In Grade 6, our school changed its sectioning system from one based on academic performance to mixed-ability classes. Although I remained in Section One after passing a screening test administered by our adviser, Mrs. Santos, I struggled with the constant comparisons to my older brother, who had graduated as valedictorian. My mother's remark that I was "not quite" as intelligent stayed with me throughout the year, strengthening my desire to prove my own worth.
Mrs. Santos inspired us through music, especially the song One Little Candle, whose message of hope followed me well beyond elementary school. Other teachers also left lasting impressions. Some taught through harsh discipline, while others encouraged excellence through kindness. I experienced both success and moral failure, earning perfect scores in some subjects but also carrying the guilt of once correcting a quiz after it had been completed.
In the classroom, I learned difficult lessons about character. As part of a close-knit group of boys, I bullied a classmate until she finally fought back with a broomstick. The incident forced me to confront the consequences of my own cruelty.
Financial hardship also shaped my childhood. When I needed a Pentel pen for class, my mother taught me to make and sell caramelized sweet potatoes so I could earn the money myself. That experience became one of my earliest lessons in resourcefulness, responsibility, and self-reliance.
As graduation approached, I watched many dreams limited by financial realities, including my own. Although I earned the highest score in English on a district examination, I received no recognition because I tied with a teacher's daughter. The deepest disappointment, however, came after the ceremony when I searched for my mother but could not find her.
I finished elementary school without honors, without family beside me, and with only a solitary group graduation photograph. Yet I realized that my true achievement was not measured by awards, but by the perseverance, lessons, and quiet resilience I had gained along the way.
By the time I reached Grade 6, I was quietly grateful to still find myself in Section 1. That placement had come to feel like something fragile, something I needed to hold on to, as if it were a small but meaningful measure of worth in a household where comparisons came easily and praise was rare. Then, that year, the school system changed in a way that put everything in disarray.
Sections were no longer strictly based on academic performance. Instead, students were mixed across abilities and placed together in shared classrooms and shared routines. On paper, it was a more inclusive and democratic approach. But for those of us who had worked our way into the top section, it felt like something had been quietly stripped away, a distinction erased without ceremony or explanation.
Still, I was fortunate that several familiar classmates remained with me: Dennis Guangco, Glenn Alegarbes, Ariel Quijano, and Felipe Abarquez. As for the girls in class, I was not particularly close to any of them, a situation that was common among most of my barkada, who moved through the school year as a tight, self-contained group, largely uninterested in that particular social boundary.
Our class adviser was Mrs. Santos, who also served as our English teacher. She was genuinely competent, sharp in the way good teachers often are. I still remember, with a clarity that has not faded, the moment during enrollment when she turned to my mother and asked, with the casual directness of someone expecting an honest answer, “Is he also intelligent?”
My mother, never one for flattery or hesitation, replied without missing a beat: “Not quite.”
Two words. No malice, I’m certain of that. And yet they settled into me in a way that casual remarks sometimes do, not like a sudden wound, but like something slowly seeping outward, tinting everything I tried that year. The comparison had already been made for me long before I could resist it: my brother Junjun had graduated as valedictorian the year before, and his achievements seemed to arrive in every room ahead of me.
I remember his graduation vividly. Junjun had nearly not made it to the ceremony at all, delayed by a disagreement with our parents, the details of which were never fully explained to me. Perhaps it was something as small as what he chose to wear. Or perhaps it was the familiar reluctance of our parents to attend such events, the same quiet distance they kept from our accomplishments, as though pride were something they had agreed not to express openly. We had long grown accustomed to that absence, not as cruelty, but as a persistent, unspoken lack that shaped how we understood recognition itself.
My sister May had received honors in Grade V, but it was Mrs. Cagigas who pinned the ribbons onto her, because our parents were not there. That image has stayed with me, May standing before the class, being recognized for something extraordinary, and the person doing the honoring being a teacher rather than a parent. Still, on the day of Junjun's graduation, I walked to school early and sat close to the stage. And when he arrived with them just in time to deliver his valedictory speech, something inside me swelled with a pride I did not fully know how to name. I was proud of him. I was proud for all of us.
In the photograph, my older brother, Junjun (Artemio Jr.), is being recognized as the class valedictorian, having graduated as the brightest among the previous year's elementary graduates. He was with my mother, Mr. Gantuangco (the school supervisor), and Mrs. Santos (the Section One class adviser). It was an achievement many assumed I would never equal.
