RR [Public School]

RR - Public School
August 8, 2000

I used to tease Ace whenever he commits a faux pas with the phrase, "Kasi naman, taga-public school ka e." But of course, it is all said in jest. For how could I denigrate an institution that I am myself a product of?

I became part of the mammoth public school system in the Philippines in 1969 when I was but six years old. I was enrolled by my mother in the first grade class of Mrs. Matias, along with my older brother Buboy who was the regular student. They called me then a "saling-cat" --- a bastardization of the idiom, saling-pusa. I was to be a pseudo-student since I was not of age. But what did you know? I sprang a surprise and finished the school year as first honor and I even have a sepia photograph to prove it. In that photograph, I was sporting a ribbon marking me a first honor student. I remember the ribbon to be green and the marking gold. It must have been a moment of pride for me since in that photograph I wore a Mona Lisa-esque smile and struck a most demure and formal pose complete with leather shoes shod feet in the customary 45-degree angle. I remember the photographer instructing me to do just that!

Oh, did I mention the garland of everlasting?

School was the Bicol University Pilot Elementary School. If you find the name kilometric, just say BUPES for that was how we referred to it. Just last December 1999 when I traveled back to Bicol for a high school reunion, the school was still there --- sprawling and huge as I still imagined it to be. I've always wondered why it was referred to as a pilot school. I mean, I've always associated the word pilot with something experimental (if not something about flying) and how could you be experimental with at least 10 sections in a grade level?

I also remember the school to be such a classic in terms of buildings and architecture with its requisite columns, high ceilings, capiz windows, mahogany and narra floors and wide corridors. Sure there were the Marcos-type buildings but they were fairly new and built as adjuncts to the main U-shaped edifices that were a throw back to the 50's.

But more than the school's bigness and archaic look, what I believed were more memorable as a public school student were the teachers.

You've met Mrs. Matias in Grade One. She was everyone in the family's first grade teacher and she was the typical school marm type. Greying hair in a bun and with horn-rimmed glasses. Severe dresses that could have been the precursor of the career woman look. And she was tall and big-boned. She could put precocious you in your place just with her stare. I never remembered much about the lessons she drilled us in but I remember that she made me feel special because she always entrusted me to do things for her. In hindsight, she must have seen I was potentially responsible and tried me out. I was the one she always called to list down on the board those who had been noisy in class while she was out of the classroom. I was the one who would put together three small bear chairs that I would cover with a pranela blanket so a small kid, a boy about two or three years younger than me and a relative of hers, could take an afternoon nap. I was the one she would ask to lead the line as the "Nutri-bun" and powdered milk were distributed. I must have delivered for, I told you, the saling-cat became first, although now that I think about it, weren't I more of an aliping sagui-gilid?.

In Grade Two, I met Mrs. Grageda. Mestiza but plump. She was like Nena Perez-Rubio's sister. Motherly. She was fond of teaching us spelling and I became so adept at it that once when she had to go on leave and we were distributed among the other sections, I topped a spelling contest at a class I found myself in. To this day, I don't know why they thought I was so smart when I spelled the word "sunny" correctly.

Grade Three was a blur but I still remember my cub scouting days when I was a member of the Luntian patrol. Grade Four was clearer for Ms. Cleofas, a short and dusky woman, was so enamored of theme writing. She was the one who would make us write how we spent our summer or Christmas vacations. She was the same one who would painstakingly correct our compositions so that our papers turned red with her ink. And I imbibed from her classes the passion to write correct sentences so her rubrics won't stain my compositions.

The reed-thin Ms. Ravalo was the major character in Grade Five. She was our local Twiggy but boy was she sharp and dedicated. I think I was first exposed to sophistication from her. Because she was slim, she moved like a model and dressed like one even as I would always see her walk to class with her head bowed. The most vivid memories I have of her include one late afternoon when I saw her rushing in the corridor and heard her say that she must be quick in going home lest she meets a rapist along the way. She was in a huff in full make-up! It turned out that the teachers had met after school hours for a make-up demonstration with Avon and Ms. Ravalo was a willing guinea pig.

Grade Six I think was when I truly appreciated my teachers' tutelage. There was of course Mr. Matocinos who was also my class adviser. I thought he was gay (I could sense that at that young age huh) for he was wishy-washy but he was also a married man. He always spoke to us like we were really bright students (I was in the first section; actually all through elementary grades and I mention this not as a bragging right, only with the realization that there might have been a bearing on the kind of teachers we got assigned to --- perhaps only the best ones for the brightest sections?) and he was the one who always urged us to get over there, where we thought we could not be: the Philippine Science High School qualifying tests, the scholarship cum entrance exams at the Aquinas University Science-Oriented High School, the school-wide quiz bee....

