An Atenean who is a farmer at heart

He is a full-blooded Chamorro but he speaks Tagalog and Cebuano (or Bisaya) like a pro. Vicente “Ben” S. Borja, a key organizer in the Mes Lancheros celebration this month, which ended in yesterday’s 25th celebration of the islands’ Agricultural Fair, is born and raised on Saipan, but he often amazes people with his talent in speaking Philippine languages and dialects.

Borja delivers his lines in foreign tongues so smoothly that he often leaves his audience, specially the native speakers of these languages, amused.

“Some people really thought that I’m one of them because I speak their language. I can speak it with ease,” said Borja with a wide smile.

Aside from speaking Chamorro, Carolinian, English, Tagalog, and Cebuano, Borja also takes pride in “understanding” others like Chavakano and Ilonggo, which are spoken in some regions in the Philippines.

And behind these languages lie a number of stories to tell.

Borja, a senator during the pre-Commonwealth period, a former teacher, a fulfilled agriculturist and an established farmer, said he learned Filipino languages by heart during his five-year stay in the country more than three decades ago to study and obtain his bachelor’s of arts degree in agriculture.

“I am an Atenean,” he proudly said, referring to his alma mater: the Xavier University- Ateneo de Cagayan, a Jesuit-run academic institution in Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao, the Philippines.

Borja, a Jesuit scholar, left for Cagayan in 1967 and finished his bachelor’s degree from the university in 1972.

Throughout those years, he said he had opportunities to travel to other regions, meet new people and learn their languages.

“Even after my graduation, I would always go back [to the Philippines]. I’d say it’s a second home,” he said.

He narrated that during those trips, he actually met a Chamorro family from Saipan who reportedly settled in central Luzon even before the Japanese occupation of the Marianas. “I couldn’t believe I would meet a relative in the Philippines,” he said.

He said he met Milagros Flores Borja, reportedly a sister of the mother of George Flores Fleming Sr.

“From Yap, they reached Hong Kong, Singapore, and settled in the Philippines when the old man had a stroke,” he said.

He said he met a primo, reportedly a grandson of Milagros, in Cagayan.

Milagros’s family is said to have lived in Paniqui, Tarlac, a province in central Luzon.

Meantime, after college, Borja returned to Saipan and worked as project director for a federally funded program called Northern Mariana Island Community Action Agency.

In 1978, he won a Senate seat and became one of the last senators to serve under the NMI District Legislature. He then left the government and joined the private sector for a long time.

It was only in recent years that he went back to government service. Borja has been an agriculturist with the Division of Agriculture (under the Department of Land and Natural Resources) for four years now.

At the same time, Borja manages his own fruit, vegetable, and animal farms in As Teo.

“I’m always attached to the land. It’s my way of life. I love farming,” he said.

He said he was the first local farmer who brought jackfruit, star apple, and other Philippine fruits to Saipan for growing purposes.

“At that time, you could easily bring fruits and plants,” he said.

Borja is this year’s chairman for the Agri Fair solicitation committee, which received some $10,000 grant from the Commonwealth Development Authority.