Yet I did my best. I worked hard, performed well in many of my subjects, and often earned high marks in examinations. Looking back, I realize that my greatest obstacle was not a lack of ability but a lack of confidence. I possessed the determination to persevere, but I seldom believed in myself as fully as I should have.
Self-esteem matters more than we often realize. Talent and hard work can take a person far, but without confidence, they rarely reach their fullest potential. It is difficult to convince others of your abilities when you have not yet convinced yourself. Believing in your own worth is not arrogance; it is the quiet foundation upon which achievement is built.
Perhaps that is why I often remained just on the average. Although accomplishments spoke for themselves, but I rarely allowed myself to step fully into the limelight. Only years later did I come to understand that confidence is not something we are born with, it is something we gradually learn to cultivate, one challenge and one small victory at a time.
Mrs. Santos was not entirely satisfied with the new class assignments. Whatever the school administration hoped to achieve by mixing students from different sections, she evidently wanted to ensure that those in her classroom could meet her academic expectations.
To assess her new pupils, she administered a screening test in English. We were asked to read a short passage, answer four comprehension questions, and complete a sentence organization exercise, a skill at which I readily admit I was not particularly strong.
Although the test was never officially described as an entrance examination, everyone understood its purpose: the results would determine who would remain in Section 1 and who would be quietly reassigned to another class.
When the papers were returned, I had scored 2 out of 4.
So had Felipe Abarquez, one of my classmates and widely regarded as one of the brightest students in our batch. Years later, he would graduate as our class valedictorian. Only a handful of students earned scores of 3 or 4.
Mrs. Santos set the cutoff at a score of 2. Anyone who met or exceeded that mark would remain in Section 1.
I had just barely cleared the threshold.
But barely was enough.
I was staying.
Looking back, I realize that the result meant more to me than a place in a classroom. It affirmed that I belonged among the students I had worked so hard to keep pace with. Sometimes, a narrow margin is all it takes to strengthen a child's belief in himself.
Among Mrs. Santos's many gifts to us was her love of music, not merely as a form of entertainment, but as something meaningful to be learned, remembered, and shared.
She taught us several songs, including one called “Service” and another that would remain with me for many years: “One Little Candle.”
At the time, I did not realize how deeply that song would become woven into my life. It first existed simply as something we sang together in the classroom, guided by the voice of our adviser and the unity of our young voices. But over the years, its message followed me into different seasons of my life, appearing at moments I could never have anticipated.
Many years later, during my Junior-Senior Prom in high school, we performed the song again. Its familiar melody filled the stage and transformed an ordinary school event into something warmer and more meaningful. The song had traveled with us beyond the classroom, carrying memories of the teacher who first introduced it and the friendships formed during those early years.
Another two years passed since then, I found myself singing it once more during a formation program at San Agustin Seminary in Makati, as part of a candle-lighting presentation. Our group had little more than our voices and the simple sincerity of the song itself. Yet somehow, that was enough. The melody carried us through the evening, reminding us that even a small act, offered with genuine intention, can hold significance.
That is perhaps the lasting beauty of “One Little Candle.” Its message does not depend on a particular place, age, or occasion. It endures because it speaks to something universal, the idea that even the smallest light can push back darkness, and that ordinary people can create moments of hope through simple acts of kindness.
Looking back, I realize that Mrs. Santos was not only teaching us songs. She was giving us memories, small pieces of encouragement and inspiration that would continue to accompany us long after we had left her classroom.
Here are its words, and the music that gives them life:
We had other teachers that year who left lasting impressions, each in very different ways.
Mrs. Bacayo, who taught Health and Science, believed firmly in discipline. At times, however, her methods went beyond what would now be considered acceptable. When a student failed to answer a question to her satisfaction, she did not simply move on.
If you failed to answer one of her questions to her satisfaction, she would not simply move on. Instead, she would pinch the skin near your ear or, at times, the tender flesh of your groin, with a practiced precision that suggested long familiarity with the punishment. I was on the receiving end of that particular form of discipline more than once, and although the pain was brief, the memory lingered long after the sting had faded.
Mrs. Kiamco was her complete opposite. She taught with kindness, encouragement, and the quiet belief that children responded best when their efforts were recognized rather than punished.
On one occasion, I was the only student in the class to achieve a perfect score or so it appeared. As I glanced over my paper just before handing it in, I noticed that one of my answers was wrong. Acting on impulse, I quietly corrected it before Mrs. Kiamco collected the papers as I feared to disappoint her.
