Harbinger of Hope: Remembering St. Mary’s School
Shortly after World War II 

Albert S. Bacdayan, Ph.D.
Lyme, Connecticut 

The St. Mary’s School (SMS) that I attended between 1946 and 1948 had just reopened the year before after four years of war.  It was a far cry from what it is today and from what I understand  it to have been before World War II.  It had no library, no laboratory, no dormitories, and no permanent building to its name. The  Boys’ School had been bombed and blown to smitherens a short while before and the Girls’ School was converted to serve as the church with whatever other space available used as primary grades classrooms. SMS proper (intermediate and high school) was temporarily housed in the cavernous shell of a building popularly called “Lisyom” in Dokkos, one of the mission buildings that luckily survived the senseless bombing of Sagada during the just concluded war.  Because the ground level was unusable, all the educational activities from grade five up to high school took place in the second floor.  Except for two or so classrooms, an office and a restroom at the end of the building toward the road, the space was essentially one big hall with an elevated stage at the far western end, befitting the original use of the structure  as a lyceum for community social affairs and assemblies.  This social hall was temporarily partitioned to create classrooms.  In short, the St. Mary’s in those days was makeshift, cramped, crowded and noisy.

But I think those days could be argued to have been the most significant period of the school’s history. The fears, privations, pessimism and uncertainties engendered by the war abruptly vanished, giving way to the rise of an inordinate amount of optimism and hope for a better future in the hearts of the population as a whole.  In that heady time, it is easy to appreciate how St. Mary’s became the harbinger and emblem of hope as well as the path toward the realization of this hope in a way that it had never been before or since.  I suppose a school should always be these things, but the unique circumstances cast a special shadow on St. Mary’s which is why, on reflection, I feel so privileged to have attended the school at the time, even for only two years, 1946 to 1948.

I can still feel the excitement walking to Sagada from Bangngaan in company with six or so others from the fourth grade class at St. Matthew’s School to enroll. We were accompanied by our beloved teacher, Mr. Songgadan, later Father Songgadan, who wanted to be sure that we did things right. I do not know what the others felt but I was glad he came along because I was quite apprehensive especially that day. St. Mary’s seemed formidable because of its reputation for demanding the utmost from its students. In addition, we were simple barrio kids and we would be going to school with all those sophisticated boys and girls from the town. Also, some of the American missionary teachers were back and it was said that they suffered no fools. But I was also excited. It had always been assumed in my family when still a small tyke that I would go to SMS like my father, uncles, aunts, and other relatives before me whose lives were transformed by the experience. So the day had finally come! It seemed that I and the others walking on the road to Sagada that day were embarking on a journey that would somehow change our lives for the better. Not quite two years before, this had seemed unthinkable and impossible. The war was raging and life was quite  precarious. Sounds and sights of war were all over to be heard and seen.

We found the school busy with activities having to do with the business of enrollment. After what seemed to be an interminable process of moving in front of one table to another, we were back on the road toward home. We stopped in an open space called Cotcot Aso after the steep ascent from the road in Nangonogan to rest, have a view of the vista to Mt. Data  and enjoy the delicious breeze that seems always available at that spot. Ever the nurturant and concerned uncle type, Mr. Songgadan took the opportunity to advise us to be good boys and girls, do the best we could and we would be fine. Shortly thereafter, classes started and we were on our own.

The student body was a rag tag assemblage consisting of returning Santa Marians and new aspiring Santa Marians attracted to the school by its fabled “high standard”.  The students varied in age from an older group which included some married individuals whose schooling had started before the war to a younger group whose education started during the war in the Japanese occupation-sponsored educational system. The students came mostly from Besao and Sagada municipalities but there were some from the abagatan region like Bila, Lubon and Tadian. There were also some from the lagud region like Bontoc. As I recall, there were also about ten young men and one or two young ladies from far away Ilocos Sur in attendance. They were bagbag-u, descendants of Igorots who migrated to the lowlands a long time ago. I was impressed that they would come that far for the privilege of attending St. Mary’s School.

