MANILA, Philippines—It was not her explanation of journalistic concepts that left an indelible imprint on students like me. It was her vision of producing journalists with high ethical standards who would make a difference that moved us, and her high regard for the role of journalism in changing the way things are in the world.
“You, as a journalist, are accountable to the public. Do not do a disservice to the people,” professor Lourdes “Chit” Estella-Simbulan would always say. Silence would fill the room, caused by students awed by the passion with which she delivered her lecture.
That silence in the classroom has permeated the entire journalism community with her untimely death.
Simbulan, who earned the respect of many of her colleagues because of her courage and integrity in the fight for press freedom and democracy, was killed when a speeding bus slammed into the taxi she was riding in on Commonwealth Avenue just outside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus on Friday evening.
I was a sophomore when I first met professor Simbulan.
My friends and I had compared notes prior to enrolling in Journalism 102 at the College of Mass Communication. Landing a “less terror” professor requires a diligent background check; after all, the more teachers of this category a student has, the less pressure he or she has to deal with during the semester.
That second semester of 2005, I knew I had made the right choice. My classmates were busy chatting away while waiting for Ma’am Chit, as she was called. I did not see any students biting their fingernails. Some of my classmates were also professor Simbulan’s students in previous semesters. She must be a kind and a good teacher for them to have enlisted in another one of her classes again, I remember thinking. It was either that or they just didn’t have a choice.
In the middle of my daydreaming, a petite woman quietly entered the room. The chit-chat died down as the middle-aged woman positioned herself near the blackboard. Unlike other serious-looking UP professors, the new face in front of me was not at all intimidating. She was smiling—the entire class could see her eyes twinkling through her glasses.
Anyone who has had the privilege of being professor Simbulan’s student, I’m sure, can explain their first meeting with her as vividly as I still can. When people remember every detail of their encounter with someone, it is either they have had bad experiences with him or good ones. In the case of Professor Simbulan, I can assure you that her students have nothing but good memories of her. The outpouring of grief in the UP community upon learning about her death was real.
The students whose lives she touched sincerely grieve her passing.
“She inspired me,” a friend of mine said.
“She was one of the few UP professors I liked who pushed me to become diligent, at least for once,” another confessed.
I can only agree with both of them.
Rest assured, Ma’am Chit, that your death will not be in vain.