TERESA P. GARCIA
Principal II
Taliptip National High School
Taliptip, Bulakan
Stories were told so many times all over that Mindanaoans and the Visayans envy us people from Luzon particularly us Bulakeños, those from Laguna and Cavite because these province’s greatest sons were our country’s formidable heroes– Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Gregorio del Pilar, our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo, and so many more.
But while we humbly and simply nod our heads on their praises, we ask ourselves, “how about them,?” “don’t they have any like what we had,?”. The answer is but of course they had and they seem to had just forgotten.
Rizal, Del Pilar, Bonifacio were our Philippine-Spanish revolution heroes more than 100 years ago but the Visayan and the Mindanaoan race had Lapu-lapu, etc centuries earlier or more than 400 years ago when he killed Ferdinand Magellan, the Spanish conqueror who then arrived in Cebu and tried to rule the province and the country as well.
Certainly, outstanding contemporary Filipinos continue to thrive all over the country’s three major archipelagos until President Rodrigo Duterte from Davao ruled as the 16th president of the Philippines.
Inday Sara, his eldest child who succeeded him as former mayor of Davao City and successfully won the hearts of the Filipino people as our vice president together with President Ferdinand Marcos, the newly elected head of our nation from the recent May elections, has made a decisive and courageous move to take the Department of Education portfolio or cabinet position.
Among Inday Sara’s known reform agendas is focused on the basic policies of education, the basic curriculum, the Reserve Officers Cadette Course which will give emphasis on the renewed inculcation of patriotism, high sense of moral values, discipline, and heroism into the minds, hearts and souls of our young generation. The race or archipelagic distinction is no longer an important issue but, what Filipino youth ought to be in contributing to the nation to fulfill the words of Rizal, “the youth is the hope of the nation”.
After all, academics in not the very foundation of learning and wisdom but how an individual values, love, obey, set example as a citizen of his great nation, a Filipino in particular.
If because of the difficult times these days, where parents have lesser time to teach their children the good Filipino traits and values such as discipline, hard work, respect for others, accepting all cultural varieties and boundaries, knowing one’s limitations, certainly, their second home will be their last resort for true wisdom and knowledge.
This is the thrust of Vice President Sara Duterte as DepEd Secretary. True enough indeed, that is the huge vacuum among the future hope of the nation that is long needed to be filled in.
Congratulations to our department for finally having one like you.
All hail to you Madame Vice President. All hail to you Madame Secretary.
