School Year 1977-1978
Grade Four was a year of quiet transition, a move to the main school building, new classmates, new teachers, and a growing awareness of the world beyond the classroom walls. I tried harder that year, played harder too, and carried quietly within me things I could not yet name or fully understand.
I may not have stood out as the best. But I was growing, bit by bit, shaped by the people around me, especially those who had so little and yet gave so much.
My memories of that year have grown hazy, worn thin by the decades that now lie between then and the present. Still, I will try to gather what fragments remain.
I attended the afternoon session, where my teacher was Mrs. Pastor, a short-haired, fair-complexioned woman, likely in her thirties. She carried herself with a calm, reassuring demeanor that made me feel quietly at ease, almost at home.
I recall one afternoon when she asked me to accompany her home after class to help carry a stool she used at school. It was a long walk, perhaps two kilometers or more, but I did not mind in the least. I had always been naturally respectful toward those I admired, especially my teachers. She, in particular, had earned that respect many times over.
By Grade Four, the single-teacher classroom for all subjects that was the practice in the lower grade levels had given way to something more differently structured. To my young mind, it was more serious. Specialized teachers now handled each subject: Mathematics, English, Social Studies, Science and others.
Being placed in Section Two meant I had climbed two rungs from where I had stood the year before, and I carried that small ascent with quiet pride.
In this new class, I continued striving for whatever measure of excellence I could reach. Yet there was a boy seated near me who seemed to exist on an entirely different league, Reynold Chiquote, if I recall his name correctly. He was faster than the rest of us in every way: quick to grasp each lesson, quick to raise his hand, always a half-step ahead before anything had fully settled in anyone else’s mind.
One afternoon, I was called to the blackboard to write out animal classifications, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and so on. My mind, treacherous under pressure, suddenly went blank. From beside me, Reynold whispered the answer. I hesitated. I had always wanted my answer to be my own; there was a kind of dignity in that, something quietly important even if no one else noticed.
But pride, I was beginning to learn, must sometimes yield to the practical reality of a classroom full of watching eyes. I accepted the help. It would have been far more humiliating to stand there in silence.
The brightest in our class, however, was neither Reynold nor me. It was a girl named Jocelyn Ababon, who lived in Kinasang-an, Pardo. I visited her home once and was quietly startled by what I found, a family living in a small wooden hut, the kind that forces a child, even one of modest means, to confront how much harder life can be. Yet Jocelyn carried none of that hardship into the classroom. In school, she shone.
I expected to see her again in Grade Five, Section One, where I was headed. But she was not there. She had disappeared. I hoped she had not dropped out; I preferred to believe she had simply transferred to another school. For whatever reason, I have thought about her since, more than once. A mind like hers deserved the chance to be noticed, not wasted, perhaps using it to lift her family beyond the grip of poverty.
Aside from Reynold Chiquote, some of the friends I remember most from that class were James Alegado and Ariel Quijano.
Ariel, in particular, left a mark on me that I carry to this day, not through words or lessons, but through the quiet skill of his hands.
He taught me the art of paper folding: frogs that leapt when you pressed their backs, planes that glided across the afternoon air by my hands, birds whose wings opened and closed with the pull of a tail. He worked through increasingly intricate shapes with a patience and precision I deeply admired.
Years later, at work, I would find myself beside a colleague, folding a paper frog from memory and watching their face light up with the same wonder I must have felt when Ariel first showed me. With every fold, I am carried back to that classroom, to those afternoons, to a boy who gave me something I never thought to ask for, yet never forgot.
This was the year I moved into the school’s main building, where Sections One and Two of each grade level held their classes. There was a quiet prestige to the place, you could feel it the moment you stepped inside.
My brother, Artemio Jr., or Junjun, was already there in Grade Five, Section One, attending the morning session. He had always belonged in Section One, an honor student who would eventually graduate as the school’s valedictorian. The same had been true of my older siblings before him.
My sister May had been a consistent honor student throughout her years at Pardo Elementary, a steady presence on the list of achievers. She graduated as salutatorian, an accomplishment that, elsewhere, might have sparked grand celebration.