Those who were from outer Sagada like Bangngaan and Ambasing and their respective vicinities who might have been tempted to live in dormitories had these been available, generally lived at home and walked to school. Those from farther away,rented rooms in town, going home during weekends for supplies. There were ten or so of us from Bangngaan attending SMS in 1946 followed by some more in 1947. We went on foot to Sagada every day, rain or shine. The trip took anywhere from one to one and a half hours depending upon one’s sitio of origin and the speed at which we walked. Although at the time it seemed like a miserable way to go to school, it was among the happiest years of my life to recall. We normally walked together, kidding and making fun of each other. Sometimes this ribbing made somebody feel  picked on, leading to quarrels. When it rained many of us often walked under somebody’s army poncho stretched and held up above our heads. This was tricky because the road was very rough and narrow unlike today and we had to coordinate our feet so that we did not step on each other’s ankle. The boys’ book bags were U.S. Army knapsacks called makoto. I do not know why, but the girls used flour sacks or supot for the purpose. We carried our lunches in army mess kits. These military artifacts were typical during the period: liberation. At noon we normally ate together as in a picnic in a grassy spot below the former Sagada gatehouse on whose porch we stored our mess kits. We usually referred to these mess kits as mitkans. The usual fare was rice with bilis, bakalao and sometimes mutton

As I recall, the typical school day during the academic years 1946-48 began with all the students gathered in the largest room available immediately to the right at the top pf the huge stairs from the ground level. After a prayer or two said by one of the teachers and the Lord’s Prayer or perhaps the Nicene Creed said by all, we sang a song, “We build our school on thee oh Lord, To thee we bring our common needs…” For a long time I thought that this was the school song and was quite surprised when it turned out not to be, but “ Amid Untold....” of the famous Danny Boy melody instead. Announcements usually followed. Classes then went in session until recess three or so periods, later on. Recess was a period of frenetic activity on the part of the boys as I recall. The girls preferred to sit in groups to study, to visit and giggle or simply to walk around but the boys were typically playing about. The only organized and sort of properly played sport was volleyball because a makeshift court was made in one end of the limited level ground available. It was a matter of a couple of posts stretching  the net.The game that really got the juices going was ag-agaw. That was how the lone basketball owned by the school was used. The guys would informally divide in teams and chase each other to get the ball, whopping it up and down the hill and everywhere, creating a lot of racket. It sometimes led  us to near fisticuffs between juiced up parties..

I remember that one day was particularly special. It had something to do with Philippine independence so it could have been July 4, 1946 or close to it. Anyway, during the usual assembly before classes started, there was discussion of independence and one of the teachers asked students what  they felt about the matter. My recollection was that all, except one, were not very keen on the idea of the Philippines obtaining independence from the United States. In this, I think the opinion was perhaps typical of the reaction of Igorots everywhere. The Igorots and the Muslims were not for independence. The one exception was Juan Sicwaten who said that he favored independence. When asked why, I recall  his comment to be along the line of “we will be free to run our own government”. It caused a stir. Maybe a hizz or two. Juan was one truly independent minded fellow who had attended SMS! This streak took eloquent expression in the form of worker priesthood in the practical arts of rabbit and pig raising during his short but productive innovative career in the service of the Episcopal Church ministry.

Another matter I remember about St. Mary’s in those days was that the seventh grade was temporarily done away with in conformity with the public school system, enabling students to go to first year high school from grade six. But the performance of the instant high schoolers was judged dismally unsatisfactory. I understand that such ridiculously low grades of 25 and 50 per cent were not unusual. This  ledi to the restoration of the seventh grade effective the 1948-49 academic year. While perhaps that made St. Mary’s the only school in the Philippines at that time requiring the seventh grade before high school, it drove a number in my class, including me, to go elsewhere. We were given the option to stay and become seventh graders or to leave and to enroll in high school wherever we chose. Taking advantage of the straight shot or short cut meant permanent severance from SMS. We were not supposed to go back to St. Mary’s School later; that was it so far as SMS and we were concerned.  Blasio Padua and I went to the Baguio City High School while the others like Mary Alipit, Pablo Bacollo, Paulo Bomowey and Jose Cosme went to the Trinidad Agricultural School. Had we stayed, we would have been part of the 1953 graduating class. I am sure we missed something by leaving, but I remember being glad that I had attended St. Mary’s School because the schooling I received there stood me in good stead at Baguio City High School, especially during the first year.

Reflecting on that period at St. Mary’s, I think that what the school lacked in buildings and facilities was more than made up by the enthusiasm and eagerness for knowledge of the variegated student body. Put differently, the effectiveness of a school requires more than facilities. In addition to facilities, thirst for knowledge by the students, community expectation and support, and as we shall see later on, a dedicated and caring faculty make up the necessary mix or brew. Whether returning former Santa Marians or new aspiring ones, I believe, as already explained, that St. Mary’s symbolized hope and the path towards hope for all of us. It represented an opportunity to complete an interrupted education for some and to begin ascending the educational ladder for others. Whatever the case, I think  that both the students and the community hoped St. Mary’s would be the springboard to the path towards a better day. With the dreaded enemy vanquished and “peace time” restored, that day seemed at hand. So we took being students seriously, thankful for the opportunity. We worked hard at it; everyone I knew was trying his best to do well in his or her school work.

