This
respectable woman is getting old now but has touched thousands of lives in her various
capacities prominently in the academia, civic and religious organizations. Her
parents are Filomeno, the champion speller of his elementary days, and Maria, once a Princess during a Peace Time fiesta. Born in 1942 right
at the heart of Barrio Central, as a child she survived the hardships and
ravages of war but later consistently topped her class way down from elementary
up to college when the war is over. She struggled to finish her studies selling
vegetables, Liwayway and komiks in their barrio and doing errands
and household chores for her principal’s family. In case you are not aware of,
she was one of the pioneering graduates of the Divine Word College of San Jose
and became one of the two first graduates of the school’s College of Education
way back in 1964. I was barely two years old then.
While
I flunked or received pasang awa grades
in my other subjects as a college student, I got the highest grades in my transcript
in two subjects under her despite of the fact that she was considered by many
as strict instructor. She was my teacher in Rizal and Early Philippine
Literature (English 7) way back in ‘79. Though greatly influenced by the
writings of historian Renato Constantino, I am more of an admirer of Bonifacio than
Rizal and I cannot recall any single detail about Biag ni Lam-Ang, her teaching method specifically her adding of
local color and contextualization of the topics in contemporary setting made me
so interested in her class than my Math and Science subjects. How she motivates
her students is exemplary and genuine. Ma’am Malilay knows what’s an effective
motivation is and why it is effective. Her way of soliciting feedbacks and critics from
her students became my first break in expressing my views and opinions on
certain socio-political realities which I carried till my short stint as a
former broadcast practitioner and today as a trying hard chronicler who modestly
notices anything about Mindoro.
Norma
Malilay (nee Necia) was great in stimulating curiosity by asking
thought-provoking questions. Truth to tell, if a teacher utilizes new or
different information from that which students already know, true learning
develops. She satisfied our curiosity in the most interesting way and
consequently filled the gap between a given and a desired state of knowledge.
This is one of the indelible marks of a great mentor his or her students would
cherish forever. Ma’am Malilay, aside from being a college instructor, was at
the same time the director of Divine’s student affairs office. Many of her students
became successful politicians, businessmen, public servants, priests,
expatriates, just name it. She transferred to Occidental Mindoro State College,
my Alma Mater, in the early 90s and became the Chief Administrative Officer IV until her retirement. She became my son’s part time English instructor in the now padlocked Saint
Joseph College Seminary. She molded him to be lover of words and explorer of
the beauty of the language. She was active in many mandated religious
organizations and one of the Vicariate’s finest lectors. To those who are not
Catholics, the term “lector” or “reader” is someone who in a particular liturgy
is assigned to read Biblical text other that the Gospel. Even in her religious
functions and apostolic works she is beyond compare. That’s why perhaps God is
so good to her.
Care
to scrutinize the photo shown above for a while. For me, its best caption is
this: “To breath is to learn”. May
we, your former students, value learning the same way you do even in foreign soil,
regardless of our age…
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(Photo;
Grabbed without permission from Ma’am Norms’ Facebook wall)
