The many faces of AVHS Class 1961

CEBU, Philippines - Photographs, they say, are worth a thousand words but these are more than pictures. They are the faces of the then young girls and boys clutching their own personal story as they ventured out into the wide world of life. And darn it!…I am proud to be one of them.

These then are the stories of some: their struggles, their sacrifices, their ambitions and hopes for the betterment of their lives. Some, even most, of them are perhaps cynical but they are truthful.

Meet Orville Jugarap, diminutive in size but it was never a deterrent in his ambitions. He possessed neurons and electrons as big as the universe. At 16, just as he graduated from high school, he applied for a student visa to study in the United States. His only credentials were his high school diploma and a certificate of radio technician from Abellana Vocational High School. He was rejected several times, but with sheer guts and determination he was finally given a visa. Maybe, just maybe, the consul who interviewed him thought that here again was a Napoleon. He was likewise lucky that he had a sibling in Hawaii. And off he went…USA or bust!!!

He made it. Less than five decades later, unbeknownest to his classmates and schoolmates, he came back to Abellana and donated electrical, audio equipment, and his time to the school. Thanks to him, Abellana National School now has an Audio-Visual Room (AVR). According to Mr. Ernesto Jacel (the principal then) it is the most equipped AVR compared to the other public high schools in the whole province of Cebu.

But of course other benevolent alumni helped: Former Congressman Pastor Alcover Jr (class 1970) donated the curtains, Engr. Daisy Toledo (ANS Alumni President) financed the floor carpeting, the Class of 1961 provided the airconditioning equipment and Class of 1984 the painting and A/C installation.

And there it stands today “the Orville Jugarap Audio-Visual Room”.

Ben Solon too made the hard complicated way to the US in 1966. When he arrived in San Diego, California, his brother met him and went to the carousel to get his check-in baggage. He stopped his brother and with a sad look claimed, “This is it, bro, no check-in.” He was the typical immigrant with only the clothes he wore, a toothbrush and a comb. Ben joined the US Airforce and was at one time in the Vietnam war. He retired as a USAF non-com officer. Today, he no longer needs a comb for there is nothing to comb anymore; fortunately, he still needs his toothbrush.

Rolando Laburada was a gangling, smiling boy. Always smiling as a matter of fact, as if the world was full of nice people. When he got his B.S. degree, he joined the Philippine Army. His whole life was devoted to the army and he retired as a Brigadier General. The smiling boy acquired army strength. He was assigned at one time in the Spratly Islands where he was amazed at the beauty of the natural habitat of turtles and seagulls…and Earth  as a wonderful place, indeed.

Teodorico Oliva Jr. or Teddy or Boy or just Teddy-boy is a different cookie. Oh no! Don’t get me wrong not kooky or strange! He was and is as ordinary as you and me. Not a trouble maker but will not run away from a fight, either. Jun Gonzales can attest to this. Jun was on the wrong side of Teddy-boy’s right fist. It was a lucky or a “Hail Mary” punch that hit Jun and even surprised Teddy-boy. After that incident, they have been the best of friends.

Teddy-boy once went to the U.S Consulate at Philam building in Jones Avenue to apply for a student visa. The consul who interviewed him must have seen a nice decent young man. The consul told him to show a plane ticket and he would have a visa. Off he went to his father as Teddy-boy was possibly his favorite kid. Afterall, the father named him  as his junior. The father said no and told him to stay put to learn how to run the family business.

Today, Teddy-boy is still that gangling kid — a little bigger in the middle — with that innocently decent look. That is what perhaps Doris Chongbian saw in him, to have married him. And fairy-tales do come true, of two hearts to live forever after.

On that fateful day of March 23, 1961, at 4 pm, about 500 candidates for grauation marched on the earthen track and field oval towards the make-shift stage facing the grandstand.  The unforgiving scorching sun and dust created by those hundreds of feet of young girls in their white dresses, and boys in white shirts and pants, did not faze the mood of the hour. It was the culmination of four years of high school. Jubilation and laughter was in the air as each one of them eagerly waited, as did their parents sitting at the grandstand, for the program to begin.

Estrella Lopez, validectorian technical curiculum; Maria Pamoso, salutaturian technical; and their counterparts on the general curiculum side, Edgardo Estoy, validectorian and Nila Quiroga, salutaturian. They were followed by the honorable mention entourage of Loreta Bardos, Leonita Faelnar and six others, the cream of the crop, the most likely to suceed…and they did. Edgardo Estoy topped the board in Civil Engineering, Estrella Lopez was cum laude in Chemical Engineering, and Maria Pamoso magna cum laude in B.S. Chemistry. Leonita Faelnar is a doctor of medicine.

The rest of the graduating class followed the leading pack: The technical curiculum of three sections A, B, C; and the generals of seven sections. I was one of the last of the technicals at section “C”, but at least we were ahead of the general section “1,” eating our dust so to speak.

It has been more than half a century since that sunny day in March of 1961. Abellana’s name has changed since way back after the end of the Second World War. In 1945, the Provincial High School was transferred to Argao. The City High School was holding classes in the ruined buildings of the old provincial high school on a lot belonging to the provincial government.

The City High School was later called Abellana High School. Name after the Cebu Governor Hilario Abellana who was executed by the Japanese sometime January 1945. If Hilario Abellana had lived, the political climate in Cebu would have been different. But again “who knows?”

In 1951, after two years of back and forth negotiations between Cebu City Mayor Miguel Raffinan and Cebu Governor Manuel Cuenco, the city bought the site from the provincial government for Php 234,000.

In 1993 until today, day it is “Abellana National School.” (FREEMAN)