So people have started using Facebook (an awesome networking tool) to reach out to other folks who would have easily faded in one’s high school memories. People of my high school are no different. There’s now a Facebook page for San Lorenzo Ruiz Academy of Polomolok. That high school where I once attended complete with zits and teenage angst.
There’s not much point in this article really, just a little power tripping maybe in trying to dominate the Google search rankings for San Lorenzo Ruiz Academy of Polomolok. And then there’s nostalgia.
The memory of me literally kissing the hallowed walls of SLRAP men’s toilet because some jerk-assed rich kid who wrote a few letters as a tribute to some bald economics teacher remains fresh in my mind to this day. Which was kinda vexing because when I visited the same toilet a few years ago, there was practically no space left to vandalize that I wondered whether the discipline of the school has relaxed or whether the current students there are simply uncontrollable. I don’t know which is which, and whether at present the same still applies.
I do know that back then, when I was studying there, vandalism was treated like the plague. Fine, this was the time of Magellan but still. Oh well, whatever.
I could still remember the time when the school had a different name. It was Jose L. Valencia Academy I think, and sometime during my stay there, the school got renamed to San Lorenzo Ruiz Academy of Polomolok. It wasn’t a very happy day for the alumni of Jose L. Valencia Academy for sure but there were no mass demonstrations that happened when the powers that be decided to change the name. Not unlike the protests that happened here in Manila when the Yuchengco group wanted to change the name of Mapua Institute to some other god-awful name which of course resulted to the school retaining it’s name.
It must have been hard for those who graduated under the Jose L Valencia Academy to realize that the four years they studied under that school have been completely erased, reduced to ignominy (sorry, I’m being cruel here). It must be terrible to attend a high school grand reunion and not see the original name of your school. Again, oh well.
Still, it’s nice to remember once in a while my old high school, all those silly hand-holdings behind the science lab, the legend of Ilyang and Tibor, the indomitable and forever-Miss Fajanela (gad, how we used to quarrel back then), and of course the eternal principal Mrs Lamboso (not sure if she’s still the principal now).
For sure I’ll be revisiting San Lorenzo Ruiz Academy of Polomolok one of these days, if only to remember that once upon a time, I was part of its shrieking and hysterical high school student body who once wholeheartedly believed that SLRAP is the greatest high school on the face of the earth. And you know what, it might well be– as far as SLRAPians (what an absurd monicker, lol) are concerned.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for visiting mg site. unlike you, i had my secondary from polomolok national high school. most people would still refer to it as ‘barangay’ but i could only care less. hahaha. it’s been a long while since i went back to polomolok. i miss it. it’s great to know people online who also are from cannery (?) or valencia.
i love u guys
waaa….nice site site. batch 2008 rocks..ahahaha.
Wow. i was shocked. I feel your pain. though i haven’t had a facial with room walls, as i decided to stay away from bullies, but the tone of your piece is saddening. i have not much to compare to but i think SLRAP has mellowed down a little in the discipline matter, yet the school’s ability so straighten students’ crooked attitude still stay reliable. i imagined alumni looking at a tarpaulin banner , deep inside their heart, wanting the old name of the school magically appear, just hoping. maybe the name was changed for the better. i don’t know. but please allow me to share this in our school paper. along with one of the writers’ reply. Pretty Please??
sure