'Miss Mayor'

If life’s a stage, one of the most memorable parts I’ve played is that of a teacher.

I remember being fresh out of Journalism school at the University of the Philippines and brimming with idealism. I wasn’t about to go out into the streets and take up a placard (it was the prelude to the EDSA years) in order to change the world. I wanted to teach. I wanted to inspire fresh, young minds. I was (still am) so acutely aware of how my teachers have molded me and I was eager to give back right away.

I applied for a part-time teaching job at the high school department of my alma mater, the Assumption Convent, and taught English literature for two years. I was called “Miss Mayor” by my students. I tried to weave in life into my lesson plans. I remember teaching Julius Caesar as the Marcos years were waning and the Aquino presidency was dawning, and letting my students see in the Shakespearean drama the various threads that crisscross the fabric of power.

I saw in every student a fresh mold of clay, an uncut piece of cloth that could be molded and patterned into someone productive and principled. I guess I also was living out a secret fantasy — because teaching is performing. It’s a one-man show before a live audience. When your “audience” yawns, you better spice up your act. It was also an introduction to Power 101, for every teacher is a judge. She gives verdicts at the end of every grading period, numerical verdicts where every decimal point counts. She learns to be compassionate, she learns to be firm. I remember that deliberations for the top spot were as delicate and life-altering as deliberations for those who were to fail. And in both cases, every fraction of a grade was as powerful as a nuclear bomb. It altered outcomes.

Miss Mayor (third from left) with former AC Batch ‘86 students (from left) Malu Gamboa, Vicky Morales-Reyno, Pia Barbin-Sycip, Valerie Mayor-Sotto and Mabel Soriano Lemen.

Teaching certainly was not a high-paying job, but it was rich with affirmation. Every day, my students would reaffirm me, made me think I was of great use in this world. Teaching gave me a purpose, and to wake up to a purpose every morning is better than waking up to a paycheck. If you get both, then well, how lucky can you get?

Last Tuesday, the second batch of students that I taught, AC HS Batch ’86 (the “People Power” Batch, and whose velada this Sunday has the theme, “The Power of Plaid”) held an appreciation lunch for their teachers at the Milky Way restaurant on Pasay Road. The invitation stopped me in my tracks. All these years, I have been attending alumni homecomings, reunions with former officemates and relatives, but never, ever a reunion among former co-teachers and students.

And the invitation, relayed to me by Batch ’86 president Malu Gamboa, took me back on a road I have never visited all these years. The road that led me back to the classroom, into a world of chalks and erasers, lesson plans and report cards. A world that burst with youth, restlessness and idealism. 

“Miss Mayor,” Vicky Morales of GMA-7 teased me, “remember denouement?” Oh, yes, denouement. The part of a drama after the climax characterized by an easing up of the excitement.

“Miss Mayor, you haven’t changed!” exclaimed Pia Barbin Sycip. I claim her compliment because she can’t get a high grade now in exchange for it.

And, the perks of being a former teacher! “Miss Mayor, do you want to be deputized in the MTRCB? I can send you a form,” said MTRCB chairman Grace Poe Llamanzares. That means I can watch movies for free, yehey, and “report” bad movies.

Most of my co-teachers were my former teachers themselves, like Marilen Reambillo and Cory Villafania, who both taught Religion. Also present during the lunch were Mrs. Yoro (who taught Pilipino), Dely Carrion (Cooking), Mrs. Austria (Pilipino), Mrs. Bing Yogore (Alay Kapwa), Sr. Mary Joseph, r.a., Sr. Bernadette, r.a., Sr. Carla Infante, r.a., Sr. Luz Emmanuel, r.a., Mrs. Gaite (Laboratory), Sr. Regivic, r.a., Mrs. Yenko (Typing), Ms. Acuba (Physics), Ms. Baby Villanueva (Sewing), Ms. Bernas (Math), Mrs. Yoly Ramos (Music), Mrs. Batacan (Religion) and yours truly. Up to now, I can’t seem to call them by their first names. Most of them look exactly as they did when they were my teachers (and later, co-teachers). Either they imbibe the youth of their students; or we still look at them with the eyes of a teenager seeing them as they looked 25 years ago.

My Cooking teacher (and co-teacher) Mrs. Carrion came to the lunch in a wheelchair, but still looking like a million bucks, with makeup and well-coiffed hair. Her daughter Cecile Salvacruz says her mother always lights up when she sees former students who tell her how much she has taught them to be good homemakers. My sister Val says that Mrs. Carrion’s constant admonition “Clean as you work!” plays in her mind like a nursery rhyme every time she is in the kitchen.

Truly, life’s a stage. And the sweetest applause comes from those whose lives you’ve touched irrevocably with your performance, and who take time out, even a minute, to tell you so.

Teachers, take a bow.

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