Fw: MABUHAY KA, MR. PAGSI!
Pietro E Reyes, III
ISA KANG TUNAY AT MAGITING NA BAYANI!
ACADEME
Sleeping on the Job Got Him to a Rousing Start
Updated 04:12pm (Mla time) Aug 31, 2004
By Corazon A. Ong
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page Q4 of the August 29, 2004 issue of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer.
ONOFRE Pagsanghan's name proved to be a tongue twister to Fr. Gough, his
4th year high school mentor, so the Jesuit teacher decided to cut it short.
"I will call you with what my American tongue will allow me, Mr. Pagsi." And
so the name stuck.
Mr. Pagsi finished Education in 1951 at the Ateneo and started teaching
in the same school right after graduation. Small and thin-he weighed only 87
pounds at the time-he did not look promising as a teacher. Worse, Fr.
William Hayes, the high school principal, thought he would not even last the
term.
So, the principal did the next best thing. He gave Mr. Pagsi a key to an
unused classroom on the third floor and instructed him to take a daily nap
there after lunch. "Susmaryosep! I must be the only teacher who was being
paid to sleep on the job," he says. The principal also assigned Mr. Pagsi to
handle the first year honors section, "which was usually given to fellow
Jesuits," Mr. Pagsi recalls.
Still at it
The afternoon nap plus the principal's trust and concern must have worked
because at 77, Mr. Pagsi is still at it-teaching, loving and molding young
boys to become leaders of tomorrow. "All in all, I must have taught 20,000
boys, maybe more, and each opening day, I'd tell my class: 'This year of my
life is for you because outside of my family, I will devote myself to you.
You're very precious to me. You are the meaning of my year.' "
And Mr. Pagsi is one who means what he says. In his 53 years of teaching,
he has never shortchanged his class. Unbelievable as it may sound, he has
never been absent from school, not even when he had his honeymoon. "After my
Friday class, my wife (Florinda Duran) and I were on a bus bound for Baguio.
By 3 p.m. of Sunday, we were on our way back to Manila because I had a class
the following day."
Even now when he has become an in-demand speaker for various fora,
missing his class has never been an option. "Three years ago, mainly because
of my age, I was made a part-time teacher at Ateneo. Initially, I felt bad
about the move because I know I have not been remiss in my obligations as a
teacher. But now, I see God's hand in all this," says Mr. Pagsi.
Indeed, while his classes at the Ateneo have been trimmed down, his talks
and lectures on teaching as a vocation have multiplied. "Just when I have
become old and bald and have started wearing dentures, people are finding me
more desirable," he says in jest-referring, no doubt, to the never-ending
speaking engagements thrown his way. During school breaks, he does not mind
having a fully booked speaking schedule, but once classes start, Mr. Pagsi's
role and duty as a teacher takes the upper hand.
"Teaching is not simply a sharpness of mind but also a bigness of heart.
I could have made more money if money was my object but I'm just a simple
man. What is important is that you find service and meaning in what you do.
When you're standing in front of the class, the most important thing you're
teaching is not your Math or English but how you live your life," he says.
Public school product
While he finished high school and college at the Ateneo, Mr. Pagsi takes
pride in also being a product of the public school system. "I graduated from
Cecilio Apostol Elementary School in Oroquieta, Manila and I was a Tuesday
boy," he says. This means he was part of a group that stayed to clean the
classroom every Tuesday. It was a day they looked forward to because this
gave them an extra half hour more with Miss Herminia Ancheta, a favorite
teacher who led by example-sweeping the floor with them and bending on all
fours to apply wax and keep the floor shiny. "She was a great teacher. I was
only 8 at the time but until now, at 77, I could still visualize her."
Miss Ancheta's style of leading by example impressed Mr. Pagsi so much it
became his guiding philosophy in life. Leadership by example is what he also
practices at home. When his three children, Stella, Joel and Sylvia, were
growing up, he'd join them in a game called Follow the Leader. "If the
game's leader jumped on the new sofa, we'd all jump on the sofa, too, never
mind the loud protestations from my wife. If the leader decided to crawl
under the table, we'd follow suit. The worst part of course was when Sylvia,
then four, crawled under the bed and I, with my rickety back, had no choice
but to follow suit. It is, after all, always leadership by example. You can
only lead people where you are willing to go."
