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Friday, May 20, 2005
Sienes: Life is like a bank
By Cris G. Sienes
Different Strokes
"As a high school teacher, I deposited many good things in my students. So now I am being rewarded with some of the interests."
AS A classroom teacher and prefect of discipline before, I had looked upon myself as a husbandman. The classroom was my farm, my students the seeds from which I had hoped for a bountiful harvest of good, disciplined, hard-working and God-fearing young men.
I knew that I had to place the seeds in an environment where they were meant to grow by God and tend to them daily, or I would be rewarded with a harvest of sickly young men surrounded by other "might-have-beens." To do so, I knew, required patience, hard work, dedication, kindness, understanding, strict discipline, with reason and compassion, and above all, prayers. Modesty aside, I did what I had to do as I led my students to the thresholds of their minds.
I remember a student who was already in fourth year high school. His disciplinary record was a mess that only one serious infraction or post, as we called it then, was needed to kick him out for good.
At the start of the schoolyear he came to see me in my office and pleaded. "Sir, I would like to finish high school here. Please help me."
"You sound serious and sincere," I told him. "Okay, I will help you. But you must do your share, which means you must avoid committing any more serious infractions. Do you think you can discipline yourself to do that?"
"I will try my very best, Sir," he replied.
"Don't try, do it!" I told him.
Despite his messy disciplinary record, I kept faith in him. And sure enough, with my help and guidance, he never committed any more infractions, even minor ones.
So he finished secondary education at the school. That to me was a rare feat, so I congratulated him when he came to thank me.
But the strokes of fate are really very strange. Many years later, driving a Pajero, that student of mine bumped my eldest sister at Kilometer 81 in the highway in Bansalan. My eldest sister died later in the hospital.
One of the classmates and close friends of that student of mine is ex-councilor Emmanuel "Bong" Duterte. After learning about the incident, Bong angrily told my student: "Gago ka, igsoon pa ni Sir Sienes ang imong gibanggaan ug namatay pa gyud! Bahala ka kon ikiha ka ni Sir."
But on the verge of tears, my student told me when I confronted him that what happened was clearly an accident. I believed him, just as I believed in him when he pleaded for my help in high school. Placing an arm on his shoulder, I told him: "Of all people, it had to be you."
Since it was an accident, I let it go at that. Besides, who would deliberately bump a pedestrian crossing the street or highway? Only a man with a demented mind would do that. Looking at my high school students now--doctors, lawyers, bankers, businessmen, politicians, etc., I can see that the rich harvest that I had hoped for had come to be, with very rare "might-have-beens."
Thus, when an irate developer filed a libel case against me before, one of my high school students, already a lawyer in his own right, immediately offered his legal services. So did a former co-teacher, a bar topnotcher, who acted as my corroborating lawyer.
Other high school students who are now lawyers and fellow alumni, particularly the late Larry Ilagan and some lawyers at the Davao City Law firm, also offered their legal services. But since I already had a lawyer and a corroborating lawyer, I simply thanked them. But they assured me that they would be watching my case closely and that they would always be around to help.
Shortly before I retired from the government service, I was hospitalized at the Davao Doctors' Hospital. I was placed under the care of a specialist that I knew did not come cheap. But the specialist was my student in high school. When, later, I asked how much I owed him, like the lawyers who handled my libel case against me, he told me: "Si Sir naman, para bang hindi ka teacher ko sa high school. Wala kang bayad sa akin, Sir."
So like one high school class that, in a plaque which it awarded me, said: "With heartfelt gratitude, we sincerely present this token of appreciation to Crispiniano Sienes, friend, mentor, tormentor, or tormented, as the case may be, whose patience, hard work, and dedication helped mold us into what we are today..."
Myrtle Reed was right when she wrote in her novel Flower of the Dusk: "Life will give us back whatever we put into it. In a way it's just like a bank. Put joy into the world and it will come back to you with compounded interest, but you can't check out either money or happiness when you have made no deposits." As a high school teacher, I deposited many good things in my students. So now I am being rewarded with some of the interests.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (May 20, 2005 issue)
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