SAN FRANCISCO COLLEGES: ITS ROOTS AND HISTORY

It was in 1977 that San Francisco Institute (SFI), the forerunner of what was to be San Francisco Colleges, applied with the then Ministry of Education and Culture to offer vocational courses to students. Its founder, Dr. Alexander B. Amador, Ph. D., a consummate educator, and his better half, Mrs. Encarnita D. Amador, a Registered Nurse by profession, deemed it high time for the Municipality of San Francisco to have a private educational institution that will cater to the needs of the hoi polois who either cannot afford the expensive cost of distance education or whose schedule of classes cannot fit into the rigid time frame of ordinary people, mostly farmhands and office functionaries, for them to acquire education. SFI, in the minds of its revered founders, will offer the alternative for the people in the lower rung of the economic strata to pursue knowledge and their diploma. SFI was then registered as a sole proprietorship, owned and managed by Dr. Amador.

With the subsequent issuance of a permit to operate, by the Regional Office of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), the school opened its doors to seven students during the second semester of school year 1977-1978. These pioneering students are enrolled in Stenography and Typewriting, Dressmaking, Tailoring or Practical Electricity courses. During those days, SFI only offered vocational courses as the MEC permit that was issued to the school is for a Business Trade School.

In its early years, the school operated at the Amador’s Residence, which is now the site of its current main campus. After three years of fruitful operation, that saw the steady growth of student enrolment in its Business Trade Courses, SFI applied for and was issued a permit to operate a high school department. The permit was granted with the condition that the school must have to look for a more spacious location, as the Amador Residence can no longer contain the projected increase in the number of enrollees with the opening of its gates for secondary level students.

Thus, in 1981, SFI transferred to Romana Pol-Tan Building, located along the present-day center island, to house the high school and the college department. With the success of its Business Trade Courses, Dr. Amador applied for a permit to offer baccalaureate courses in 1981. This initial attempt did not come into fruition as MEC denied the application. Again, in 1982, Dr. Amador reiterated SFI’s intention to offer Liberal Arts and Commerce Baccalaureate courses, which MEC, for the second time around, did not approve.

Never wanting to be denied of his noble cause and taking the setback as a challenge, Dr. Amador seek for an alternative way by which his dream of SFI being able to offer college education will be given its realization. Armed with nothing more than their resolute spirits and their good reputation, the Amador couple went to the University of Mindanao, in Davao City, and paid a visit to Mr. Guillermo Torres, erstwhile president of the university.

It was during that visit that Mr. Torres and Mrs. Eugenia Occena, the then Executive Vice President of the University of Mindanao, who both personally knew Dr. Amador, willingly acceded to the Amador couple’s request and allow SFI to become an extension campus to the Open Learning System of the University of Mindanao. Taking the collaboration agreement into account, the Ministry of Education and Culture finally granted San Francisco Institute the permit to offer college courses as an External Studies Center for U.M. Thus, in November 5, 1982, SFI welcomed its first batch of students enrolled in baccalaureate degree programs such as Bachelor of Science in Education, Bachelor of Arts, Commerce and Forestry.

Dr. Alexander B. Amador was also designated as Provincial Superintendent of the University of Mindanao in Agusan del Sur. It was during this period that, under the tutelage and guidance of the Torreses, Dr. Amador gained valuable insights and learned the rudiments of running an educational institution.

In 1985, after three years of successful operation as an extension campus to UM, SFI was finally granted an independent status to offer four-year college courses by the MEC. It was also during this year that San Francisco Institute changed its name to become San Francisco Colleges, the name that it carries until now.

In that same year, SFC leased the entire third floor of the D and V Plaza Building, that time the biggest commercial building in the municipality, to house the school’s continuously growing number of students.

A year later, SFC has already three building annexes, aside from the main campus site, and three school branches located in the municipalities of Loreto, La Paz and San Luis - all interior municipalities of Agusan del Sur. The ensuing years also saw the expansion of SFC’s High School Department in Barangay New Visayas and Barangay Borbon, both in San Francisco. In 1987 the school was converted from a single proprietorship business entity into a non-stock, non-profit corporation.

The good days for SFC continued in the next 12 years. However, it was not to last any longer as the wind of change begun casting its effects on the institution in the onset of the 21st century. Amidst the economic boom that is sweeping the municipality, others began to notice what the visionary founder of SFC has seen years ago - the good prospect of investing in education in the municipality. Like mushrooms in a moonlit night, private tertiary and secondary schools started to sprout in San Francisco. Owing to the growing number of competition, sluggishness in enrolment started to set in 1999. The downward trend in the enrolment continued until the demise of Mrs. Encarnita D. Amador in 2003, and even until the passing away of the school’s founding president himself, Dr. Alexander B. Amador, in 2005.

While in his sick bed, Dr. Amador never lost sight of his legacy of education from which SFC breathed its first. It was his son, Jose-Mari D. Amador, LL.B. who volunteered to take the cudgels of bearing the torch and continuing San Francisco Colleges with the full consent of his siblings who were all pre-occupied with either their education or their professional pursuits. To his initial dismay, he soon found out the daunting challenge that went along with his decision - the educational institution was neck-deep in debt and is, in fact, subject for foreclosure.

The very existence of SFC hanging in a balance, Mr. Jose- Mari D. Amador stood his ground and refused to give-up. He summoned all his courage, along with his will and what little personal resources he has, with only one mission in mind: saving SFC - the crown jewel of his parents’ legacy. With his supportive wife, Mrs. Maria Francesca Rey-Amador along, they, figuratively and literally, start rebuilding SFC from the ground. The path towards resurrection proved to be doubly trying and a true test of the will, if not the spirit, for the both of them. Yet the 2nd generation Amador couple refused to buckle down, not only to prove that they are not wrong in their conviction but more so because of their firm belief in the nobleness of their purpose.

Under the guidance of Jose-Mari “Jomari” D. Amador, as School President and concurrent School Director, SFC started to take ground, shifting its paradigms by instituting a new set of vision, mission and goals that are anchored on the thrust of the current school administration. Along with these, SFC also established its identity as the school for the masses as it introduced schedule of classes that are more adjusted to the time availability of the working class, operating as a night school both in its college and high school departments. People took notice, enrolment started to gradually improve.

After years of renting and leasing for its school facilities, SFC finally returned to its former home at the very same site where it all started – the Amador Residence.

Under the brilliant hands-on management of Jomari Amador, SFC completed the phase one of its college building improvement plan and is now in the finishing stages for the second phase of the structural improvement of the college campus. The new edifice was realized without the school’s incurring borrowings from any financial institutions. The spanking new building and the spacious classrooms all the more added to the dignity and pride that goes along with being a student of SFC. Parallel to the structural improvements is the upgrading of the faculty by hiring qualified instructors in the college, a school principal in high school and the appointment of program deans in each degree program in college. Along with these changes come a new slogan which reverberates strong in the heart of the people for whom SFC is meant to serve; the proletariat – the marginalized, the poor, the masses, the hoi polois of each generation, as SFC offers education that is beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge but extends to instilling positive values and imbibing the culture for success. Thus, as one community, we are proud to profess that: SA SFC, ANG MASA MAY PAG-ASA!