Irenea Conato Apao was described by her students as a jolly teacher that would always love to teach physics.
Before going abroad, the 41-year-old popularly known as Ma’am Apao last taught three years ago at the Don Vicente Rama Memorial National High School, formerly known as Basak National High School, where she was one of the most talented teachers for her science exhibits and symposiums.
But last November 8, she was found lifeless hanging inside her rented room in Baltimore, Maryland in an apparent suicide which stemmed from depression.
Filipino teachers and Filipino-American community leaders from Virginia, Maryland, New York and New Jersey conducted necrological rites in her memory at the Rendon Hale Funeral Home in Lanham, Maryland last Nov. 17
Apao’s body is expected to arrive in Cebu this week, in time for her daughter’s 18th birthday on November 26. Her remains will be laid in Punta Prinsesa Funeral Chapel.
Apao taught for nine years at the Basak National High School where her works won recognition from the Department of Education, which bestowed the Top Ten Selected Educators’ Award upon her. As a government scholar, she earned a master’s in education at De La Salle University in Manila.
In 2006, Apao was one of the first batches of Filipino teachers hired by the Baltimore Public School System to help mitigate the shortage of teachers in the area. She actually arrived in the US months earlier to teach math and physics at the Riverbend High School in Spotsylvania, Virginia.
Fellow teacher Michelle Albor-Basabe would always remember Apao as “Nene.” They grew up together at the Cabreros compound in Basak. Apao finished her bachelor’s degree at University of San Jose-Recoletos and later married Basabe’s cousin.
Apao and her husband, however, got separated although their marriage produced two children, – Ivy, 17, who is currently a freshman in nursing at Cebu State College of Science and Technology, and Paulo, 10, a Grade 4 pupil at the Basak Elementary School – who were left in the care of her sister when she left for the US.
“She only became Irene here but we’ve always known her as Nene,” Basabe recalls, ribbing her when they first reunited in Baltimore.
“I remember her being tough. She went through a lot of problems – marital problems and huge financial problems back in the Philippines but she always got through it. For me, she’s always been a winner,” Basabe recounts.
Basabe said she was surprised when Apao told her that she started suffering from depression last year, shortly after she moved from Spotsylvania to Baltimore.
“I asked her what the problem was and all she could say was ‘work,’” Basabe remembers.
The Migrant Heritage Commission is one of the groups trying to raise funds to send home Apao’s remains. It also aims to create a trust fund for the education of her two children. - Phoebe Jen Indino and Jasmin Uy/LPM