Such a sacred heart

CEBU, Philippines - Dr. Dee San Tan-Magdadaro’s enthusiasm to obtain a Doctorate degree in Philosophy is very contagious. At 63, she was able recently to defend her dissertation skillfully. In fact, it was recognized as the “best” among her contemporaries. It has something to do with school plant management and administrative practices of the Cebu Sacred Heart College which she and her husband founded in 1995, upon their return from Tanzania (East Africa) where they served as medical missionaries for six years.

Dee San, who hails from Camotes Island, mentioned that despite the many trials, she has not given up her dream of finally receiving her doctorate degree most especially that she is running an educational institution with extensions in Camotes, Bulacan, Carcar City, and soon in Bohol.

“The gift to endure is powered by my faith in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and that Marian devotion which was strengthened by a pilgrimage to key European places that figured well in Marian apparitions. I was healed from colon cancer in 2005. It was also in the same year that my son, my second child (then into substance abuse), finally took seriously his rehabilitation program in Bicutan. Those were, I think, the most challenging stages in my life that put my biological motherhood to the test. I had to be strong for my three other children and I had to pray harder for my son in rehab,” she detailed.

Managing Cebu Sacred Heart College (then Sacred Heart School of Lawaan), she narrated, is harder, being a mother of a school. “Since there were only a few schools when we operated here in 1995, we got a good number of students, about 200 at once. However, at that very good rate, seven teachers went on mass resignation when their demand for a raise was turned down.”

She reasoned out that while the school board would like to empathize with the teachers, the school was yet on “toddler stage” at that time. “I’m the type of mother who manages a loan-less household,” she stressed.

“It has something to do with handling a buy-and-sell business. My Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Business Administration educated me so well that improvements should be done as the money comes in. Dili ta anang utang or loan, else how can we grow?” she went on.

So when the teachers insisted on a pay hike, the Magdadaros let them go. “Of course, there was also one who was sensible enough never to have gone with the flow. As a mother, I nurtured that gesture with pampering because the teacher deserves to be rewarded for obedience which is at the core of the values that we transmit to students.”

There was also her faith which she compromised just to keep the family intact. She is a devoted Catholic, but her husband Dr. Aguido Magdadaro (an internist) got converted to another religious group. That was what led them to Africa. “But in my heart I am always Catholic. So during our pilgrimage in Europe, I told my husband I’ve danced with him for a long time because I find it shallow for a family to be divided by religion. When he sensed that I was not having trouble anymore with the ball-like weight in my abdomen that’s been bothering me with some kind of electrically charged sensation, he wept, and must have understood the value of my faith, then he sought Holy Communion. That signaled his return to Catholicism.”

When she started running the school with Dr. Guid (her husband’s nickname), she would knock on doors around the neighborhood. Though possessing a timid disposition, she would brave the odds even inside fast food outlets just to pass on flyers to diners. “One of my daughters would stop me kay basin makadisturbo sa nagkaon, but I would say it’s just a small thing to ask; that they receive the flyer and read it afterwards. I’m sold to it because if they would really be interested in our programs, the numbers are just there in bold marks.”

When she received her recognition for Best in Dissertation, she just wished she could have adapted to current technologies. “It’s my children and our school computer specialist who prepared my PowerPoint Presentation because I have not really evolved in that aspect (laughs!). But I didn’t take that as a handicap. As always, I’m armed with guts and very ‘naning’ (driven) lang gyud ko. As an educator and as a mother, my story would be the best example of what it’s like to pursue our dreams. Passion for excellence knows no age.” — Photos by Aldo Nelbert A. Banaynal