TARLAC CITY—In 1980, a 16-year-old out-of-school youth went to see then municipal councilor Amado K. Go to ask him for a job as a kargador (laborer).
Surprised that so young a man would want to work instead of study, Go asked him his reasons. The boy—Isaias Espino—told him he wanted to help his parents financially.
Go was impressed with Espino’s selflessness. “What greater sacrifice can there be than a very young son giving up his future in order to take care of his parents,” he said.
And so instead of giving him fish, Go taught him how to fish. Instead of giving him a job, the 38-year-old Filipino-Chinese businessman-public servant persuaded him to go back to school—and then financed his education.
Espino became one of Go’s first 10 scholars.
He took up an engineering degree at the then Tarlac College of Technology. He stayed at TCT for a year only because Go, realizing how good he was in mathematics and science, convinced him to take the entrance examination at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City.
Espino passed the exam, and while he was at the PMA, Go helped his family financially. He graduated from the country’s premier military school in 1985.
“Today he is a full colonel in the Philippine Air Force,” Go proudly said.
In 1986, Go left politics but continued sponsoring the education of poor but deserving students. Between 1986 and 2004, the year he decided to go back to politics and successfully ran for provincial board member, he continued to provide scholarship grants to 25 students.
“When then Gov. Aping Yap asked me to join the team, to run for provincial board member, I did not hesitate because I knew the amount (of my salary) would be huge enough for 200 scholars, salary and everything else,” he said. “That’s why I was inspired to run.”
From 1980 up to the present, there are 352 Go scholars who graduated with various baccalaureate degrees. Fifteen of them graduated cum laude.
Since he became board member, and using his entire salary to finance his scholarship program, he was able to help 211 scholars graduate from college, and 12 of them did so as cum laudes.
“My goal is to graduate 500 scholars after my six years as provincial board member,” he revealed.
Aside from Col. Espino, the most prominent Go scholars are businesswoman Lora Estrada Cayabyab, owner of Mellow Touch, aside from a restaurant and a printing press; BIR officer Rosemarie Sinio Tugade; and school principal Ludgarda Mateo Vitug.
College dropout
But what is the root of Go’s passion to send hundreds of young men and women to school? To answer this question we need to go back in time. Go was born on June 8, 1942, the second of four children of Rafael Go Sin Yu, a naturalized Filipino businessman, and his wife Miguela King Siok Kiam.
His grandfather, Florencio Gococo, was mayor of Huichao, China, who served as a military strategist of Tarlac revolutionary hero Gen. Francisco Soliman Makabulos during the Philippine revolution against Spain in 1896.
He takes a certain pride in the fact that he finished his elementary school education at Osias Colleges and not at Bayanihan Institute, the traditional school of choice for many Filipino-Chinese families in Tarlac. “I was the only one,” he said, relishing the idea of being truly and completely Pinoy.
He, however, entered Bayanihan as a high school freshman. In his sophomore year he went to Manila and studied in a Protestant school. Then he stowed away to Cebu and studied in a Jesuit school. He recalled: “I was very adventurous.”
In his third year in high school he went back to Bayanihan but left again the next year. Finally he graduated at the Philippine Chinese High School in Metro Manila.
Unfortunately his recalcitrance as a boy did not sit well with his father, who refused to finance his college education. To be able to go to college on his own Go joined the tryout for the swimming varsity team of the University of the East, where he decided to take up a bachelor’s degree in Commerce. He qualified and remained at UE on athletics scholarship for two years.
In 1961, he transferred to San Beda College to take up Political Science. In 1963, the same year he was about to graduate, he married Perpetua Yunon, a 21-year-old native of La Paz town who was studying Cosmetology at the then Tarlac School for Arts and Trades (later to become TCT and then the Tarlac State University).
By failing to graduate in college, Go further alienated his father. Father and son, however, came to a compromise when Go was allowed to work in the family rice mill with a salary of P120 per month.
Times were hard, he said, and only the love of his wife sustained them in those poverty-stricken days. Eventually he would regain the trust and confidence of his parents who would give him the reins of the family business.
As the family business grew under him so did he as a businessman. Later he would put up two successful business endeavors—Yuco Chemical, a styrofoam-manufacturing firm, and Perpetua Subdivision, which was named in honor of his wife.
As a father, too, he would pass with flying colors. All his six children are more than successful academically and professionally in their chosen fields of interests.
His daughter Cristina graduated from the University of the Philippines with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and holds two master’s degrees in Business Administration from Georgia College (USA) and Universite de Syracuse (France).
His second daughter, Claudette, graduated from UP with a BS in Food Technology degree and from the Culinary Institute of America with a master’s degree in Culinary Arts.
His third daughter, Carolyn, finished her BS Philosophy degree at UP, her BS Biology degree at Georgia College (USA) and her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Georgia (USA).
Charina, his fourth daughter, earned her BS Industrial Engineering degree at the Dela Salle University in Manila while his two sons, Christopher Florencio and Charles Miguel finished their Management and Computer Science degrees, respectively, in the same school.
Among Rafael Go Sin Yu’s scions, however, Go was the only one without a college diploma, a fact that never failed to infuriate his father until his death.
He said: “I would have very much wanted to wear a toga but it is an experience that has yet to come my way. That is why it gives me a great sense of achievement and accomplishment whenever one of my scholars gets to graduate, more so if he or she graduates with honors.”
