By Dr. Cristina G. Gallato
Dean, School of Business

The administration of SMU started the schoolyear 2009-2010 with an Administrative Session which was held at the Sacred Heart Center on June 17, 2009 which was attended by all the faculty and staff of Saint Mary’s University from all levels.

After the preliminaries, Mrs. Maura Salonga, HRDC Director presented the new appointees/faculty members. After his welcome address, Rev. Manuel D. Valencia, CICM, Ph. Dem, University president, delivered the annual report on the previous schoolyear 2008-2009.

The resource speaker, Atty. Ulpiano “Ulan” P. Sarmiento III, talked on “Legal Implications of Students and Personnel Matters in Private Schools” which covered the following: duties and responsibilities of administrators and teachers, rights of students, observance of minimum requirements to ensure quality of education, custody of students, school discipline and violation of school rules of conduct, incompetence and inefficiency, security of tenure, tardiness and absences, neglect of duty, immorality, grave misconduct, among others. He emphasized the importance of teachers, quality education and formation of character.

Atty. Sarmiento’s Profile . (Ref: http://www.cgbp.org/docs/moreUlpiano.html)

One of the very few active legal minds in the field of Education Law, Prof. Ulpiano Planes Sarmiento III, fondly called "Ulan", is a very much sought-after school lawyer, a dynamic law professor, a well-adored charmer in the lecture circuit, a devoted church worker, and above all, a very happy family man. These earned him the prestigious Bedan of the century award from San Beda College.

Having clowned around much of the time during his school days at the Ateneo de Manila Grade School, Ateneo de Naga High School, and the San Beda College, Ulan's life-story can easily pass as an inspirational saga of hope for the hopeless. For it could not have been foretold that a mischievous child who loved humor more than math and science would soon become an authority on a very serious subject of educating a nation. In Ulan's case, experience is indeed the best teacher for he truly learned a lot from the exciting moments of his past. Guiding his exceptionally intelligent "rain kids", Rainey, Drizzle, Storm, Rainbow and Snow, away from the paths he used to tread, Ulan is now savoring the honors he missed by a mile during his school days. Rainey just graduated valedictorian of her class.

Ulan's teaching career started shortly after law school when he landed a job at the Miriam College Foundation (then Maryknoll College). He swears it is the best thing he ever did for it was there when he found the other half of his life, the lovely Dinna for a wife. Since then, the classroom has become a routine place for Ulan's meaningful hobby, teaching. He handled classroom instructions at Ateneo de Manila University, Arellano Law Foundation, San Beda College-Alabang (formerly St. Benedict College), De La Salle University Graduate School, Jose Rizal University Graduate School of Education and the University of the East Graduate School of Education. He now teaches at the prestigious San Beda College of Law while being a regular member of the elite faculty at the National Educators Academy of the Philippines, Department of Education. His audience claims that he is the most adored seminar lecturer in the field of Education Law in the Philippines.

But more than being a teacher, Ulan is a school administrator as well. He is currently the Chairman of the San Beda College Board of Trustees. He also sits as a trustee or corporate secretary of several educational institutions, among them, the Holy Trinity Academy, Pasig Catholic College, Sto. Niño Parochial School, St. Joseph's School, San Jose Academy, College of the Holy Spirit, Miriam College Foundation, Colegio San Agustin, Sta. Mesa Parochial School, Immaculate Conception Cathedral School and others.

Ulan's involvement in issues affecting education was heightened during his stint as Assistant Secretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs to DECS Secretary Lourdes R. Quisumbing, member of the Panel of Consultants, Teachers' Welfare and Benefits, Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM) of 1991, and later as Executive Director of the Congressional Oversight Commitee on Education (COCED), Senate of the Republic of the Philippines. Presently, he is one of the directors of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) and legal consultant of the Fund Assisstance for Private Education (FAPE) and the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU). Thus, Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma referred to Ulan, an activist in his own right, as a "true guardian of the rule of law." And rightly so, for he has lobbied for the passage of bills that would improve learning conditions nationwide and litigated against the cumbersome rules and guidelines bogging down the educational system. He also had the opportunity to champion constitutional and educational objectives in the noted cases of Sarmiento vs. Mison (156 SCRA 549) and Lina vs. Cariño (221 SCRA 515).

He is presently a senior partner of the Law Firm of ULPIANO SARMIENTO & MARCIANO DELSON, a law office established in honor of his late father, Judge Ulpiano Sarmiento. The firm is the legal counsel of the Manila Archdiocesan and Parochial Schools Association, Inc. (MAPSA) and several known colleges and universities nationwide. In spite of his hectic schedule, Ulan still finds time caring for the needs of the Hail Mary the Queen Children's Choir, a parish-based choir he and wife Dinna, together with his law partner, Professor Delson, organized in 1999 and who won a Gold Medal in the 3rd Choir Olympics held in Bremen, Germany on July 2004 in the Music of the Religions Category.