It's late on another Thursday night, April 7, 1994. Here in my room in Sampaloc, Manila, I find myself writing because I'm afraid of forgetting. Memories don't wait for anyone, they begin to fade the moment we stop holding on to them. Tonight, my thoughts drift back to where all my formal education began.
In my very first day in school, I remember walking into the classroom overflowing with excitement, full of boundless energy and curiosity. But my enthusiasm came across as restlessness, and it didn't sit well with my teacher. It didn't take long before she had seen enough. At just six years old, I was quietly transferred to another section, labeled a troublesome child. I didn't fully understand what was happening. All I knew was that something inside me stung, even if I tried to convince myself that I didn't care.
Looking back, that unexpected transfer turned out to be one of the greatest blessings of my childhood. In my new classroom, the "problem child" that others had seen somehow disappeared. My new teacher welcomed me with patience, and my classmates accepted me warmly, even though I had arrived several days after the school year had already begun. Their kindness made me feel included from the very beginning. The classroom soon became a place of laughter, friendship, and discovery, a place where I genuinely loved to learn and where, for the first time, I felt that I truly belonged.
That's the story behind my Grade One school journey. Read on to know it in full.
My Teacher Lost Her Patience
In the early days of June 1974, I walked through the gates of Pardo Elementary School for the very first time, a chubby, wide-eyed six-year-old brimming with excitement and eager to discover the world.
I was enrolled in Grade One, Section 1, a class generally reserved for children from families who were considered better off. Whether that was officially true or simply how it appeared to me as a young boy, I cannot say with certainty. But that was how I understood it then.
My teacher was Mrs. Andales, a strict, no-nonsense woman who would soon discover that managing a classroom full of children was one thing; managing me was quite another.
For reasons I could neither understand nor control, I simply could not keep still. From the moment I entered the classroom, I became a whirlwind, drifting from desk to desk, introducing myself to anyone within reach, whispering to classmates, and triggering fits of laughter at the most inappropriate moments. I talked incessantly, as though the words inside me refused to remain contained.
Whenever Mrs. Andales called on me to recite, however, my mind would betray me. Moments earlier, it had wandered freely through imaginary worlds; now it returned completely blank. I could not even recite the vowels correctly. It did not take long before I earned the reputation of being the class troublemaker.
There was, however, one area where no one questioned my ability, the arts and lettering. Art was my refuge. My pencil moved with a confidence my voice could never summon, and I consistently earned perfect scores. On paper, I could express myself in ways I never could outloud. Yet even that quiet fulfillment was often clouded by the constant disruption caused by my ceaseless energy.
One day, Mrs. Andales clipped a large paper clip across my lips to keep me from talking and made me sit in silence until the end of the class. The embarrassment cut deeper than I could express, lingering long after the paper clip was removed.
Afterward, she pulled my mother aside and recounted my endless misbehavior. In hushed but strained voices, I overheard her accuse my mother of misrepresenting my age, insisting that I was only six years old rather than seven, as indicated on my enrollment records.
My mother had enrolled me because I would turn seven that October, believing the difference of a few months hardly mattered. To Mrs. Andales, however, it became yet another mark against me.
Before long, her patience wore thin. Without much deliberation, I was transferred to Grade One, Section 4, an afternoon class housed in a building at the far end of the school grounds.
Whether she saw the transfer as a disciplinary measure, a fresh start for me, or simply the easiest solution, I never knew. At six years old, all I understood was that I had been sent away.
A Transfer to a Lower Section
The transfer came as a shock. Grade One, Section 4, an afternoon session. It sat in an older building at the far edge of the school grounds, cut off from the main campus as though it belonged to another world entirely. To my six-year-old eyes, its weathered wooden walls and bare classrooms looked almost forgotten, a place the rest of the school had quietly left behind.
