It is now a matter of almost certainty that we are seeing the last few months of the incumbency of Dr. Patrick Alain T. Azanza (or PATA through the rest of this piece, for economy of space) as president of the Catanduanes State University. While PATA maintains a policy of “neither admitting nor denying” his ambitions to run for a provincial elective position in May 2025, rumors are afloat to that effect and his actions have confirmed it such that it is now taken as matter of fact. He has been singing his “swan song” (pamamaalam) to gatherings at every opportunity in the University. He is out of campus much of the time, either going on sorties to barangays to sell himself as a benevolent “Public Servant” (distributing goodies of hams, calendars and lugaw, and lately launching a province-wide videoke singing contest) or else busy socializing (“nagkakataon lang”) and networking with traditional politicians to shore up support and resources for his election bid.
It will not be a business-as-usual type of succession: PATA is leaving CatSU in quite an “awkward” manner to put it casually. He is cutting short his four-year term at CatSU by almost a year, reneging from his commitment to serve the university which he has accepted during his Pagdusay investiture program with so much dramatic pomp and pageantry. He will have to resign as university president by October of this year to be able to file for candidacy for elective position. He will be leaving behind a university in such a quandary with formidable problems. He is going out beleaguered with a string of controversies regarding his practice of governance.
But most serious of all, PATA has subjected the university to the embarrassment of having an academic Chief Executive going through the motions of an early prospecting – and indeed campaigning – for a local elective position, in a manner so blatant and shameless. In so doing, he has so blemished the dignity of the University Presidency, and has endangered the integrity and psychic balance of the academe by having it engaged with the un-academic ordeal of playing politics.
In any case, those who care about the University must get into earnest consideration of what a post-PATA CatSU would be like. For one thing, there will be a lot to fix, and for another thing even more basic, there surely will be “life after PATA” in the University of our collective Catandunganon pride that has flourished through over six decades.
This piece is, to be sure, speculative, but with reasonable basis. It is a necessary exercise because our task is to plot out the aftermath of a short adventure with PATA. Planning, as we all know, builds upon an intelligent extrapolation of the future. But this piece is not about planning CatSU’s future; that has to be left to the new incumbent. What will be attempted here is to start public interest in imagining of CatSU’s prospects post-PATA.
Any imagining of the future must build upon an honest assessment of what the conditions are at the point of take-off from the present. So what sort of CatSU is being left behind? Are we good enough to be able to proceed on to even better prospects? What sort of challenges are to be faced?
But even more fundamental to this exercise is grounded understanding of why we are in this predicament in the first place. It all came about because of PATA’s imminent exit. Why is he giving up an exalted position as university president in favor of a political career? Why the dive from the academic ivory tower into the murky grounds of politics? The answer is anybody’s guess. But we can identify scenarios, from PATA’s own narrative to alternative ones that try to go beyond his assertions. These answers are important because they imply on the obtaining conditions of CatSU at present from where the future may be plotted out. Making a survey of such scenarios and laying out their implications is what this article is all about. So here follow three scenarios covering a spectrum of possibilities, two on the extremes and a middle ground.
Scenario 1: PATA is replicating his success in CatSU to the larger provincial community
The manifest narrative of the Padagos na Patanos movement, this scenario is premised on a sterling record of performance at the university, of something too good to be confined within the academe, of a case of a deluge of positive energy bursting out of the campus limits and flooding into the larger world out there. But this is based on a precarious assumption: that the provincial community-at-large is simply an expanded version of the academe, which it is not. They are worlds apart; what applies in one does not necessarily applies in the other.
While there is a superlative version of this scenario, one that assumes an absolutely excellent track record (which is difficult to prove and sustain), there is a watered-down version which this writer heard from a worshipping fan of PATA. She says that PATA has his weaknesses and lapses but which are minor and few, and overridden by huge accomplishments never seen before.
It is implied, too, in this scenario that enough accomplishments have been achieved just three years into his term such that the University is well enough on its feet to be left by the leader and move on. Anyway, PATA as congressman (or governor, ano ba talaga kuya?) will help see to the continuing of his remarkable programs at the University, raising the spectacle of a meddlesome local politician dipping hands generously into academe’s affairs.
Scenario 2: PATA had a good start at CatSU but somehow floundered along the way; he wants to reinvent himself by trying politics
In July 2021, PATA came in with so much fanfare and promise with his visionary HOPE package for governance. It aimed to push the University to such heights of aspiration never proposed before, particularly with its centerpiece program of CatSU as a Special Economic Zone. There, too, was the profession to proactive policies of inclusiveness, transparency, fairness and democratic consultative-ness, all to be achieved by collegial leadership (“not ahead of you, not behind you, but with you”). All that on top of the usual goals of excellence in Instruction, Research and Extension.
But then, it came slowly apparent that “Camelot” is not going to manifest in our midst. The line-up of the Knights of the Round Table had to be revamped every so often as PATA tried to push the institution to its limits of carrying capacity. Towards the midpoint of his term, he complained about things not moving fast enough, like not being able to recruit even a single locator to the Special Economic Zone.
Arguably, PATA had been grossly disappointed with how things turned out at CatSU. So he trained his interests and ambitions on another quest, politics that is, in a bid to reinvent himself. Could it be that he has seen something more lucrative in local politics?
Scenario 3: PATA had May 2025 on his mind from day 1; CatSU was the stepping stone
This scenario is so simple and straightforward. Purportedly, PATA has political ambitions all the while when he made a come-back to the island-province. The CatSU presidency was merely a stepping stone to local politics, which in turn is the launching pad for bigger prospects at the national level, as Senator of the Republic and who knows what else. He is so brimming with talents, world-class material indeed, it will be such a waste to limit him to the insular, parochial reaches of the island. So all these things going on are just a matter of due course as the fates have it. Nakatadhana na.
As a way to conclude. . .
As it happens, extremes are the least plausible of hypothetical scenarios. Scenario #1 is patently propaganda stuff, a well-wrought yarn-spinning that would hardly stand both the test of empirical evidence and logic. Even the watered-down version would face the challenges of an objective performance audit. In any case, to argue that the university is the microcosm of the macro provincial polity is outright fallacious. On the other hand, scenario #3 is a cross between conspiracy theory and fatalism, attractive to those who have a taste for intrigue but possessing a lazy mind. Mga pinaniniwalaan ng mga mapaniwalain.
Which leaves us #2 as the most realistic middle ground. It duly reflects what we know of the due course of an institution’s becoming: it always starts with idealistic expectations and ends up short of the ideal. The amount of disappointment depends upon the gap between targets and the realistically achievable. But modest targets, while less liable to disappointments, cannot serve a grandstanding leadership. PATA came into CatSU with so much hype, created for himself a set of tall-order goals that proved too much for the institution’s carrying capacity (and his aptitude to mobilize). This scheme of unflattering reality, I believe, lurks deep in the president’s own personal realization that he would not be ready as yet to acknowledge, to himself nor to the public. Eventually somehow, in less emotional times, this might just be born-out by an honest-to-goodness and tedious reckoning free of social media packaging.
To solve the dilemma meanwhile, Patrick will simply give up the “CatSU Camelot” and exchange it with a “Catanduanes Camelot.” What is amazing is the ease by which he shifts pursuit of one mythical dominion to another. But then, he may not be a romantic knight in shining armor but a pragmatic politician wannabe.
We who will be left behind at CatSU must start imagining a post-PATA University and it is advised that we be realistic, recognize the urgency of our conditions, take our share of responsibility, and be less star-struck on the next superstar of a new president.