The country’s real treasures

TEACHERS wear shirts of different colors to identify the regions they represent.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro waxed poetic as he paid one of the sincerest and most stirring tributes to Filipino teachers on World Teachers Day.

After five years and three months, and with less than nine months to go as education secretary, Luistro said he would remember to the end the courage and dedication of the Filipino teachers.

Keynoting the annual observance hosted this year by Cabanatuan City at Araullo University of the Philippine Investment Management Consultants Inc., Luistro listed the big and small things teachers did that often went unnoticed.

“If you can dance, a teacher taught you; if you can play basketball, a teacher taught you; if you can read, a teacher taught you. There is nothing you can do that was not taught to you by a caring teacher,” he said.

The secretary, speaking mostly in Filipino, said it was appropriate that World Teachers’ Day was celebrated in Cabanatuan, a name that meant royalty’s treasure chest. He said a country’s true treasures were its teachers.

He said the decorations to depict the theme “fiesta,” which included upturned umbrellas, fans and buntings, symbolized what teachers often did and had to be. They hoarded resources so their students would have enough, offered comfort to those who were distressed and made life colorful at all times, he said.

Fiesta, he added, also underscored the things teachers were asked to do outside the classroom. “A teacher is always asked to organize events or celebrations in any community,” he noted.

The secretary, described by Education Undersecretary Mario Deriquito in his introduction as a servant leader, visionary and missionary, said he was grateful he had the chance to go around the country, including the remotest parts that had not been reached by any other government official.

Luistro said that in his visits to different schools, often unannounced, he found that he had heard wrong about teachers.

“Thousands of teachers in public schools … despite personal problems, go to school every single day and set aside their own concerns to care for their students. Each has personal challenges but they dedicate their lives to their students and create miracles every day. During calamities, teachers are in school … even when they themselves lost their houses. A teacher teaches in and outside the classroom, teaching about life, not just academics.”

He said, “I have not seen any other teacher with as much commitment and dedication to duty as a Filipino.”

Even when resources and facilities were inadequate, like when there was no electricity, “teachers make sure no student is left behind,” Luistro said. Teachers perform their duties at all times and for all seasons. “They are first in and last out in any crisis or calamity,” he said, even during the wars Filipinos fought.

The secretary said this was why, even in elections, teachers were the first people officials asked to help.

“Because teachers have integrity. They are always ready to give of themselves, even if the community forgets about them. They continue to work and provide inspiration,” he said.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro

Luistro said teachers were good and caring, and had done more than some heroes with monuments did. But the teachers, he said, did not need monuments. If just one of 100 people they taught could remember to thank their teachers, that was enough reward for the years of hard work.

Luistro, a Lasallian brother, also assured the teachers that their good deeds, though not recorded in history books, would be rewarded in the afterlife. He said that if just one former student would vouch for the good they did as teachers, that would be enough to gain them entry to heaven.

“You do not need cosmetics or jewelry,” Luistro told the teachers, mostly from public schools in northern and Central Luzon. “The beauty and glitter come from your heart. The real wealth and beauty of a community are in the heart of a teacher.”

Aniceto “Chito” Sobrepeña, president of Metrobank Foundation, said they were encouraging regions and communities to make next year’s celebration of World Teachers’ Day not just a national event but a local event, too. Perhaps, he said, local businesses and groups could take the initiative to honor teachers the way Metro Manila commercial establishments, for instance, offer freebies like discounts and free services during the annual National Teachers’ Month from Sept. 5 to Oct. 5.

Participants also heard from colleagues Dr. Allan Moore Cabrillas of San Jose West Central School in Nueva Ecija and a Metrobank Search for Outstanding Teacher winner;
Normita Liwag, recipient of the Many Faces of the Teacher award and an Alternative Learning System teacher who taught prisoners, among others; and Mark John Marcos Tamanu, a pioneering senior high school teacher at Bukig National Agricultural and Technical School in Aparri, Cagayan province, which was among the handful of educational institutions that piloted the new K-12 (Kindergarten to Grade 12) curriculum.

Other speakers were Cabanatuan City Mayor Julius Cesar R. Vergara, Provincial Administrator Alejandro Abesamis (representing Gov. Aurelio M. Umali), Araullo University president
Chito Salazar and Assistant Environment Secretary Rommel Abesamis, who read a message from Speaker Feliciano
Belmonte.