The children felt different too, though I couldn't yet explain why. Many came from families of humble means. Their uniforms were faded at the seams, and some walked in wearing worn slippers instead of shoes. I noticed all of it without understanding a thing about the economics behind it, I only felt that something about this new place was peculiar, unfamiliar, slightly off-balance. A six-year-old's instinct, long before it has the words to justify itself.
My new teacher, Mrs. Abapo, was a gentle woman with kind eyes and a soft, crossed gaze that somehow made her face more distinctive, more warm, rather than less. From the moment I stepped into her classroom, she welcomed me in a way that quietly dissolved my unease.
Looking back now, I see how easily children build entire worlds out of first impressions. What I mistook for a lesser place became, without my noticing the shift, the classroom where I would feel most at home, proof that kindness has nothing to do with the room you're standing in, and everything to do with who's standing beside you.
Outside the classroom, I got to know Mrs. Abapo even better. She lived in a simple house of bamboo-slat walls and a nipa roof, up a narrow staircase along a quiet alley off I. Tabura Street. I knew the way by heart, because after class I would often carry her books and bundles as we walked home in the same direction, our footsteps falling into an easy rhythm.
Those short walks taught me who she was beyond the classroom, someone genuinely kind, genuinely caring, whose generosity had nothing to do with what she owned. Long before I had the vocabulary for it, she showed me that kindness is never measured by the size of a house, the polish of one's belongings, or a person's standing in the world. It comes from somewhere else entirely.
Still, the adjustment wasn't easy. My imagination, already restless, followed me straight into my dreams. One night I dreamed of a classmate, his face marked with sores, reaching up from beneath our porch to pull me down as I scrambled onto a chair to get away. I know now the dream wasn't born of cruelty, or even disgust. It was fear wearing a disguise, the ordinary, unglamorous fear of a child trying to find his footing in unfamiliar ground.
It took years for me to understand that my discomfort was never really about my classmates. It came from my own struggle to belong somewhere that felt nothing like the place I'd left. As a child, I simply assumed we'd all been sent to Section 4 because someone, somewhere, had already decided something about us. I never once stopped to ask whether that assumption was fair or even true.
Standing there in my neatly pressed uniform, I sometimes wondered whether I truly belonged in that room, or whether I'd ever really belonged anywhere at all. Only years later did I see how wrong my first impression had been.
Behind the faded uniforms and worn slippers were some of the kindest classmates I would ever know. Together with my humble teacher, they took me in without judgment, accepted me exactly as I was, and taught me quietly, without ever meaning to, a lesson I still carry: a person's worth is never decided by appearance, or standing, or the section to which he happens to be assigned.
My Transfer Turned Out Well
When one door closes, another quietly opens. Stepping through it often means walking into the unknown, where what first looks like a setback may, in time, reveal itself as an unexpected blessing.
That was exactly what happened to me. The transfer I had dreaded became one of the happiest turns of my childhood. The simplicity of that isolated classroom, the kindness of Mrs. Abapo, and the easy, unguarded laughter of children who had never learned to put on airs slowly wore down my fears. For the first time in a long while, I felt accepted without having to prove anything.
Because I came to school in a clean, neatly pressed uniform, some of my classmates assumed my family was well off. Whether they truly believed it or simply chose to, that impression seemed to smooth the way for friendships to take root. I still remember many of their names, the way one remembers those who once shared the same small world: Michael Medel, Hermis Delicano, Ricardo Nacional, Diomedes Castañares, and others whose faces remain vivid in my memory even now.
Years later, in 1991, I was walking toward J. Tabura Street from a narrow alley when someone called my name. It was Diomedes, grown now, weathered by hard work, a shovel resting on his shoulder under the afternoon sun. We greeted each other warmly and lingered a while, trading memories of our Grade One days. For a brief moment, it felt as though two little boys from long ago had found each other again, hiding somewhere inside these two grown men.
Back in that classroom, something in me slowly began to settle. My schoolwork improved in ways that surprised even me. I learned to read aloud with confidence, raised my hand eagerly during recitations, wrote more neatly, and steadily grew stronger in English, Mathematics, and even Visayan.
