THE TORCH AND THE TROPHY: The Story of the Temiong Awards (Part 1 of 4)

By JCI Senator Reginald T. Yu
Chairman, National Records and Recognition Commission, 2006
“Father of the Temiong Awards”

Some legacies are born in parades and headlines. Others, in quiet corners — unseen but unforgettable.

The story of the Temiong Awards was not cast in the limelight of a grand assembly, but shaped in the hush of a hospital room, in the final hours of a man who changed the course of Philippine civic history. It was not launched with fanfare, but with a solemn vow — a vow that would alter the way we remember, recognize, and revere the work of Filipino Jaycees.

It was the final week of October 2005. The air was thick with the quiet grief of inevitability, and I stood by the bedside of Artemio “Temiong” Limtuaco Vergel de Dios — a man whose very name deserved to be cast in bronze. Not only for introducing the Junior Chamber movement to the Philippines, but for planting its first seeds across all of Asia. He was 89, frail in body but still resolute in spirit. And in those last tender hours, I saw in his eyes the quiet dignity of a man who had moved mountains without asking for monuments.

Temiong had given our movement its very roots, its soul, and its identity. Yet, like so many of our founding pillars, the clarity of his legacy was beginning to blur. Time, relentless and indifferent, had begun to erode the sharp lines of memory. Fewer spoke his name; fewer still knew what he had truly done. And that, to me, felt like a betrayal of history too sacred to forget.

So, I made a promise. I promised his family — and more so, his legacy — that his name would not vanish into the soft margins of our organizational memory. I promised that the leaders of tomorrow would know that they stood on the shoulders of giants, and that Temiong’s story would live on not just in our speeches, but in the very structure of our highest honors.

A year later, in 2006 — my final year as a regular JCI member — I was appointed as National Chairman of what was then known as the National Records and Recognition Commission. It was an appointment like any other on paper, but for me, it was providential. It became the portal through which I could breathe life into that promise.

What followed was not simply a redesign of our awards system. It was a transformation — an invocation. I wanted our awards to mean something. To stir something. To become more than accolades. They had to carry soul. They had to tell stories. They had to last. And at the top of this new structure stood the Temiong Awards — named not just after a man, but after a mission.

These awards were never meant to be modest. They were meant to be transformative. In name, in form, and in the gravitas of the night on which they are given. The Temiong was meant to be a national altar for service and sacrifice — a place where quiet work finds its voice, where humility meets dignity, and where generations of young leaders are told:
We see you.

What you will read in the pages that follow is not just a history. It is a reflection. A personal, passionate, and persistent meditation on what it means to recognize greatness — not for glory, but for guidance. It is a journey through the evolution of awards, the soul of symbolism, and the culture shift that followed a promise made on a dying man’s last October.

This is the story of how recognition, when built on values and vision, becomes a movement’s moral compass. And how, when forged with reverence and resolve, a trophy can outlive applause — and shape the future.

Guard its integrity with unwavering resolve.
Do not let convenience dilute its meaning, nor allow politics to erode its fairness. Let not the whims of fashion or the noise of the crowd determine who rises.

Let the stories lead. Let truth prevail. Let character reign.

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