Mission Possible!

In March 2022, University President Fr Roberto C Yap SJ announced that the Office of the Vice President for Social Development would transition to become the Office of the Vice President for Mission Integration. With it, the incumbent Vice President for Social Development, Rizalino ‘Lino’ Rivera (HS’79), accepted his new assignment as Vice President for Mission Integration, effective 1 June 2022 to 31 May 2023.

As announced in the March 2022 memo, the Vice President for Mission Integration is responsible for “instilling, nourishing, and promoting the core values and principles of the Ateneo de Manila University, as embodied in the teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus, among members of the Ateneo community.” The new role encompasses social formation, spiritual formation, psychological formation, physical formation as well as the development of organizational culture.

Lino Rivera is not new to the responsibilities involved in the Office of the Vice-President for Mission Integration. He has always been engaged in people and organization development and nation-building. Among his expertise are leading and managing change, strategic management, organization development, and leadership development. Rivera served as an Undersecretary for Governance and Operation at the Department of Education (DepEd) from 2010 to 2016 under Secretary Br Armin Luistro FSC. He spearheaded initiatives that helped realign the organization and improve DepEd’s services during his term. Likewise, before and after his stint in government, he was an executive and a consultant for various business corporations, government, and non-government organizations.

For many years, he focused on effecting total organization change efforts with corporate/business, government, academic institutions, and NGOs. While doing these, Rivera shared his expertise as a faculty of the Loyola Schools, the Graduate School of Business, the School of Government, and the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health. He also became part of the team of former President Cory Aquino after her presidency and, for some time, worked with VP Leni Robredo.

Rivera was blessed to have learned from some of the best mentors in their respective fields. He served as a formator at Emmaus Center, where he was mentored in psycho-spiritual formation by its main proponent, Fr. Venancio Calpotura, SJ. He was a therapist with Dra. Honey Carandang in her clinic. In the 80s, he was a political organizer under the mentorship of Mar Canonigo, the renowned mass base leader of democratic forces opposed to the Marcos dictatorship. For organization development and large-scale organization change, he has had Chris Worely and others who were recognized practitioners in the field as mentors.

“I was a psychologist, a formator, a labor and urban poor organizer, a business executive, and a government official. The various roles always gave me new perspectives and prepared me for future roles. But whatever role I played, I used them to have some impact in society."

His passion for helping improve the lives of others has no doubt been spurred by Rivera’s family upbringing and the Jesuit influences in his life. His late father, Benjamin Rivera, and grandfather, Andres Dela Paz, were both community and civic leaders in their hometown of Marikina. His aunt, Dr Fely Paz, who raised him and his twin brother, was a pediatrician whom they accompanied in her hospital rounds. All three exposed Rivera to the plight of the less fortunate and the need to contribute to the betterment of society. Among the Jesuits who influenced Rivera significantly were Fr Joey Cruz SJ, his 4th-year high school moderator at the Ateneo; Fr Mat Sanchez SJ, the former novice master; and Fr Venencio “Benny” Calpotura, SJ, his boss at Emmaus Center, mentor, and spiritual director for many years. Fr Benny guided and accompanied Rivera to discern how God has been working in his life and taught him how to help others as well.

“Fr Benny was my Obi-wan,” Rivera said. Part of Rivera’s guiding principles that he learned from his Jesuit mentors is to be open to the “promptings of the spirit”. “My life has taken many unplanned paths. And there have been surprises, disappointments, and challenges along the way. There were times life seemed too turbulent. Yet, in the end, God always led me to a better place. All these experiences have made Rivera better understand how God works, and how the potter continuously molds us and calls us in love to the mission.

As a young Filipino living during the time of Martial Law, Rivera saw injustices in the country and was thus drawn toward serving God and the nation. He took up law studies and later felt he may be called to be a Jesuit and became a pre-novice. But then Rivera realized that his calling was in the community, not the pulpit. As he moved out of the pre- novitiate and went full-time into the field of societal development and formation building, he retained that mindset: to follow God’s will and serve the country. Rivera has helped numerous individuals and organizations become better at what they do on this path.

