CEFI is what it is today because of the zeal and passion of two minds who wanted to leave behind a legacy that will live forever. It was the fondest hope of two doctors, Emeterio Jr.and Josefina Calayan, to  contribute to a just and humane society by building an institution that would provide “the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom” — education. 

Alas, Dr. Emeterio Calayan Jr is no longer around to enjoy the lush evergreen from the seed of advocacy for literacy that he and his wife, Dr. Josefina Calayan, planted fifty years ago. While Dr. Josefina is up and about at 89 years old, it will be upon the shoulders of those who have been given the mandate to preserve their legacy, to see that it flourishes. 

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Dr. Emeterio “Metring” Calayan, Jr. was born on May 2, 1929 to Emeterio Calayan, Sr. and Arsenia Dinglasan, merchants from Taal, Batangas who settled in Lucena City after the war. Through the wares they peddled, Emeterio Sr. and Arsenia managed to provide Metring and his siblings the best education. Metring went to the University of Santo Tomas where he earned a degree in medicine.  

Dr.Josefina “Josie” Calayan was born on May 6, 1933. She is one of six children of Dr.Pablo del Villar, who hailed from Naga, Camarines Sur and Maria Herico, a native of Paracale, Camarines Norte. As a child, Josie would tag along her father to the Albay Provincial Hospital where he was medical director, peep through the glass door of the operating room, and be fascinated with her father’s artifice on the operating table.

This early exposure to the medical world must have spurred her to follow in her father’s footsteps, and pursue a medical degree herself. She got her degree in medicine from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine.

Destiny found a way to bring Metring and Josie together.

While a medical student at the UST, Metring took up bed space with an uncle, Eddie and his wife Rafaelita, who just happened to be the sister of Josie. Talk about fate…the two met and soon became inseparable.

Being of different religious persuasions, Josie and Metring were married in Protestant and Catholic rites on July 14, 1957. The wedding day was stormy, but rather than feel crestfallen, the couple saw it as a presage to abundant blessings in their future together.

In the early years of their marriage, Josie stayed in Manila to train in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UP PGH while caring for Armi, Onie, Baby, and Glen, the first four of their seven children. Metring took assignment as Municipal Health Officer at Mulanay, Quezon. The two would see each other only on weekends, thus, after Josie’s training and to be by each other’s side always, the couple took up abode in Lucena City where the rest of the children, Cris, Manny and Maybel were born. 

Bringing their professional career to full gear, Metring and Josie put up the Calayan Women’s Hospital along the city’s busy thoroughfare. Soon it became too small to accommodate the growing number of women who wanted their babies delivered by Josie who was at this time the most popular OB-Gyn around. At the outskirts of the city where life was more peaceful and serene, the two enterprising doctors put up Medical Center Lucena, a 150 bed capacity hospital.

In 1973, they pioneered the School of Midwifery and Nursing in Quezon, as there was a great global demand for graduates of these allied health courses. The hospital was the perfect backdrop to serve the training needs of the student nurses and midwives. The venture was the beginning of the fulfillment of a dream–to be of service to society, and to make a difference in the lives of people.

As the hospital flourished, so did the school.

The husband and wife doctors put all their time and effort in running the two enterprises. Josie was busy delivering babies everyday. She was, after all, THE doctor many sought, because she was affable and really good at her craft. Metring concentrated on the daily operations, while solidly providing Josie support.

The school expanded its operations to include other courses that would lend a holistic approach to health care. The pioneering spirit of Metring and Josie came to the fore once more. In the mid ‘80s, Quezon saw the school’s doors open to the first registrants of Radiologic Technology, Physical Therapy and Medical Technology. The School of Midwifery and Nursing, thus, came to be known as Medical Center Lucena Educational Institution. 

There was no stopping the progress that MCLEI was making. More programs were added to the roster. As the business climate was ripe for priming, courses such as Business Administration, Hospitality and Tourism, Economics, even Accountancy, were laid out for offering. It was not long before Education, Criminology, Information Systems, Psychology, Mass Communication came into the picture. In 2007, there was a Basic Education Department to complete the school’s profile. 

The school’s physical landscape changed as well. On the grassy knoll where once stood wooden structures that served as classrooms when the school was first erected sprung buildings housing bigger classrooms and laboratories, and a gymnasium for the myriad activities that were beginning to swell. The student population was burgeoning, and there seemed to be no stopping it. 

In 1996, another transformation came over the school when its character took on a different form, that of a non-stock, non-profit institution. It was an altruistic impulse on the founders—their way of giving back to society the blessings that have been heaped upon the Calayan family. Thus, Medical Center Lucena Educational Institution came to be known as Calayan Educational Foundation Incorporated.

Age was catching up with the couple; thus the reins of the school were handed to their lawyer son, Onie, acting as assistant to his father, until taking up fully the cudgels as President of Calayan Educational Foundation Incorporated when Dr. Emeterio Calayan Jr died in 2003. 

Under Atty. Onie’s stewardship, the school metamorphosed into an educational institution with programs that have a strong focus on allied science and the arts, research and community service.  He steered the school to clear waters during its low ebbs, one when enrollment rapidly plummeted in 1997 due to the Asian financial crisis, and after two conflagrations that razed several buildings to the ground. Each time, Atty. Onie picked up the pieces from where they fell, and started all over again, always  with a renewed sense of energy and determination.

Today, Calayan Educational Foundation Incorporated stands on equal footing with its peers in the educational arena. It is a member of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities and the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities-Commission on Accreditation, two organizations that take in only schools that adhere to the strictest of standards. Partnerships with leading universities were forged to allow for new designs in the school’s core functions of instruction, research and community service. There is more to come for CEFI. The passion on which the founders built their dream lives on in the son who continues to make it his mission to keep their vision alive.  

Thus, the thousands of graduates who had passed through the portals of this humble institution will have every reason to say that they chose right. They chose CEFI.