« on: October 20, 2007, 10:36:41 PM »
Last Thursday, October 11, San Sebastian College tendered a dinner for our athletes and coaches who brought home the bacon. Their success in sports was indeed cause for celebration. Basking in the adulation of administrators, faculty, fellow students, relatives and friends were our High School basketeers, our High School volleyboys and our Senior volleybelles. With them also were our board strategists and mat warriors who struck NCAA gold in chess and ta'ekwondo. Not least, the school also honored two alumni who recently achieved chess distinction: Darwin Laylo, who a few days earlier obtained grandmaster status, the 7th Filipino to be so honored, and Ronald Tableo, who is an international master hoping to join Laylo’s rank next month.
Our ball teams achieved a no mean feat, in fact a superb triumph! Pronounce that “three-oomph”, for the three teams won for three consecutive years. Three grandslams! gushes SSC athletic moderator Frank Gusi. Nothing beats winning, notwithstanding the consolation the also-rans may get from De Coubertin’s “It’s not winning that counts but how you play the game”.
I was seated at dinner table with the chess reverends. They have such simple and self-effacing ways, in contrast to the restless and cheery ball players who were high-fiving two rows away. Each to his game, I mused. You can’t win at basketball if you are as laid back and as deliberate as a chess strategist. Inversely, you won’t get far on the chess board if you are as impetuous as a supercharged point guard. That’s what I think, though connoisseurs of the game may opine differently.
“What are the most needed qualities of a successful chess player?” I asked Darwin and Ronald. Love of the game, they chorused. They started their love affair with chess as young boys and through the years they have cultivated that love. They chess-spar several hours a day, against humans as well as computers.
“How do you fare against computers?” I was curious. “Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win”, replied Darwin. I told him I used to play against my computer too but got tired losing everytime without even ruffling the smallest feather of my Mac.
Mastering the discipline, they said, is another essential for the master strategist. Chess is more than analyzing and memorizing moves – it involves disciplining one’s personality and lifestyle for the game. The chess master is expectedly calm and deliberate, even as the winning cager must be vital and full of energy.
After dinner, the victors were given their awards and citations. Emcees Mr. Albert Danan, SSC-R public relations honcho, and Ms. Rachel Dimaandal, high school teacher, ably spiced the affair with their comments and interviews.
The next day, October 12, I was in nearby Saint Rita College for the celebration of another kind of victory. The school is 100 years old this year, and the Recollect sisters timed the 4-day big affair with the 275th anniversary (1732-2007) of the death of Mother Dionisia Talangpaz, one of the foundresses – the other is her blood sister Cecilia Rosa – of what today is the Congregation of the Augustinian Recollect Sisters of the Philippines.
Offspring of a principalía family from Calumpit, Bulacan, the two sisters left their comfortable homes and secure surroundings to tread the radical path of the Gospel in the school of Mary, venerated as our Lady of Mount Carmel in her shrine in Calumpang, now Quiapo. The Recollect fathers of San Sebastian, administrators of the shrine, soon took notice of the exemplary behavior of the pious women and eventually admitted them as “mantelatas”, members of the Recollect Third Order, on 16 July 1725. This date is therefore also the date of the foundation of the Beaterio de San Sebastian, which in time would evolve into the Congregation of Augustinian Recollect Sisters.
Fast forward to the early 20th century. Development of the beaterio came in the wake of the social and political changes that swept the country as well as the need that some Recollect fathers felt to raise the beaterio’s cultural and religious level. Under San Sebastian prior Fr. Celestino Yoldi’s direction, the “Escuela de Santa Rita” was opened (June 1907), with Sor Paulina del Purísimo Corazón as first Directress. The following year saw the school getting approved by the Bureau of Private Education. Registered under the name of Colegio de Santa Rita when the medium of instruction shifted from Spanish to English in 1911, the school was renamed St. Rita Academy in 1921. When the school offered college courses in 1945, it got the name it has till now, Saint Rita College.
Fast forward once more to October 12, 2007. We are celebrating, said Auxiliary Bishop of Manila Broderick Pabillo in his homily, not only the 100 years of the institution but most especially the persons behind it. They have been 100 years of blessings. How are we to respond to blessings? Two kinds of responses are given in the Mass readings of the feastday, Bishop said.
The first is that of the rich man in the Gospel parable who suddenly finds himself with a windfall of a harvest (Luke 12:15-21). Thinking of enjoying his bounty only by himself, never considering sharing it with others, he planned to spend the rest of his days eating, drinking and being merry. That same night God took his life away.
The second response is that which we should give for the undeservedly magnificent plan that God has for us, who chose us before the world began to be holy and blameless in his sight (Eph 1:2-14). It is a response that heeds Jesus warning to “avoid greed in all its forms”. Greed is not only about material things. There can be greed for spiritual riches, for knowledge, for culture, for influence. Our spiritual, scientific, cultural wealth should not be kept to ourselves but should be shared with others.
Bishop Pabillo mentioned that on his way to the altar, he noticed on the wall a column of names under the heading Oustanding Alumnae. He wondered what made those people outstanding, as he could not read their achievements from where he was, but he hoped that in the years to come, there would be among the list those on whom the Church would confer the title of blessed or even saint. For that would be our true victory as a Catholic school.
The bishop’s musings made me recall our own outstanding alumni list at San Sebastian. Politicians, basketball players, actors and actresses figure therein, and I must say I have mixed feelings about the achievements of some. I also thought about the athletes we honored the previous day. Honor is certainly due them, but our vision as a Catholic educational community should make us aim for another kind of victory, without disregarding the former type. Grandmaster Darwin Laylo made me hopeful. Asked by Mr. Danan what he carries with him from San Sebastian in his professional life, he stated simply but with deep conviction: “Values”.
I think that is the kind of bacon we should not miss bringing home. De Coubertin is right after all.