Being a DepEd Undersecretary was also unplanned. Rivera was supposed to go with Dinky Soliman to DSWD but was asked to help Br Armin Luistro at DepEd at the last minute. In DepEd, he addressed the issue of improving the department’s services. Programs such as the re-training of Regional Directors, Superintendents, and School Heads, the Continuous Improvement Program, the new School Improvement Plan, the Performance Management System, and the National Service Committee helped tackle the department’s many challenges. He also oversaw DepEd’s restructuring, an effort long postponed but deemed critical in the Department’s implementation of its strategies.

Again, like many experiences like it, Rivera’s years in DepEd were a learning experience that made him better understand the educational system and the bureaucracy in charge of it.

“Part of my unique experience is having been blessed to have worked in government - in DepEd, no less, which is the biggest government agency we have in the country. The perspective given by working inside government is very different from the perspective one may get from working in NGOs, in the academe, or in business; Government work is really different. It exposed me to new realities and has changed my perspective on many things. It was a real privilege to have worked in such a capacity. It was a huge learning and humbling experience and I appreciated those working in DepEd and in other branches of government even more.” he noted.

As the Vice President for Social Development, Rivera helped strengthen the University’s efforts in effecting social changes and real-world impact by connecting units and individuals in the University to government and non-government partners outside the Ateneo. As VPSD, he was in charge of The Social Development cluster, which included the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability, Gawad Kalinga-Ateneo, and Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED) - three institutions that were already at the forefront of improving people’s lives through their respective programs. Under his supervision, the Ateneo Disaster Response and Management (DReaM) Team rallied the Ateneo community to respond to the global pandemic as well as to the series of natural disasters that hit the country since 2018.

Rivera says that Ateneo is committed to contributing positively to society. “Our performance in the recent THE (Times Higher Education) Social Impact Study attests to the fact that we are doing many things for society. But, I think we can do more.

Much of the work of the Office of the Vice President for Mission Integration, he said, is to marry the functions of formation and social engagement within and among the academic and administrative units of the University. “There are three responsibilities of the Mission Integration cluster: to promote Ignatian spirituality in the Ateneo community; harness a sense of mission while doing service and creating societal impact, and nurturing an organizational culture aligned to these two central values.”

Paraphrasing the words of Fr Bobby, Rivera stressed the importance of mission integration: “It is an integral part of being a Jesuit University. “ He expounded: “Almost all universities claim academic excellence; other universities also do service, but our main differentiator is the source and motivator of it all - our spirituality. So, where does the drive for excellence, the sense of mission, and the drive for service come from? It comes from that relationship with Christ.”

“It is important that our students are formed according to the values and principles that we want to promote so that when they are outside, they can create a significant impact on society. If you look at it, the mission area/s is/are there - outside of the campus. That is what our graduates need to be prepared for, that is their mission area. That is where we, are called to make a difference.”

Yet, he emphasizes something fundamental, “While the mission is out there, the sense of being called to mission starts from within. It starts with encountering God and His immense love for us in a personal and deep way, whatever our circumstance. As they say, “God meets us where we are." So, part of the job of Mission Integration, is to help people encounter and experience God’s love and generosity in whatever activity they may be involved in — whether these be while helping a community, indulging in some sports or physical activity, grappling with some physical or mental illness, etc. In experiencing God’s presence, they themselves in turn can share the same love and generosity with others. We give more because we experience love so freely and generously given. We can only do more if we love more. In Mission Integration we hope to provide members of the Ateneo community opportunities to have encounters with the Lord – just as Ignatius had his own encounter with Christ.”

Rivera’s focus, for now, is to review the programs and to go back to basics and answer these questions: Where are we? Where are we going? Are our activities aligned to where we want to go? Are there better ways of doing things?

He also looks forward to engaging the community. “I don’t think generosity can be demanded from people. That generosity should emanate from them, from within themselves. It cannot be forced. So I would just like to invite them to be open to the programs, and I hope the Spirit touches them. As the Jesuits would say, ‘Be open to the Spirit.’ Be open to where the Spirit is leading you.”

With God’s grace, this is a mission that is not only possible but definitely doable in the community that we call Ateneo de Manila.

AMDG