MY MATERNAL grandmother,
Rita Pineda Canlas vda. de Zapata was my first teacher. Before I could learn to
read and write she already had me memorizing – by rote – the prayer the Lord
taught us, the invocations to the Virgin Mother, and the Rosary, plus the
Confiteor.
Contemporaneous with my
religious instruction was the caton
from my maternal grandaunt, Carmen Pineda Canlas. That’s the Spanish alphabet,
spiced with Caramba! Que horror! and
the most welcome vamos a comer.
It is to my mother that I
owe my love of reading, reading to me just about every material she could find:
books, magazines, most especially the Liwayway
which issue she never missed. This, even before I went to school.
No, I did not go to
kindergarten. Instead, I was salimpusa
in the Grade I class of Mrs. Gloria R. Reyes, at the time a most fair maiden
wooed by the debonair Joe Reyes who later founded Pampanga Times.
I started formal schooling
at the barrio San Vicente Elementary School in Sto. Tomas town as, being eight
months short of my seventh birthday, I did not merit entry at the Sto. Tomas
Central School. I walked two kilometers to school daily, many times
bare-footed. My teacher was Miss Maria David, pursued by two suitors, Rene
Velasquez and Porciano Canlas, whom she married. Indang Maring is childhood friend of my mom, so I guess that was
how I was allowed in as regular grader.
Grade 2, I transferred to
Sto. Tomas Central School, about five-minute walk from our home. My teacher was
Mrs. Felisa Canlas, mother of former NEDA Director- General Dante Canlas.
Grade 3, my TIC – that’s
teacher-in-charge – was Miss Estrelita Galang who later boarded at my Apung Mameng’s house. She returned to
her native Ilocos Norte after marrying her childhood sweetheart Joe Paz.
Grade 4, my TIC was Miss
Rose Intal. It is my music and arts teacher though that I remember with
fondness – the most beautiful Miss Maria Galura, ardently wooed and won by a
dashing young lawyer from nearby Minalin, Ricardo “Boy” Sagmit, later elected
delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1971.
It was in Grade 5 that I
really got started on the writing path, with the direction of Miss Cristina
Tayag who drilled us, with the zeal and discipline of a Marine sergeant, on the
English language with theme writing as a regular exercise.
Grade 6 was a breeze with
Miss Rosita Canlas. I earned salutatorian honors at graduation, with a silver
medal and the princely sum of P50, donated by Barrio Poblacion’s richest man,
Mr. Aurelio Batac, Sr.
A totally different
ballgame was the Jose Abad Santos High School which has since reverted to its
former name Pampanga High School.
In Section 1 of over 20
sections, I was farm boy lost in the big town with my classmates – mostly from
the “highly advanced” San Fernando Elementary School -- dominating all
the subjects, primarily the then novel Mathematics handled by our class adviser
Miss Carmelita Perez. Once CDC vice president Teng Gorospe was the
valedictorian of that class.
So I did where I thought I
could excel – joined the campus papers The
Pampangan with Miss Gervacia Guarin as moderator, and Sinukuan under the guidance of Miss Jasmin Dizon. I can still feel
the thrill of seeing my first by-line under the article “Discipline via the
squad system” on how the creme de la crème of the JASHS freshmen
maintained the highest standards in the classroom through a conduct reporting
system participated in by every student clustered in squads.
On my second year in high
school, I transferred to the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary where I was
remanded to first year, Infima Class.
Latin instantly became my
favourite, the difficulty of conjugation – with verbs, as in amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant,
and declension – with nouns, as in rosa,
rosae, rosam… for the feminine, and rivus,
rive, rivum…for the masculine adding to the appeal of the subject. A
philosophy graduate, Dan Basilio was my first Latin professor with Ars Latina. In Media Class, it was then
Fr. Miles Pineda with De Bello Gallico;
in Suprema Class was Fr. Martiniano Urbano with Cicero; and in Poetry Class, Fr. Paciano B. Aniceto with Ars Poetica and the Aenead.
I did well too in Geometry
in second year with Mr. Velasquez, and Trigonometry in Suprema Class (third
year) with Mr. Gregorio “Odo” Dayrit, also our Physics professor in our fourth
year (Poetry Class). I remember Odo most for two things: he gave me a 98 grade
in Physics for being the only one able to solve the problem he gave us for our
finals: A single problem with only one equation and with zero as the only
given; and he introduced me to Marx and Engels, Lenin and Mao, right on my
second year at the seminary.
Generations of seminarians
learned their birds-and-bees with the incomparable Mr. Leoncio Lising; their
history – Philippine, American, Asian, World – with Mr. Narciso Tantingco;
their economics with Mr. “Hammurabi” Amurao.
English, the seminary’s
lingua franca, I assimilated through various professors in Composition as well
as Literature – Fr. Mart Urbano, Fr. Jun Franco who was also president of
Assumption College, Miss Julie Meneses, and Miss Nancy Ladringan, who would
later become my first moderator in The
Regina of Assumption College.
I learned my balarila and panitikan from Miss Estrelita David who always came to class
all-smiles but would leave in tears even before the bell rang, due to our
childish pranks. She is now Sister Lita of the Dominicans.
Finishing salutatorian at
MGCS but fearful of being expelled from Rhetorics Class, I hastened to San Jose
Seminary and Ateneo de Manila.
The lasting impressions I
hold of my Jesuit professors there are those of Fathers William Keyes and Vincent
Towers, in my English subjects; and Fr. Nick Cruz, in Film Appreciation.
Out of the seminary, to
Assumption College. But not out of ex-seminarians for mentors, principally in
philosophy: Narciso Garcia in Ethics and Epistemology, and Percival Cuevas in
Logic.
With English as major,
Creative Writing with Mrs. Nicodemus – where coming to class high on grass
during the finals, I was laughed out by the whole class when it took me all of
five minutes to submit my composition. I got the last laugh though with a grade
of 1 for my work – “The Effects of Laziness” – with that title the only thing
written aside from my name on a totally blank test paper. And Journalism, with
Sol Jay otherwise known as Consolacion Jaime as prof.
With The Regina as the center of my orbit, it was Mrs. June
Velez-Belmonte, since emigrated to the US and now Mrs. June Whitmer, that may
well have served as the jeweller that polished the raw gem in me as a writer
and editor.
“The hand that rocked my
journalism cradle,” I inscribed on all my books I brought her in my visits to
her home in San Jose, California, befitting of her motherhood I was most blessed with.
On this the month
honouring teachers, I remember and honor all those who crafted me to what I am
now.
I shall always be
grateful, my beloved mentors.
(Updated from Zona Libre, Oct.4, 2012 with additional
remembrances)
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