Brod Prospero Crescini Inspired Our Generation of BETA SIGMANS 

by Victor O. Ramos UPD'62A

Chairman/President, UP Beta Sigma Fraternity Alumni Association, Inc.

(Eulogy delivered during the fraternity’s last rites for Brod Pros Crescini UP'49 on November 27, 2005

at the Arlington Chapel, Araneta Ave., Quezon City, Philippines)

            The reason why we stand tall as a fraternity today is because we stand on the shoulders of brods who in life and death symbolized our finest values and our greatest potentials. Brods who started us with their vision and leadership. Brods whose scholarship and erudition illuminated the worlds that they touched. Brods whose presence alone guided us during our moments of uncertainty. Brods who gave the most of themselves so that others may live more decent lives. Young brods who made the ultimate sacrifice in their fight for freedom and taught us to die with courage and dignity. Brods who went out into the world and showed their peers that Filipinos are deserving of respect.

            Indeed, we are a fraternity of real heroes – our fraternal heroes.

            In life and death, Brod Pros Crescini would stand in the center of this pantheon and with his deep stentorian voice remind us that “we are Beta Sigmans and proud of it.” Those words alone would transport us with awe to our young lives, to those fateful moments when we made that decision to become Beta Sigmans. We are still proud of those great moments in our growing up years.

            Brod Pros himself joined the fraternity in 1949 and elected Grand Princep in 1955. It was as Grand Princep that he sat down to write those immortal words that are now enshrined in our Betan Credo. It was his singular gift as a leader to look into the minds of his diverse and eclectic collection of members, coming from all walks of life and from every corner of the country, to articulate their higher aspirations and their longing for unity through diversity. He would write about the “saga of men who climbed the barriers of wealth, region, creed, and prejudices so that they may create a feeling of kinship predicated upon sympathy, understanding, friendship and equality.”

            Those were the words that gave us our strength and sense of belonging. The ideals of egalitarianism, achieved by some societies only after a revolution, made us different from those who looked at themselves as better than others. As expected, those great ideas in our credo created their own missionaries. More than anything else, those ideals triggered our exponential expansion to other schools, making us today the largest Philippine-based fraternity that casts a wide network around the world. Today we can claim, as did Queen Victoria during the height of the British Empire, that the sun never sets on the Beta Sigma Fraternity. As it sets on one end of the world, another chapter picks up the first rays of a new day.

            In sum, the legacy that Brod Pros Crescini leaves to us is the passion that we feel in our hearts that we belong and because we are assured of where we are coming from, we can aspire for things beyond our ordinary selves. He inspired our generation to higher ideals and aspirations. His words never failed to touch both our minds and hearts. We will always remember the varying cadences of his oratory like the irrepressible waves of the sea against the shore.

            I dare say that a thousand years from now when we have gone beyond our mortal dust, transformed to our most basic elements and continued with our eternal journey to join the birth of new stars, the future Beta Sigmans will inevitably look back to where we started. No doubt, they will remember Brod Pros Crescini, more than anyone of us here, because of his immortal words in the Betan Credo. But we are more blessed today because in our lifetime we have known him, talked to him, listened to him, inspired by him and considered by him a brother.

            It is therefore an honor for me to speak in behalf of the fraternity and convey our deepest commiseration with the family of Brod Prospero Crescini.

At the end of our life’s journeys, we always come home to where we started. For most of us, that home is the Beta Sigma Fraternity. It is a home that remembers and never forgets. It is a home where no brother ever dies because death comes only to those who are forgotten.

As we pick up the pieces of our lives, we will continue to draw inspiration from the words and deeds of Brod Pros. We welcome him back to our pantheon of heroes.

                                                                        ###

The Beta Sigman Last Rites for Brod Prospero Crescini '49

Arlington Memorial Chapel

Araneta Avenue, Quezon City

27 November 2005

Brod Vic delivers the eulogy,

and pays his last respects to the great Brod...

Farewell, dearly beloved Brod Pros!

(More Pictures)