Mrs. Abapo had a patience that Mrs. Andales had never quite found for me. Where one teacher saw only restlessness, the other seemed to see the child underneath it. Her quiet encouragement gave me permission to believe I was capable of learning and under her steady, gentle guidance, I finally began to flourish.
Looking back, I sometimes think I was like a young plant that had simply been growing in the wrong soil. Transplanted into gentler ground, I took root at last, and began to thrive.
Her kindness reached well beyond the classroom. During recess, older pupils sold snacks from the school canteen, and there were days when Mrs. Abapo quietly bought more than she needed, slipping the extra into my hands without a word, as if she simply knew that the fifteen centavos my mother gave me each day rarely stretched far enough.
I accepted those small gifts with a gratitude I was still too young to put into words. Looking back now, I understand they fed more than my hunger. They told a little boy, in the plainest possible language, that someone cared.
Visiting Classmates' Homes
As the months passed, I began visiting my classmates' homes. Hermis lived just beyond a barbed-wire fence near our classroom. Inside their modest kitchen stood a living iba tree, its branches pushing up through an opening in the roof, its fruit hanging right there inside the house, within arm's reach of the trunk. To a child, it seemed perfectly natural, almost magical, as though the house had simply grown up around the tree instead of the other way around.
One afternoon after classes, I made the long walk to Michael Medel's home in Campar, Pardo. There I stumbled onto something that filled me with quiet wonder. Years before I was born, my parents had lived in that very house as newlyweds, renting a single room while they began their life together. It felt as though time had folded back on itself, stitching my own childhood to a chapter of my parents' lives I had never known existed.
The walk home, though, nearly ended in tragedy. To get there, I had to cross a busy highway alone. Halfway across, traffic surged suddenly from both directions. Overwhelmed by the noise, the speed, the sheer confusion of it, I froze, a small, frightened boy stranded in the middle of the road, cars rushing past on either side.
An elderly couple standing nearby noticed my predicament at once and looked, if anything, more alarmed than I was. Watching for the briefest gap in the traffic, they hurried toward me, took me firmly by the hand, and led me safely across. As they went, they scolded me gently, warning me never to cross such a dangerous road alone again.
I never learned their names, but I have never forgotten their faces. For one ordinary afternoon, an elderly stranger and his wife became the guardians of a frightened little boy who simply needed someone to lead him home. Wherever life has taken them since, they remain among the quiet heroes of my childhood, remembered still with a gratitude that has never faded.
It All Felt Like Home
On many afternoons, Mrs. Abapo would ask us to rest our heads on our desks for a short nap, a mid-afternoon siesta that was simply how things were done for young children in those days. As the classroom settled into silence, she would sit quietly with a small transistor radio, tuned to her favorite afternoon drama.
I rarely slept. Instead, I would close my eyes and lie perfectly still, listening just as intently as she did, careful never to let her catch me wide awake.
The drama was called Mga Mata ni Angelita, or The Eyes of Angelita, and it completely captured my imagination. The story wove together drama, faith, and touches of the miraculous. Angelita was a blind orphan, led to the edge of a cliff and left for dead. Rescued by nuns and raised in a convent, she grew into a child of extraordinary faith, kneeling before the Blessed Virgin with a devotion that seemed to see more clearly than sight ever could. Though she had lost her eyes, she became a vessel of compassion and hope, her inner light spilling outward into the darkness around her.
As I lay there pretending to sleep, the story quietly took root in me. Long before I understood why, it planted a lifelong love of radio dramas and of their strange, remarkable power to build entire worlds out of nothing but voices, music, and sound.
While the drama played, Mrs. Abapo would quietly prepare our afternoon snack. At the back of the classroom, she boiled bananas in an old tin can balanced over a small wood fire. Before long, the sweet smell drifted through the room, curling in with the voices from the radio. When the bananas were ready, she would gently wake us from our "nap" and share the warm, soft fruit among us.
