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Brod Oscar Dizon (UP ’57) was well known in the Veterinary Medicine profession, having taught and trained thousands of them in Gregorio Araneta University Foundation (which has been renamed to the more gentrified De La Salle Araneta University ) where he served as professor and later dean, and in running a successful private practice for almost a half a century.

In both, he was the teacher’s teacher and the veterinarian’s veterinarian, like the two dozen Beta Sigmans who had taught at Araneta’s Vet Med college .

He served as GAUF Beta Sigma adviser for more than a decade, during the good part of the 80s , a role he played with equal parts compassion (in helping brods excel inside the classroom and out) and concern (during the rumbles when he would, like a teacher, stand at the entrance of VetMed building and bellow out the names of brods in the Council of War – (Noel) Tipay! (Efren) Tarrosa! Ricardo! (Villareal) – roll call-style and berate them for the troubles the residents have found themselves in again).

He was a brod in fair or foul weather. He would help out a brod in financial need. He was known to pick the tab, whether tuition or bar, the latter during jugs where he was a bottomless dispenser of advice and beer. Kung merong “Thursdays with Morrie ” ngayon, merong “Jugs With O.D.” noon (the initials he was famous for which was also the campus shorthand for quality instruction)

But inside the classroom, he gave no quarters if you were a brod. In fact, the hurdle and the handicap were higher for those who had been admitted to the Brotherhood of Scholars. You may have survived months of gruelling initiation, the 50-meter long gauntlet, and the infamous “Blackie”, Araneta’s iron-strong paddle, but once you’re in O.D’s class the hazing of the academic kind continues. In Araneta, Fraternity doctrines can be learned by reading it, or by watching it practiced by elders.

When 200 of us gathered for our 60th Anniversary Ball in August 2017, O.D. was the clearly the star of the night. He was the undisputed selfie magnet. When he sauntered to each and every table, huddles of brods and sisters parted like the Red Sea. Dripping with bonhomie, the old man still knew how to work a room.

That night, O.D. was wearing what seemed like a three-inch-diameter gold medallion which he displayed proudly. It was not a fashion bling, but the medal UP Beta Sigma gave him when he reached his 50th year as a Beta Sigman in 2007.

In his speech, he hammered on the point that he joined the Fraternity the same year it was founded in Araneta - in 1957. “We have the same birthday!” and then followed by a chuckle. And it was his way of signalling to us that he would be among those who would blow the candles on the humongous anniversary cake.

Though he looked frail, Brod O.D. was Mr. Pure Energy that night. He danced, or make that boogied, discoed, cha-chaed, tangoed , the night away. And when a sis asked him why he did not seem to tire, he said, with a twinkle in his eye : “ The Fraternity has always been my fountain of youth.”

Maligayang paglalakbay mahal na Kapatid !

Bebong Arreza, DLSAU-GAUF

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