Opening Day of SY2020-2021
Good morning Dear ISAers, good morning ISA Parents, good morning ISA Facilitators.
Today will go down in the history of ISA as a major turning point in her long and winding journey towards the pinnacle of her ideals. It is a major turning point in the sense that today, the first day of school year, does not just come naturally as in the previous years. It could have been aborted. Therefore, today marks the triumph of the positive spirit that has generated the strong will to survive, the will to move on, and the will to win on the part of every member of the venerable ISA community, against the equally strong negative forces of physical vulnerability, financial downturn, and emotional distress.
I would appear pretentious if I deny the existence of my personal feeling of going astray (sometimes), of the intermittent assault of uncertainty, more real than imagined. I would be insensitive if i am blind to the difficulty your parents had gone through when it was time for them to decide whether to let you, dear ISAers, still be part of ISA learning system, while ISA embarks on an uncharted water of online virtual learning, or to choose a less financially strenuous alternatives, or even altogether giving up a year of formal education. But finally, against all odds, your parents have decided to throw in their lots with ISA, despite the financial burden under COVID 19.
Dear ISAers, I do not intend to deliver a homily on how you should treasure, and how you should behave given the sacrifices your parents have to suffer just for you, given the financial difficulty ISA has to face just for you, given the additional work your facilitators have to undergo just for you.
In unusual times, like during this pandemic, it is inevitable for us to seek refuge in the comfort of thinking that the Almighty is in control of everything. It is also the time that we want to discern what messages the good Lord may want to get across to the humanity who have become all too complacent.
Before, we might have taken your going to school as natural as the sun will rise on the East and set on the West, but this year, at one point in time, the whole Filipino nation even wonder whether children going to school was still possible.
Before, spending summer vacation elsewhere was as natural as going to bed at night, and now when a flight is available even for free, no one dares to leave home.
Some even go too far as to suggest that COVID19 is a punishment from God. And I say it’s not. COVID 19 is not a punishment from the Lord. If any, it is a lesson from where we need to learn.
Throughout the months of Community Quarantine, my discernment of the Lord’s admonitions came in three points:
First, Be obedient. In our too much indulgence to personal freedom, we forget there are principles for common good we need to obey. Under the constant threat of COVID 19, people start to see the wisdom in obedience, albeit by force of circumstances. We learn to trust and obey the legitimate authority, we obey the Community Quarantine ordinances, we obey the social distancing protocols, people wear masks in public, and children obediently stay home. And, rightly so, those who behave otherwise suffer.
Second, Be disciplined. Try to look around the world, those places whose citizens keep defying basic human sensibility on the pretext of “freedom”, and “democracy” suffer the most, those places whose inhabitants keep yelling “This is a free country. I have the freedom not to wear mask”, have the highest cases of contamination and death.
Third, practice empathy. Many people, in their too much concerns for their self-interest, seems to forget the basic truth of humanity: that “no man is an island”. With COVID 19, overnight, they came to realize that no one is safe, if the community they are living in is unsafe. The welfare of one is anchored on the well-being of the person or persons next to him. When the Enhanced Community Quarantine was well into its course, Ma’am Debbie and I joined the seemingly unending stream of people bringing cash and goods to the office of Mayor Trenas, and at about the same time, a group of ISA alumni initiated a fund raising campaign to help alleviate the plight of the less fortunate sectors of our community. Suddenly, it seems the virtue of empathy, the spirit of Bayanihan has returned to the specie called homo sapiens.
COVID19 has taught us, including you the ISAers, many life lessons. But the three points I’ve just raised can be good starting points for you to work on.
Dear ISAers, this school year will prove to be a difficult one for you. You need to adjust to so many things, like how to virtually interact effectively with your mentors, how to get used to the technical functions or malfunctions that come with the online learning. But with obedience, discipline, and cooperating closely with your facilitators and peers, helping each other in times of difficulty, I have no doubt you will be able to overcome all the challenges that might come your way. Even with the coronavirus looming threateningly, you will be able to accomplish your learning mission. And at the end, you can proudly say, you made it. And when it’s time to send off the coronavirus to extinction, with dignity and pride, you declare to the whole world you are the victors.