There too was Mrs. Alcantara, our Science teacher who would not only regale us with stories of scholastic achievements of her daughter who we never met, if only to inspire us to strive to be excellent ourselves not only in Science but in our personalities more importantly. I distinctly remember her admonishing us one time that the test of a person's discipline is if he can return to its proper place anything he lays his hands on. She would make as an example the way we leave our chairs after class. Up to this time, this is a barometer of sorts for me personally.

Ms. Austria, a diminutive figure so fond of letting us compete with each other through current events quiz shows in class, was another remarkable teacher. She was supposed to teach us Social Studies but we so enjoyed combing the news for the name of the Sri Lankan prime minister or the capital of Mongolia so that we could stump the opposition, that I could not remember any other lesson she taught. She was also one of the first teachers we had who made us do role plays in class.

Role plays on stage, on the other hand was the specialty of Ms. Esguerra, she with the high cheekbones and high heels. She was the first to tap into our hitherto unknown thespic talents when she cast us in a play about books for, what else, Book Week. It was the first time I would wear make up and she was my fairy godmother. We did not become soap opera stars after the stint but it was exhilarating nonetheless to be thrust into a concrete stage that had no backdrops nor curtains nor lighting effects, only microphones and costumes and our raw talents laid bare for the show.

Art was not limited to the stage and acting. We had a class called Industrial Arts taught since time began by a mousy little schoolteacher whose name I could not recall now. He taught us crafts and let us work with bamboo, plywood, coconut shell, rattan both natural and plastic, and metal. From him I learned that you should not refer to the store at the street corner where you buy your pako or alambre as hardware because it was actually the hardware store. From him I found out that there is such a tool as a coping saw; that a vise can grip your plywood still so you can run your coping saw all over it and that you'll never go hungry again if you only put your hands and your creativity to good use. From him we learned that Industrial Arts were actually practical arts and crafts.

Ms. Peralta was never my teacher in any academic class but she has stuck to my memory for she was like an alarm clock for me. On her way to school, she would pass by my house and I would know it was 7 AM for she always passed by at that hour. (We lived just across the street to the school and only had to walk about a hundred meters to reach the gate. I never learned to take the public transport system of buses, jeepneys and tricycles till after I graduated from elementary.) But more than her clockwork punctuality, she was an incredible music teacher who made the graduating class (600+strong) sing "Lupang Hinirang" in four voices over a two-week period. Until now, I hear myself sing in the "voice" we were taught whenever I have the chance to sing the Philippine National Anthem.

If I had teachers for heroes, role models and character shapers, there were also the caricatures and the oddballs. One was Mr. Zamora, he with the flared pants and the Kanebo shirts even before they were in vogue, who as a PE teacher was a self-styled karate kid who would never fail to let us know that he does his exercises at night when the conventional wisdom called for early-morning regimens. It must have worked since he was very stocky. But he soon disappeared from the school scene. There was talk he absconded with school fees. And another was Mr. Daep who was the quintessential closet gay if there ever was one. He was handsome and tall and claimed that one of my brothers was his classmate in high school. He was so fond of another classmate named Miguel and even then I already had an inkling of what pundits now call sexual politics. He even tried to court Ms. Esguerra! And still another one was the well-coiffed librarian who never did seem to know what books there were in her library! Her beehive must have taken so much of her time that was supposed to be spent on the Dewey system.

For sure I did not account for all the teachers who made an impact in my life as a public school student at the elementary grades/levels but the examples I mentioned would suffice I pray, to extol the virtues there were in a public school education then. Modesty aside, I certainly took pride in the fact that of all of us in the family, I was the one who always gave a reason for my mother to come up with me on stage to pin a ribbon on my chest (public schools did not have enough funds then ---maybe as now--- to buy us medals). I graduated second honorable mention (roughly fourth in the whole grade level of 11 sections) and it was enough to make me feel confident that I was ok, that I would be able to thrive where my future will take me. And I vehemently deny I got it because my mother used to let me bring huge five-kilogram melons to Mr. Matocinos.

I still keep a sepia photograph of Class '75: I thought I looked good in it, photogenic as I was in my fully-embroidered lace barong Tagalog and with head slightly tilting to the right and a full wave of hair slightly over my right eye --- young and full of promise that I either broke or fulfilled.

I found myself in a private Catholic school for my so-called secondary education and back to a public school (albeit a state university) in college. Fodder for another installment of Robertisms perhaps?