No one noticed.
I received the twenty-five centavos, and I kept it.
I also carried the quiet knowledge of what I had done.
Fortunately, that incident was the exception rather than the rule. On many other occasions, I earned perfect scores honestly, through careful study and genuine effort.
Those achievements, not the twenty-five centavos, are the ones I remember with quiet pride.
That year, I belonged to a close-knit barkada, and being part of that group gave me a confidence I now realize I had not fully earned. There is a particular recklessness that can come with belonging, the way shared laughter can make unkindness seem clever, and the way the approval of friends can dull a child's awareness of the hurt being inflicted on someone else.
There was a girl in our class named Marietta. She had dark skin and tightly curled hair, and I, more than anyone else, called her matsing, the Tagalog word for "monkey." At the time, I treated it as nothing more than a nickname. I was too young and too insensitive to understand the cruelty it carried. I thought it was harmless. I thought it was funny.
I was wrong.
One day, just before our noon dismissal, we were cleaning the classroom as part of our daily routine. Marietta had finally reached her limit. Without warning, she grabbed a broomstick and struck me with it multiple times.
The blows landed so hard that a throbbing pain stayed with me for days, leaving a dark bruise that spread across my skin.
My mother noticed it almost immediately and asked what had happened.
I told her I had slipped and fallen.
It was a lie born not of fear, but of embarrassment. I could not bring myself to admit that Marietta had struck me, or that, deep down, I understood why she had. So I carried both the bruise and the lesson in silence.
I could not bear the embarrassment of admitting, in front of my classmates, that the very person I had ridiculed had fought back. So I endured the pain in silence.
Looking back, I cannot blame Marietta for reaching that point. While violence is never the right answer, neither is persistent ridicule. My words had caused a hurt I failed to recognize until I experienced a measure of it myself.
That incident became one of my earliest lessons in empathy. It taught me that what we dismiss as teasing can leave deep wounds in another person, and that laughter at someone else's expense is rarely as innocent as it seems.
The pain from the broomstick eventually faded, but the lesson endured. Even now, I remember Marietta with regret, wishing I had shown her the kindness and respect she deserved from the beginning.
Every afternoon, we reported to the school's workshop for our Industrial Arts classes. Our teacher was Mr. Abasolo, a man who carried himself with the quiet authority of someone who had mastered his craft so completely that he expected the same care and precision from his students.
My first memorable encounter with him, however, had taken place years earlier, when I was in Grade Three. On that occasion, I had been throwing clumps of mud at the wall of the workshop with a group of classmate friends. When Mr. Abasolo suddenly emerged from the building, panic set in. In a desperate attempt to avoid being caught, I quickly switched to throwing stones and confidently claimed that I was only trying to knock the dried mud off the wall.
It was a ridiculous excuse.
Whether he believed me or simply chose not to argue, I never knew. But I never forgot the embarrassment of that moment.
Now, in Grade Six, he was no longer just the teacher whose workshop I had nearly vandalized. He had become my own Industrial Arts instructor.
He taught technical drawing, lettering, carpentry, and a variety of practical skills that most of us encountered for the first time under his guidance. At the beginning of the school year, the boys attended Industrial Arts while the girls took Home Economics. Later, we exchanged classes so that everyone learned the fundamentals of both subjects. For us boys, that meant learning basic sewing and other household skills that were traditionally associated with the girls' class.
Mr. Abasolo's grading system was simple then, but uncompromising and at the same time unforgettable: one mistake meant a score of zero. There were no partial credits and no points for effort. If a drawing contained a single misplaced line or a lettering exercise failed to meet his standards, the entire work received a zero.
When I first heard the rule, I assumed he was exaggerating.
He was not.
Surprisingly, his exacting standards brought out something I had not yet recognized in myself. By working patiently, paying close attention to every detail, and refusing to rush, I consistently earned perfect scores in his class. Those afternoons in the workshop became some of the most satisfying moments of my Grade Six year. They taught me that precision is a discipline, excellence often lies in the smallest details, and that demanding teachers, though intimidating, can sometimes reveal abilities we never knew we possessed.
Outside school, the neighborhood remained my kingdom, and play was its language. Just across from our home stretched an open patch of earth shaded by coconut palms, bordered by banana plants, and anchored at one end by a small bamboo hut with a nipa roof and a cool cement floor.
It was there that the older boys and young men gathered to play hantak, a coin-flipping gambling game, as well as cards. I was too young to join them, but not too young to watch. And by watching, I quietly learned how money changed hands and how adults filled the idle hours of their afternoons.