Following the leader
Many, many years after, he'd resort to the same game when he was invited
to speak before 1,725 school principals at Teachers Camp in Baguio City. "On
the first day of the forum, all the minor gods and goddesses of DECS were in
attendance and seeing the vast audience, I developed cold feet." It didn't
help any that when he started his lecture some of the audience were not
paying attention-they were either talking with their seatmates or reading
the day's newspapers. "So, I switched from my talk and started chanting the
lines. We're following the leader, the leader, the leader. We're following
the leader wherever he may go..." While singing, he was pointing his finger
from one audience to the other and, slowly, the newspapers came down and the
crowd listened attentively to what Mr. Pagsi had to say. The forum went
smoothly after that.
In one of his recent lectures, Mr. Pagsi explained why he did what he
did. "Inscribed on the gate in the main building at Teachers Camp are these
words: 'Be proud you are a teacher. Tomorrow is in your hands.' We are
holding the lives of the young in our hands-the future leaders of
tomorrow-but how can we teach the students to respect and follow us when our
supervisors and principals do not respect and follow us?"
Touching lives
Mr. Pagsi loves to collect quotes about the teaching profession. A few
years back while vacationing with his wife in Singapore, he saw two key
chains with beautiful quotes on them. "I really wanted to buy them but
because of my Ilocano roots, kuripot ako (I'm tightfisted). I found them
expensive and decided not to buy them. Instead of which, I placed the quotes
in my heart and in my mind. One of the quotes says: 'A teacher touches lives
forever.'" Indeed, a teacher, he continues, touches lives not only for one
hour, one day or one semester but forever.
So, Mr. Pagsi continues to give his all to teaching which he believes is
what God made him for. A typical day for him starts with a Mass and ends
with Dulaang Sibol, the high school theater, which he founded in 1966. From
4 to 6 p.m. daily, he trains a select group of students not only in
dramatics but also on how to live a meaningful and morally upright life.
In 1996, to mark his 45th year of teaching, Ateneo renamed Dulaang Sibol
Theater as Tanghalang Onofre R. Pagsanghan. Close to the theater is his
office, which he calls, "his little room," where apart from his table and
chair are found art works and mementoes by his former students, including a
twisted toothpaste tube which calls to mind one of the favorite lines of
their beloved teacher: "My ambition is to be like a used up toothpaste tube,
all squeezed out, twisted whichever way, folded many times over, scraped
clean of all the beautiful things God has given me for giving away."
A gift of love
Mr. Pagsi has loved his boys and they have loved him back. Since the very
first class he handled in Ateneo in 1951, he has been loved. "It was the
last day of school before the long Christmas break and I could smell the
aroma of fried chicken and spaghetti wafting from the other classrooms but
none seemed to be coming our way. So, I consoled myself with the thought
that if my class did not prepare any Christmas party, I'd simply partake of
lunch in another class. When it was nearing dismissal time, the class
president raised his hand to ask my permission to speak and I told him to go
ahead. And he said, 'Sir, we know you are disappointed in us. After six
months of teaching us, we were not man enough to even organize a class
party. Instead of which, we decided to do something else. Sir, we noticed
that you do not have a watch, so, we thought of giving you this."
And with all the boys milling around, egging him to open their gift, Mr.
Pagsi opened the small box-inside was a beautiful Bulova watch. "It was my
first watch and I was misty-eyed."
Someday, he says, when God would open his heart, He'd find there the
names of the people he had loved, including all the names of his students
whose lives he has touched.
pong
inspired many young men and women.
My brother has many good things to say about him. While I didn't have the
good fortune to be his student, I was involved in one of the early
productions of Dulaang Sibol's "Puting Timamanukin" and "Paglilitis ni Mang
Serapio" (backstage, lights) and have many fond memories of those days.
"Pietro E Reyes, III" <pnb...@verizon.net> wrote in message
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