It isn’t true that I did my entire secondary education at the Lopez Provincial High School in Lopez, Quezon.
I graduated from LPHS, alright, but I also studied at the Eulogio Rodriguez Jr. High School (ERJHS) in Mayon Avenue in Quezon City.
I was lured by the big city schooling because it was, at the time, a unique and a dream of most young people from the provinces.
Our eldest in the family got married to a woman from Magnas Street—a stone’s throw from ERJHS—so I was self-motivated and excited about getting educated in the city.
I enrolled at the night school of ERJHS because I was late in the registration period and l came all the way from the countryside.
Fine studies all right until the half semester of my second year.
Something went wrong, though, in between my first year and summer—which I won’t discuss anymore—and I had to be transferred to Quezon.
But I still consider myself part of the ERJHS academic life.
When writer Ed Andaya handed me a story on the 73rd Foundation and General Alumni Homecoming of ERJHS I suddenly felt nostalgic.
I remember the pulsating student life of my schoolmates and classmates in the day and in the night schools.
I recall the academic discipline of the ERJHS learning community shortly after my parochial elementary days—the high standard of its public education and the active extra-curricular activities of the students especially in the regular day school.
I reminisce the starched uniform of pink shirt and gray skirts with matching gray necktie of ERJHS girls and the white polo shirt—this one was not stiffened—and gray pants among the boys, the Philippine Military Training (PMT) during Saturdays, the tree-planting projects at the corner of EDSA (when it was known yet as Hi-way 54) and Quezon Avenue—the current site of Centris Station Mall, the efficient English and Filipino teachers, the color-coding dress orientation of our Practical Arts teacher named Mr. Besabe whom I would learn the good combination of colors etc.
Journalist Loreto Bautista, commonly known as Lito Bautista, was a high school classmate and our valedictorian, the smart Carlochito Trani, was a sweet seatmate.
In the day section, I vividly remember Fe Celia Manaois, now Fe Celia King, as a very dynamic student leader so that I envied her energy and commitment.
When I entered the Faculty of Arts and Letters of UST, I still held my admiration for Fe Celia whom I now call Fepot because we are batchmates at Artlets ’75. I didn’t know my AB Literature fellow graduate Nenita Alacar was also an ERJHS alumnus.
My high school life wouldn’t be complete without my ERJHS chapter.
This train of images still and will run through my head and in the Foundation and General Alumni Homecoming celebration on February 22, 2025 at the ERJHS campus especially when Cool Rhythm Band sings to the tune of the 60s and the 70s.
Cool Rhythm Band, led by Jay Medina Tuangco, will also be one of the stars of the gathering.
The other members of the band, namely, Maricar Tamayo, Noel De Guzman, Alvin Abainza, Allan Albano and Jommel Ramos will dish out wonderful music to dance away the good ole days of ERJHS.
Meanwhile, Cool Rhythm Band performs at different casinos and bars, including PAGCOR Casino tm Tagaytay, PAGCOR Casino Angeles, and PAGCOR Malabon and bars Pier 1 and Red Rhino.
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