One day, I found myself in urgent need of a Pentel pen for an Industrial Arts project. It was not optional. Mr. Abasolo's standards allowed no substitutions, and without the proper pen, I could not complete the assignment.
When I asked my mother for money, she had none to spare.
Instead of turning me away, she offered me an opportunity.
She had me buy a kilo of camote (sweet potatoes) for one peso and eighty centavos and showed me how to peel and cut them into cubes, fry them until golden, and coat them with caramelized sugar. Once they had cooled, we skewered the glistening pieces on thin bamboo sticks.
Armed with my homemade treats, I walked to the bamboo hut where the gamblers gathered and offered them for sale. One by one, the sticks disappeared. By the time I had sold the last one, I had earned just enough money, exactly enough, to walk to the store and buy the Pentel pen I needed.
At the time, I felt a little embarrassed selling food to older boys and adults. Yet necessity has a quiet way of teaching lessons that comfort never can.
Looking back, I realize that my mother gave me something far more valuable than the money I had asked for. Rather than simply handing me the coins, she showed me how to earn them. Those few pesos purchased more than a pen; they gave me one of my earliest lessons in resourcefulness, dignity, and the quiet satisfaction of meeting a need through my own effort.
To a twelve-year-old boy, those coins felt surprisingly heavy in my palm, not because of their value, but because they carried the first unmistakable weight of self-reliance.
As graduation approached, conversations among my friends increasingly turned toward high school, what came next, which school to attend, and what kind of future awaited beyond the familiar walls of our elementary classrooms.
Felipe had once considered enrolling in a technical school in the city, where admission required a general average of at least 85. But when enrollment season arrived, I found him instead at Gullas High School, and I understood the reason without needing to ask.
It was the same reason I never pursued the technical school myself: money or more precisely, the dependable absence of it.
Financial constraints have a quiet way of redirecting ambition long before ambition has the chance to argue back. Dreams remain, but circumstances often decide which paths are realistically within reach.
Then came March of 1980, the culmination of my elementary school years.
Our graduation ceremony was held at Pardo Parish Church or the Church of Sto. Tomas de Villanueva, whose old stone walls and high arched ceilings gave the occasion a solemnity that none of us quite knew how to fully appreciate at the time. I sat through the ceremony without receiving any honors, although I will admit that I had quietly hoped for at least one.
Earlier that year, a district-wide examination had been administered, and the highest scorer in each subject was supposed to receive special recognition.
I had earned a score of 95 in English, the highest mark in the subject.
But I was not the only one.
The daughter of a teacher had received the same score. In the case of a tie, the recognition was awarded to her. I never learned what exact criteria determined that decision. I only remember the feeling of knowing that I had performed just as well, yet still walked away without recognition while the ceremony continued around me.
It was a small disappointment, but to a child standing at the edge of a major transition, it felt heavier than it might seem today.
After the final applause faded and the crowd began to thin, I searched for my mother. She was with me earlier upon going to the venue.
At first, I walked slowly, scanning the faces gathered near the pews and along the church steps. Then I moved faster, carrying the growing concern of a child trying not to worry.
But she was nowhere to be found.
So I waited.
I remained inside the church as my classmates left with their families. I watched parents gather around their children for photographs, arms wrapped around shoulders, laughter spilling into the bright afternoon. One by one, they disappeared through the church doors until the once crowded space became quiet.
Eventually, I walked back to school alone for our packed lunch.
I finished elementary school without honors, without a ribbon, and without my mother beside me for the graduation photograph I had imagined.
But I finished it.
I had survived those years of classrooms and lessons, friendships and conflicts, responsibilities and disappointments. I had endured wounds, both those I received and those I caused, and I had reached the end of elementary school still standing, still myself, though perhaps more aware of the world and my place within it.
Eventually, I did manage to have my graduation photograph taken.
By then, most of my classmates had already gone home to their families and celebrations. The excitement had passed, and the moment had already moved on without me. Still, I remained behind and stood before whatever was available. The camera clicked, capturing a single image from a day that had unfolded differently from what I had imagined.
It became the only photograph I kept from that graduation, delayed, quiet, and taken not at the center of the celebration, but in its aftermath.
Not the kind measured by honors or applause, but by endurance.
Not by how brightly one stands in the spotlight, but by the simple act of continuing forward when the spotlight never arrives.
And perhaps, in the end, that was its own kind of graduation.
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