A ‘Precious’ ruby year for O.B. Montessori

The first O.B. Montessori school was set up 40 years ago by Precious Soliven at a unit at the Syquia Apartments on M.H. del Pilar Street in Malate. The unit also served as the headquarters of the Operation Brotherhood. There were 25 pre-school students, including the children of Melo and Peewee Quintero, Cocoy Romualdez, Tony Ayala and Ching Escaler.

Later on, as word spread about the “revolutionary” way the school was educating its children, a new school was set up at the Cu-unjieng mansion in Paco, Manila.

“I liked the idea of setting up schools in big houses,” recalls Ambassador Soliven, now the UNESCO Philippines director general, “because it was a symbol of the child’s transition from home to school.” In Italy, where Mrs. Soliven trained for the Montessori way, the Montessori schools were in stately houses, too.

From the Cu-unjieng mansion, the pre-school moved to the Rufino mansion on Taft Ave. Those were the days, recalls Precious Soliven, when the wealthy families of Manila were moving to Makati villages like Forbes Park and leaving their Manila manors behind.

Mrs. Soliven called her school “Casa dei bambini” or “Tahanan ng mga bata” until some people mistook it for an orphanage and left babies on its doorstep. She then decided to call it the O.B. Montessori Center.

Pre-schoolers are taught to love work, to be organized and be orderly. At a tender age, they are taught to set the table with breakable plates. They learn how to dress and groom themselves. With no books, just apparatus like an abacus, they are taught math and other academic subjects.

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From the stately mansions of Manila, the school moved to a 4,000-square-meter lot in Greenhills, which the school bought on installment at P2,000 per square meter.

Today, O.B. Montessori Greenhills includes four buildings and 2,500 students from pre-school to college. And the property where the school now stands costs a whopping P200,000 per square meter! Including students at its Sta. Ana, Las Piñas and Angeles branch, O.B. Montessori now boasts an enrollment of 5,000 students from the original 25 kids 40 years ago!

How did Precious Soliven do it? (The late STAR publisher Max Soliven always credited his wife for supporting him when he was imprisoned and jobless during the martial law years.)

“The school was like a tree. I nurtured it,” says Precious of the school’s phenomenal growth.

As president of the school, Precious is still very hands-on, monitoring the teachers as well as the students. For her, character is just as, if not more important, as knowledge.

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It was a nostalgic evening at the Isla Ballroom of the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel recently when OBMC celebrated its ruby year. With the theme, “ASEAN Summit,” the management and staff of O.B. Montessori Center, Inc. led by its founder, Ambassador Soliven — all garbed in colorful traditional costumes of the different Asian countries — celebrated 40 years of lifelong education for sustainable development.

Ushers playing the major characters in the history of the Philippines such as Jose Rizal, Magellan, Lapu-Lapu, Gabriela, Juan Tamad among others, welcomed the guests which included Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, UNESCO Commissioners Carmen Padilla and and Leonarda Camacho, TESDA director Irene Isaac, Singapore Airline’s Rita Dy and former ABS-CBN vice president Maloli Espinosa. The diplomatic corps was represented by Signora Cosetta Fedele, wife of the Italian ambassador, Thailand’s Ambassador Asha and Apichai Dvitinayananda and former Philippine Ambassador to Paris, Hector Villaroel.

Known for fabulous and unique presentations, O.B. Montessori once again awed everyone with another spectacular show. It was a trek down memory lane as audio-visual presentations with carefully chosen pictures highlighted the pains and gains in the development of the school since 1966 to the present time. Performing Arts world champion Jed Madela did a beautiful rendition of the theme song from The Man from La Mancha, Impossible Dream. Reyda Naynes, an intermediate student from OBMCI Sta. Ana branch, sang Cinderella’s A Dream is a Wish, and Camela King, a high school Music teacher, did a lively interpretation of the song Just Do It from the musicale on the life of Dr. Maria Montessori, “A Woman Called Freedom.” Ambassador Soliven and her line managers showed their thespian talent in the Rigodon de Honor. The OBMCI Personnel Hymn, Keepers of the Flame, was launched in a dance presentation.

But the biggest hit of the evening was the tribute to OBMCI chairman Max V. Soliven. What everybody thought was just a simple slide presentation turned out to be a poignant, memorable and an unbelievable experience that left everybody in tears. Tears continued to flow as it segued to Max’s favorite song, Love is a Many Splendored Thing sang by OBMCI CAT commandant, Jomar de la Peña.

After 40 years of making a difference in the lives of millions of Filipino families, O.B. Montessori Center has gone beyond its academic programs and now boasts of multi-purpose theaters, Italian-inspired restaurants that serve as laboratories for the OJT of high school and college students, an 11-hectare farmland in Alfonso, Cavite patterned after Thailand’s King Bhumidol Adulyadej’s Self-Sufficiency farm, several ecumenical shrines and a 24-year-old Child & Community Foundation that reaches out to the rural communities through the Pagsasarili Preschools and the Mothercraft Training and Literacy Course for Village Mothers.

It is equally proud of its full military brigade of 700 high school CAT cadets and a 100-member Marching Band, both having won top honors in inter-school competitions.

Its roster of outstanding alumni include no less than internationally acclaimed singer and stage actress Lea Salonga, Rachel Alejandro, South Cotabato Rep. Darlene Antonino Custodio and TV host Christine Bersola, to name a few.

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