beyond the Hill.

POETRY, LANGUAGE, AND DWELLING

Barbaza first taught Philosophy as a Jesuit scholastic in 1993 while taking up a master’s degree in Philosophy in the Ateneo. Having graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from the University of the Philippines Diliman, Barbaza naturally gravitated towards Philosophy and the philosophical thinking on language. Through Heidegger, the young professor was able to perceive language as the house of Being— our home.

“We dwell in language and we’re never out of language. We have language because first of all, our lives are poetic,” he explains. “The only way to live is to live poetically.”

Apart from Heidegger, Barbaza attributes his passion for Philosophy to the influence of his advisor Roque J. Ferriols, SJ, who he describes as a lightning that struck his entire life and being. “Something like Father Ferriols comes once in a lifetime, and he will leave marks that you can never really shake off your system,” Barbaza describes.

With a stronger zeal for Philosophy, Barbaza eventually decided to forgo his Jesuit years and focus on his craft in 1996, just four years shy of being ordained as a priest. In 1998, Barbaza flew to Germany to pursue a doctorate degree in Philosophy, focusing on Heidegger’s concept of dwelling.

After finishing his doctorate degree, Barbaza returned to the Loyola Schools as a full time professor in 2002. Throughout his years in the Ateneo, he held various positions, such as being the Philosophy Department’s Chair and the School of Humanities’ Acting Dean.

BLACK SCREENS, BRIGHT HOPES

Despite his long tenure, Barbaza had to overcome many challenges to ensure that his students were learning. He observes that students’ inclination or predisposition to read and fully engage with material has decreased over the years. For instance, he notices that students would submit their essays to carefully-crafted questions in just 10 or 15 minutes instead of taking their time to fully absorb it.

Since then, Barbaza would always start the semester with Simon Weil’s Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God as a reminder to put genuine learning at the forefront. “Grades are really nothing. What remains are those that you learn and keep within. Nobody will talk about grades 30 years from now when you have a reunion with your classmates,” he says.

The abrupt shift to online learning also pushed Barbaza to learn new things to ensure a smooth learning experience for his students. He noted that there were fewer students showing up to class. “And even if students attend, they are just black rectangles on my screen. They don’t even turn on the camera. It’s so difficult for us teachers to deal with that,” he admits.

Fortunately, schools are now transitioning to a post-pandemic setup. Because of this, Barbaza foresees more opportunities to fully capture the attention of his students.

BEAUTIFUL MUNDANE

Despite these hardships, Barbaza still finds immense joy and satisfaction in seeing his students flourish and discover what they are meant to be in life. He finds it to be a humbling experience, encountering students who determinedly tread their own paths.

More than three decades has passed since Barbaza first discovered his liking for Philosophy, which still remains to have a profound impact on every aspect of his life including the everyday mundane. Whether it be in teaching, scuba diving, bird watching, photography, and even dishwashing, Barbaza has found ways to live a poetic life by taking a moment to appreciate what is around him.

“I am most myself when I do philosophy. I can’t ever imagine doing anything else other than philosophy. This is who I am. This is what makes me happy. This is where I feel I am most myself. That was more than 30 years ago, and it’s still true now,” he declares.

In the same way, Barbaza desires that his students will live poetic lives by courageously treading the humble path ahead of them. “Live your life beautifully and have the courage to live beautifully,” he urges. “That’s the best wish I can have for anybody—to live a beautiful life.”