In our household, however, such distinctions carried a quieter weight. They were acknowledged, even admired, but rarely displayed with grand celebrations. Perhaps my parents were simply not the ostentatious kind. Beneath their restraint, I sensed a deep, unspoken pride, no less real for its silence, and perhaps all the more meaningful because of it.
By then, she was already in her second year at Abellana National School, that proud institution set between downtown and uptown Cebu.
My brother Glenn, whom we called Giging, was just beginning his first year there as well, having graduated from grade school as Boy Scout of the Year and other minor awards.
I was surrounded, on all sides, by achievers. And I was still finding my way.
In the main building, one of our regular chores was scrubbing the classroom floor with bunot or dried coconut husk, the traditional Filipino polisher that turned dull wood into a quiet, honeyed shine along with a paraffin wax.
In the hands of a diligent student, it worked exactly as intended, producing a gleam that never failed to please our teachers. But in the hands of a cluster of nine-to-ten-year-olds, left unsupervised even for a moment, the unassuming bunot became something far more dangerous and far more entertaining.
We would secure our bare foot or feet on the husk, clutch a partner’s shoulders for balance, and launch ourselves across the wooden floor as if it were a skating rink. The glide was exhilarating, the loss of control even more so. And then, almost inevitably, someone would whisper the word that changed everything: battle.
From opposite ends of the room, two contenders would charge, skimming over the floor, each determined to sweep the bunot out from under the other. Victory belonged to the one who remained upright with the bunot; defeat to the one who lost grip of the bunot.
The room would erupt into a symphony of screeching, collisions, and triumphant shouts. Bodies crashed, feet skidded, and yet, the floors emerged gleaming, polished to perfection by chaos itself.
When the teachers returned to find the classroom spotless and their students flushed and breathless, they rarely scolded us with any real conviction. After all, the evidence shone, quite literally, in our favor.
More than anything else, what brightened that school year was the coming of Christmas.
We were required to bring parol or lanterns to decorate our classroom, and I made mine by hand. From a strip of bamboo, I carefully carved thin slats and shaped them into a star, then covered the frame with colorful Japanese paper. It was simple, making sure it was even. It felt like something luminous, something worth hanging where everyone could see.
One more thing that I enjoyed much was when the teachers began letting us write into our music notebooks Christmas songs to sing. When she taught us those songs, something shifted in the room. The air grew lighter, charged with a quiet excitement that even the most indifferent student could not ignore.
The song that captivated me much that year was “Give Love on Christmas Day” by Michael Jackson. It was just everywhere, playing on radios, drifting through hallways, echoing from children's voices in other class rooms. To this day, it remains my favorite Christmas song. For a few fleeting weeks, singing that in class, felt like the coolest place on earth.
Give Love On Christmas Day Song
We practiced other songs too, such as, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “Mama Cita,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and a lot more.”
They followed me everywhere, songs I sang over and over as I walked back home from school's music practice.
On weekends, I would sing them aloud while doing my child stuffs at home. While I got lost in my own small world, I was singing “Give Love on Christmas Day” aloud, with so much feeling, forgetting my mother was nearby.
I stopped abruptly when I heard her say, “Louder, I want to hear more.” I never quite found the courage to sing for her again.
The Christmas party was the most anticipated day of the school year, and at its center was the exchange gift.
My sister and I went to the market together to choose mine. I found a small figurine, delicate, charming, the kind of thing I had never owned but had always quietly admired. I wrapped it with care and brought it to school, carrying the quiet pride of someone giving away something they truly loved.
When the gifts were finally distributed and I unwrapped mine, I found a bar of laundry soap and a small packet of detergent.
I walked home that afternoon in silence, the sadness settling somewhere deep behind my eyes. I did not cry, not where anyone could see. I held myself tight, just enough so not to show it. My mother, practical as ever, would have appreciated the usefulness of the gift, and I understood that. I truly did. But understanding does not always soften the blow. And that day, in a way I could not yet explain, I felt something inside me quietly not right about it.
Beyond the school gates, my life spilled into a riot of noise, laughter, and endless play. The neighborhood children and I would disappear into it for hours, returning home only when hunger finally called us back.
Looking at it now, I recognize it as one of the purest states of myself I have ever known, that complete, unselfconscious immersion in play, untouched by the hesitations and quiet burdens that come later with adulthood.
