GRADUATION STORIES Among the 1,900 graduates of Quezon National High School in Lucena City are (from left) Rodora Rodriguez, 27, a house help who earned the first honor award in the Open High School Program; Doha Marie Velasco, 16, valedictorian of the Engineering and Science Education Program; Therese Ann Geneblazo, 16, valedictorian of the Basic Education Curriculum; Marlo Frias, 16, who supported his schooling by pushing a railway trolley; and Joel Pielago, 47, a ‘puto-kutsinta’ vendor. The series on their stories starts today. ARNOLD ALMACEN
Some things have changed about graduation, about high school and about the unfolding of the universe for those in their teens. And yet some things never change.
Quezon National High School (QNHS) in Lucena City on Friday graduated the last batch of its students from the old four-year high school system and the last cohort of public high school graduates that can go directly to college after only 10 years of primary and secondary education.
As the candidates prepared to march to the Alcala Sports Complex grandstand, the only venue large enough for the occasion, they fidgeted with their smartphones. That was the most obvious change. The gadget definitely robbed commercial kodakeros of their seasonal largesse, but a few photographers must still have managed to sell their shots to parents clueless about using the phone camera.
Selfies and groupies aside, the processional was as traditional as it could get, with pimply teens appearing miraculously well-groomed in their caps and gowns, lurching about in new shoes and looking self-conscious under the noonday sun.
Change surfaced in the valedictory address too. One of the school’s two valedictorians delivered a speech sprinkled with hashtags. A hashtag is a group of words preceded by the hash or pound (#) symbol designed to serve as an online link or label.
The hashtag is organic to Twitter but it took no time in migrating to Facebook, Instagram and other social networking sites. On Friday at QNHS, it made its way into the speech of Therese Ann E. Geneblazo, the top student in the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC).
Geneblazo said she and her fellow graduates would use the knowledge and values they received from their teachers as they continue to face the complexities of life. “As the saying goes, ‘A good teacher explains, a superior teacher demonstrates and a great teacher inspires.’ #MyTeachersMyInspiration [pronounced ‘Hashtag my teachers, my inspiration’].” She ended her address with “#CongratulationsandGoodLucktoallofus.”
On the other hand, Doha Marie G. Velasco, the valedictorian of the Engineering and Science Education Program (ESEP), closed her speech with an old-fashioned advice to her fellow graduates: “Never give up on yourself and on your dreams.”
Super lucky
The two 16-year-olds bested the other students for the highest honors in their respective programs by balancing their academic standing with leadership and extracurricular involvement, according to teacher Ramonito O. Elumbaring, who served as master of ceremonies together with coteacher Elizabeth R. Zeta.
Despite a rigorous daily schedule of 11 subjects from 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Velasco was the overall champion in the Math and Science categories at Palaisipan 2014, a national scholastic competition hosted annually by the University of the Philippines Los Baños. She was the division champion in the same categories at the 7th Online Academic Quiz Bee. She also wrote for The Coconut, the school paper.
“I love Math,” she told the Inquirer.
Geneblazo was the treasurer of the Supreme Student Government and part of the school’s champion cheer dance team. (“#DanceSportTeamisheartheart,” she said in her speech.)
In addition to their awards of excellence as valedictorians from Gov. David C. Suarez, both graduates received the Manuel S. Enverga University certificate of scholarship and the St. Augustine School of Nursing medal of distinction.
Velasco and Geneblazo said they were “super lucky” to have entered high school in 2011.
On to college
The following year, the Department of Education began to phase the K to 12 Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum into the school system. Since then, it has been compulsory for Filipinos to attend kindergarten and six years of elementary school (Grades 1 to 6), four years of junior high school (Grades 7 to 10) and 2 years of senior high school (Grades 11 and 12) before they can qualify to enter any university.
Having narrowly escaped the K to 12 system, Velasco is looking forward to college life at UP Diliman in the coming academic year. She said she wanted to take up Business Administration and Accountancy but didn’t make the course quota. She will now have to choose between Public Administration, Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management, and Tourism, or whichever of the three courses will have room for her.
“I think Public Administration will be a better pre-Law course than the other two,” she said.
Geneblazo herself is in a quandary about which university to enter. The courses open to her at UPLB—among them Agriculture and Forestry—are just not tempting. Because her heart is set on Architecture, she said she was seriously considering going to Polytechnic University of the Philippines. That will enable her to live with her mother in Manila. Since her second year at QNHS, she had been staying in a dormitory and, she confessed, she had a longing for a homelife.
Geneblazo’s father, Emerson, died when she was only two years old, leaving her mother Shiela as her sole support. At 6, she was left in the care of her grandparents and other relatives in Pagbilao so her mom could work abroad. She was 12 when Shiela came home for good, only to leave her again after a year for a better-paying job in Manila.
“My mother decided that I’d stay in Lucena so I could continue to receive quality education from Quezon High,” Geneblazo said.
Like her, Velasco is the only child of an OFW mother. Her father, Antolin, is unemployed. It is likely her mother, Mary Jean, will leave again for work. “She has plans of going to Hong Kong because I’ll be going to college,” Velasco said.
Tribute to mothers
Both girls paid tribute to their mothers in their speeches.
“Thanks for the support, the guidance and the love,” Geneblazo said.
“Thank you for the endless understanding and forgiveness,” said Velasco when it was her turn.
The commencement program ran for seven hours, which was not surprising because QNHS, the second largest public high school in the country, graduated 1,907 students: 1,664 from BEC, 115 from ESEP, 60 from the Open High School Program, 40 from the Special Program in Sports, 21 from the Evening Class and seven from Special Education (for the Hearing Impaired).
Of the candidates, 1,027 were female and 880 were male. To say that Lucena’s flower vendors, beauty salons and restaurants made a killing that day would be an utter understatement.
Melvir Buela, who was the Class of 1998 valedictorian and is now the treasury manager at the country’s largest steel manufacturing company, returned to QNHS as commencement speaker and wished the graduates a future filled with accomplishments for themselves, their communities and the country.
This may be the last commencement exercise for QNHS because, according to principal Carolina T. Zaracena, she has received word from the Department of Education that their Grade 10 students next year will be going to a different facility for Grades 11 and 12 or senior high school.
Chelo Banal-Formoso is Editor, Learning at the Philippine Daily Inquirer.