He hopes that “one day my scholarship awards will produce a president of this country.”
Surprised that so young a man would want to work instead of study, Go asked him his reasons. The boy—Isaias Espino—told him he wanted to help his parents financially.
Go was impressed with Espino’s selflessness. “What greater sacrifice can there be than a very young son giving up his future in order to take care of his parents,” he said.
And so instead of giving him fish, Go taught him how to fish. Instead of giving him a job, the 38-year-old Filipino-Chinese businessman-public servant persuaded him to go back to school—and then financed his education.
Espino became one of Go’s first 10 scholars.
He took up an engineering degree at the then Tarlac College of Technology. He stayed at TCT for a year only because Go, realizing how good he was in mathematics and science, convinced him to take the entrance examination at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City.
Espino passed the exam, and while he was at the PMA, Go helped his family financially. He graduated from the country’s premier military school in 1985.
“Today he is a full colonel in the Philippine Air Force,” Go proudly said.
In 1986, Go left politics but continued sponsoring the education of poor but deserving students. Between 1986 and 2004, the year he decided to go back to politics and successfully ran for provincial board member, he continued to provide scholarship grants to 25 students.
“When then Gov. Aping Yap asked me to join the team, to run for provincial board member, I did not hesitate because I knew the amount (of my salary) would be huge enough for 200 scholars, salary and everything else,” he said. “That’s why I was inspired to run.”
From 1980 up to the present, there are 352 Go scholars who graduated with various baccalaureate degrees. Fifteen of them graduated cum laude.
Since he became board member, and using his entire salary to finance his scholarship program, he was able to help 211 scholars graduate from college, and 12 of them did so as cum laudes.
“My goal is to graduate 500 scholars after my six years as provincial board member,” he revealed.
Aside from Col. Espino, the most prominent Go scholars are businesswoman Lora Estrada Cayabyab, owner of Mellow Touch, aside from a restaurant and a printing press; BIR officer Rosemarie Sinio Tugade; and school principal Ludgarda Mateo Vitug.
College dropout
But what is the root of Go’s passion to send hundreds of young men and women to school? To answer this question we need to go back in time. Go was born on June 8, 1942, the second of four children of Rafael Go Sin Yu, a naturalized Filipino businessman, and his wife Miguela King Siok Kiam.
His grandfather, Florencio Gococo, was mayor of Huichao, China, who served as a military strategist of Tarlac revolutionary hero Gen. Francisco Soliman Makabulos during the Philippine revolution against Spain in 1896.
He takes a certain pride in the fact that he finished his elementary school education at Osias Colleges and not at Bayanihan Institute, the traditional school of choice for many Filipino-Chinese families in Tarlac. “I was the only one,” he said, relishing the idea of being truly and completely Pinoy.
He, however, entered Bayanihan as a high school freshman. In his sophomore year he went to Manila and studied in a Protestant school. Then he stowed away to Cebu and studied in a Jesuit school. He recalled: “I was very adventurous.”
In his third year in high school he went back to Bayanihan but left again the next year. Finally he graduated at the Philippine Chinese High School in Metro Manila.
Unfortunately his recalcitrance as a boy did not sit well with his father, who refused to finance his college education. To be able to go to college on his own Go joined the tryout for the swimming varsity team of the University of the East, where he decided to take up a bachelor’s degree in Commerce. He qualified and remained at UE on athletics scholarship for two years.
In 1961, he transferred to San Beda College to take up Political Science. In 1963, the same year he was about to graduate, he married Perpetua Yunon, a 21-year-old native of La Paz town who was studying Cosmetology at the then Tarlac School for Arts and Trades (later to become TCT and then the Tarlac State University).
By failing to graduate in college, Go further alienated his father. Father and son, however, came to a compromise when Go was allowed to work in the family rice mill with a salary of P120 per month.
Times were hard, he said, and only the love of his wife sustained them in those poverty-stricken days. Eventually he would regain the trust and confidence of his parents who would give him the reins of the family business.
As the family business grew under him so did he as a businessman. Later he would put up two successful business endeavors—Yuco Chemical, a styrofoam-manufacturing firm, and Perpetua Subdivision, which was named in honor of his wife.
As a father, too, he would pass with flying colors. All his six children are more than successful academically and professionally in their chosen fields of interests.
His daughter Cristina graduated from the University of the Philippines with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and holds two master’s degrees in Business Administration from Georgia College (USA) and Universite de Syracuse (France).
His second daughter, Claudette, graduated from UP with a BS in Food Technology degree and from the Culinary Institute of America with a master’s degree in Culinary Arts.
His third daughter, Carolyn, finished her BS Philosophy degree at UP, her BS Biology degree at Georgia College (USA) and her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Georgia (USA).
Charina, his fourth daughter, earned her BS Industrial Engineering degree at the Dela Salle University in Manila while his two sons, Christopher Florencio and Charles Miguel finished their Management and Computer Science degrees, respectively, in the same school.
Among Rafael Go Sin Yu’s scions, however, Go was the only one without a college diploma, a fact that never failed to infuriate his father until his death.
He said: “I would have very much wanted to wear a toga but it is an experience that has yet to come my way. That is why it gives me a great sense of achievement and accomplishment whenever one of my scholars gets to graduate, more so if he or she graduates with honors.”
He hopes that “one day my scholarship awards will produce a president of this country.”