To this day, I don't know whether she ever realized I'd spent those afternoons awake, listening to every episode right alongside her. I like to think she never noticed. Or maybe she knew all along, and simply smiled to herself, and let it be.
Looking back now, those afternoons were about far more than radio dramas or boiled bananas. They were quiet lessons in kindness, comfort, and belonging.
In that humble classroom, under the care of a patient teacher, learning stopped being something I feared and became something I looked forward to.
For the first time since starting school, the classroom no longer felt like a place I had to prove I belonged in. It had simply become a familiar place.
And so, the little classroom that I had once dreaded, it all felt like home.
My First Fistfight
Grade One was not entirely gentle. One afternoon, while we were doing our routine classroom cleaning, I walked over to a boy much taller than I was, a classmate I barely knew. In the simple, trusting way that only children can, I asked if he wanted to be my friend. His reply came without warning. He punched me squarely in the face.
The blow stunned me. More surprised than angry, I instinctively swung back, but he was much taller than I was. My fists caught nothing but empty air. Tears welled up almost immediately. They were the helpless tears of a six-year-old who had not expected kindness to be answered with violence. In a moment of panic and frustration, I grabbed a small stone from the ground and threw it in his direction. Whether it frightened him or simply caught him off guard, he turned and ran.
My teacher and classmates rushed over and gathered around me. They asked whether I was hurt, comforted me, and stayed beside me until I had stopped crying. Their concern meant more to me than I could have understood at the time.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether something changed in the way my classmates saw me after that day. Perhaps they mistook my frightened attempt to defend myself for courage. Or perhaps they simply realized that even the quietest child would resist when pushed too far.
Afterward, some of the boys would jokingly ask if they could punch me in the stomach, almost as though they were testing how much pain I could endure without flinching. Oddly enough, I usually agreed. Not because I was fearless or wanted to prove anything, but because, like many children, I was still trying to understand what it meant to be strong.
Spare Time After Class
When classes ended, the school day was not yet over. Before we were allowed to go home, we swept our classroom, raked the schoolyard, and gathered the dry leaves scattered beneath the trees. These chores were simply part of school life, accepted without complaint and carried out almost as another lesson.
One afternoon, someone discovered a beehive hidden inside an old wooden cabinet. It soon became the centerpiece of one of our most foolish games. Whenever an unsuspecting classmate wandered too close, one of us would tap the cabinet.
At first, the knocks were gentle, but as our courage or perhaps our foolishness grew, so did our recklessness. Before long, an angry swarm of bees would burst out, sending us running in every direction, laughing and screaming all at once.
Looking back, I realize how unfair it was, both to the bees and to one another. Many of us went home with painful stings and swollen welts. Yet, by the peculiar logic of childhood, it was simply another afternoon's adventure, thoughtless, reckless, and shared.
Those lingering hours before sunset remain among my happiest memories.
We gathered beneath the broad branches of a caimito or star apple tree and gazed at the ripe fruit hanging just beyond our reach. Armed with nothing more than stones and determination, we took turns trying to knock one down.
When a fruit finally fell and split open on the ground, we crowded around to share its sweet flesh. It was never just about eating the fruit. It was about the laughter that echoed across the schoolyard, the freedom that arrived with the fading afternoon light, and the quiet certainty that, for a little while, the world belonged to us.
Only after the flag-lowering ceremony were we finally dismissed. We stood at attention and sang "Mabuhay ang Pilipino" ("Long Live the Filipino"). Even now, I can still hear its melody echoing across the years. We sang it with the wholehearted sincerity that only children possess, not yet old enough to question its meaning, yet old enough to believe every word.
Mabuhay Ang Pilipino
As children, we measured those afternoons not by the hour but by the memories they created: the scent of dry leaves, the sting of a bee, the sweetness of freshly fallen fruit, and the familiar sound of a patriotic song drifting through the school grounds at day's end.
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