Our days were filled with games like siatong, tago-tago, tigsu, dakop-dakop, bato-lata, bitok-bitok, luthang, and many more which rules lived only in memory and instinct. We moved from one game to another as easily as the afternoon light shifted across the yard, never running out of energy, never running out of reasons to laugh.
When I played with the girls, we turned to jackstone, Chinese garter, bagol, etc. A few boys would join us from time to time, and together we played until the late afternoon softened into evening, reluctant to let the day end.
At dusk, we gathered again, this time in the dimming light, or just at its edge, to trade horror stories in hushed, trembling voices. I still remember some of those who sat in that circle: Gina, Elvie, Glendale, or Cindel, Nat, Ayen, Randy, and other names that linger, their faces rising now and then from the quiet corners of memory.
This was also the season of the bayle, the neighborhood dance held during the barrio fiesta, what we would later come to call a disco as the years moved on.
It took place just near our house. My brother Junjun would thread through the crowd, carrying a box of cigarettes and candies to sell, moving with the quiet confidence of someone who had already learned an early truth: where people gather to celebrate, there is always an opportunity waiting.
I watched him closely. I learned. And in time, I followed his lead, selling at the bayle myself, earning small coins that rested in my palm with a surprising weight, as though they carried with them the first faint feeling of independence.
For a few months during that school year, Papa’s younger sister came to live with us. We called her Mama Presing. She was unmarried, gentle, and soft-spoken, with a kindness so natural and complete that it felt almost otherworldly, especially in a household that was not always a gentle place.
The photograph on the left is one of the last images our family has of her, taken at a time before I was born. In it, she stands beside my older siblings, a quiet presence in a moment I would come to know only through stories and memory.
In the days that she was with us, she set up a small sari-sari store just outside our front door, selling bread, candies, and simple snacks, items that brought in only a modest income.
My brother Junjun built her a small wooden coin box to keep her earnings, and she tended to her tiny enterprise with quiet dignity.
But what she sold was hardly the point. What she brought into our home, into our lives, mattered far more.
Whenever Mama or Papa scolded me or when the punishment felt heavier than my small body could bear, it was Mama Presing who would quietly appear at my side. Along with uplifting words, she would slip a few coins into my hand from her own modest savings. It was never enough to change anything, but it was enough to quiet my tears, enough for me to know that she cared for me.
The photograph on the right, where she stands at the far left, was likely the last one our family ever took of her. She was there on the day of my christening at Sto. Tomas de Villanueva Church in Pardo, Cebu, quietly present as she always was during the important moments of our lives.
I cannot recall a single moment when she was unkind to me. Not one. In a life that has known its share of coldness and harsh words, she remains, without question, one of the warmest presences I have ever known. And yet, I must admit something that still weighs heavily on me. There were times I took coins from her cash box, small amounts, taken quietly, when I believed she would not notice, especially on days when Mama had little, or nothing, to give me. But that is not the point. I know, deep down, that she would never have refused me if I had simply asked.
I knew it was wrong even as I did it. That knowledge did not stop me. The guilt of those moments has never fully faded. It lingers beside the memory of her kindness, and the contrast between the two has become its own quiet punishment, far more enduring than anything she would have ever imposed on me herself.
We lost her sometime in the late 1980s, or perhaps the early 1990s, I cannot say with certainty now. For a couple of years before her passing, I had not seen her, as I spent long years in the seminary far from home, in Manila. But I was able to visit her once during a summer break, not long before she died.
She was then staying at my aunt’s house, frail, reduced almost to skin and bones, and barely able to speak. Yet when she saw me, her face lit up with unmistakable joy.
I went to her bedside, and she embraced me with what little strength she had left. We spoke for a while. I told her about my life in Manila, about the seminary. Despite everything she was enduring, she seemed happy, truly happy, in that moment.
Those were difficult times. Our family was struggling deeply, and we could not afford to have her admitted to the hospital. In the end, the family could only watch helplessly as her life slowly slipped away.
And even now, long after she is gone, what remains most vivid is not the hardship of her passing, but the quiet, steadfast kindness she gave so freely, a kindness that, in many ways, still shelters me in moments of despair.
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