We were helped in this great endeavor by a dedicated faculty who took their roles as teachers and mentors seriously and who cared. I can’t speak specifically for all of them but I can definitely do so for those whom I had as instructors. Mrs. Andrea Bondad was a terrific teacher of geography, music and history in the classroom and a cheerful, supportive and friendly person outside. Though I never learned to read notes and to keep time, it was in her music class that I learned a song “In a boat off Borneo, gentle winds do waft and waft her” or something to that effect. The song somehow instilled in me a boyhood dream  to some day go to Borneo to see what the place is like. When I finally did go, the dream cast a special edge and feeling to the visit, much to my satisfaction. Mr. Pacyaya was a teacher of English and, I believe, algebra in high school but I remember him instructing us in Tagalog in the lower grades. I never took a liking to the subject but that was not his fault and in any case I remember him as a very gentle and dignified man embodying for me a model of the well-comported, educated Igorot. I regard Mr. Nocomedes Alipit in much the same way. He taught at St. Mary’s for a while, leaving only to pursue and complete his education at U.P. SMS lost an excellent instructor and  role model when he went to Trinidad Agricultural School after finishing at the University of the Philippines. It was in his class that I first heard of the Iliad and the Odyssey, particularly the story of Helen of Troy and King Priam. Nicomedes Alipit  was a good example, a trail blazer to emulate. I remember another good teacher, Mrs. Fernandez, who was the wife of Dr. Fernandez of St. Theodore’s Hospital, telling us that we should aspire to be like Mr. Alipit, attending and doing well at the finest institution of learning in the Philippines. I took her message to be that we Igorots have it in us to make good in this world like Mr. Alipit, provided we are true to ourselves and we work hard.  She was absolutely correct in that advice. There were a number of expatriates or missionary teachers, too. I did not have much contact with them as teachers (their focus was the high school) except with Sister Lioba in sacred studies  and occasionally with Father Diman when he substituted for an absent faculty or when he rehearsed the choir, which was the entire school at that time. But I remember the missionaries as emblematic of  better things to come. For sure, their return to Sagada, after having been forcibly removed from the scene four years before by the Japanese military, underscored the historical change that brought in the era of hope and expectation that I saw and felt at St. Mary’s during the time I have spoken about.

To conclude, this has been a small effort to share my feelings and appreciation of what St. Mary’s School had meant to me and to the surrounding localities at a particular special time: the end of WW11 and liberation from the Japanese occupation. It personified the return of peace and tranquility, of courage and optimism to war-weary hearts and minds, and of hope for a better and secure future. SMS also underscored the return of  opportunity for schooling. Education had finally come to be realized widely to be the sure path to that hoped-for brighter future and people were eager to seize the chance to go to school. Finally, SMS gave me a good start, opened the door wide and launched me on the way.

The school has progressed  much since then, amassing an overall outstanding record of academic excellence  and of service, to God, country and the world through its distinguished alumni. Those who stayed home have become leaders, progressive farmers, carpenters, literate solid citizens and the like, while those who have pursued  education beyond the borders and become professionals have been acquitting themselves beautifully. Everyone has been helping to make the world better in his or her unique way. With this great legacy, one wishes that the leadership of the Episcopal Church had had the wisdom, the courage and imagination, and the foreshight or vision to have put up SMS at the topmost priority for preservation and perpetuation so it could continue its worthy ministry. It is admirable that when  the school’s very existence was imperilled, the alumni rallied into the breach to staunch the hemorraghing and to reinvigorate the institution. We do honor to ourselves and to those selfless and generous missionaries who founded SMS by embracing this daunting challenge. In our efforts we are also being true to a dictum of indigenous culture not to be selfish with the good but to spread it instead to all peoples and places and to safeguard it for posterity. Finally, we may have attained for the school critical independence and freedom to creatively and strategically fashion its destiny to bring out the best in everybody, the best in society and the best in the environment, towards the betterment of church, of country or nation and of humankind. Much is expected of us and of SMS. May God bestow blessings on our endeavor.