By Cyrus A. Natividad

Mauro and Cecilia Somodio during the 75th year of Philippines-Australia Friendship Day.

Mauro Somodio, a CPU BS Agriculture 1973 graduate, organized the Filipino-Australian Foundation of Queensland, Inc. (FAFQ) Grant-In-Aid Scholarship, for poor but deserving students in CPU last 1996.

What inspired him to create the scholarship program was his experience of being a working student himself. With his fellow work students, he experienced the struggle to maintain grades on their subjects. “Doing extra jobs to pay for our boarding house and food allowance was not easy. There was no social life for us. Our lives revolved around our dreams in finishing our studies, and finding work to help our families.” He also added that if anyone desires to be successful, he should not be ashamed to work.

His experiences led him to establish a program later on that enabled him to help work students in CPU. The criteria in selecting work-student scholars for the grants are for those with the highest academic record for the year. The work student must come from the six provinces of Western Visayas, namely Iloilo, Antique, Capiz, Aklan, and Negros Occidental.

This scholarship program started to give to students in 1997 with the Filipino-Australian Foundation of Queensland, Inc. (FAFQ) as the initial donor. Individual Donors were later on solicited by FAFQ. Every year, since then, the awarding of scholarships was done during January when they would the campus during the Dinagyang time.

There are more than 300 FAFQ scholars all over the Philippines by this time, according to Somodio. He said, “Soliciting more donors for CPU work student scholars is a pleasant activity in our senior years in addition to reminiscing memories of our struggles and success. We are also very active in the Filipino Community.”

Mr. Mauro Somodio is a native of Agutayan, Santa Barbara, Iloilo and his wife Cecilia Jumayao Somodio is from Ajuy, Iloilo. She is currently President of the Filipino Australian Foundation of Queensland, Incorporated.

They have two children, Jerome, a B.S. Microbiology graduate, now working in Australia Utility water, and Marcela May, a BS Nursing graduate – Clinical Nurse at Queen Elizabeth 11, both in Queensland Australia. “Both of our children came to Australia at a young age and attended school here until they graduated in college,” Somodio said.

Asked how Somodio became successful, he said. “I was more focused on succeeding that I wasn’t ashamed of the kind of work I had to put in to get to where I want to be. I stand by the principle that Labor is Honor.”