(FROM THE BOOK FOOTPRINTS, CLASS ’64 BY Atty. Amadeo R. Fulgado)
The graduation was supposed to start at seven p.m. sharp. For a week now, the HS Graduating class, ranging in age from 15 to 17, had been drilled daily and without let-up to the protocols of walking, smiling, shaking hands, accepting the blank certificates, bowing to the audience, and singing the San Ildefonso Hymn, the Alma Mater song.
Sister Imelda was a stern taskmaster making sure that her children will be ‘on-the-dot’ and b’fall-in-line’ forty five minutes before commencement starts, which meant eating one’s dinner before sunset and taking one’s bath under the cool, shocking pour of the native “tabo”. Showers were a rarity then and only a few would aste food fuel for the desired warmth. Not a few came with empty stomachs and no baths.
The graduates, all 70 of them standing double file, were at the appointed time, now primed to march to the lighted and flowered stage. Lorenzo Piguing, for reasons of his own, was ahead of his time and decided to boycott the affair, an attitude that became fashionable only in the early 1970s.
Mr. Claro Samonte, otherwise known as “Johm Paul Jones” was in classic jusi barong with matching black pants. He had taught these graduates his vast knowledge of history, no matter that they remember more of his “guerilla exploits” as a ‘secret’ member of the Marking guerillas than the textbook Philippine history that truly mattered.
Beside him stood Mr. Rodelio Abanilla, similarly attired, who was eyeing the pretty Gregoria Apar who would later on become his wife. Both were members of the faculty, the former teaching handicraft while Ms. Apar taught Biology.
Not far from them was Mr. Porfirio Castillo, a Physics teacher, who was teasing Mr. Elpidio Tongohan about the latter’s unheard of romantic dalliances. Mr. Tongohan was the music teacher, but at that moment, he could here no beautiful music seeing Ms. Apar stole glances to a man no taller than his shoulder height.
Suddenly, a heavy downpour of rain fell, followed by gutsy winds causing the waiting crowd, including the well-dressed attendees, to scamper for cover in the nearby corridor. The decision was not spontaneous, but seeing the wet stage and the wilted flowers, an order was given to transfer the graduation to the church with the holy altar serving an instant stage.
And so it came to pass that, for the first time in its 17-year history, San Ildefonso College conducted its graduation on the hollowed grounds of its Parish Church! The date: April 17, 1964.
“What a lucky batch,” was all that Sister Alice muttered seeing the subdued, benign faces of the young graduates as they walked single file to the front pews festooned with white buntings, their hands clasped as if in solemn prayers. With her remaining good eye, she failed to notice the suppressed giggles of the girls and the deliberate, playful pushings of the young boys.
“Tonight, we give thanks to the enormous blessings of the past years that the good Lord has showered…” so goes the homily that the dearly beloved Rev. Fr. James McArthy, incoming Parish Priest and Director of the school, gave in the opening recital. From the middle pews on the boys’ section, a suppressed laugh was heard, followed by a few giggles from the girls’ corner, eliciting a hushed command to keep quiet from Mr. Vidal Amonoy, the Algebra teacher. He cannot, of course, step out as he once angrily did when these same boys, in one of his classes, acted so unruly that he threatened, “If you will not keep quiet, I’ll ‘tep out!”
(First of Three parts)
NOTE: The Class ’64 Graduates! is part of the book “FOOTPRINTS, Class ’64” written by Atty. Amadeo R. Fulgado, published in 2005.
