In the Philippines, these past few days and the following days to come are red lettered days or should I say, the crowning glory days for most students- Graduation Day!

I could still vividly remember my high school graduation. The lines of our cheesy graduation song still linger. "If we hold on together…" Yes, one of our graduation songs is the Land Before Time theme song (not the Dinky version). Another was Raymond Lauchengco’s "Farewell to you my friend, we’ll see each other again." These two songs are what I call as generic graduation songs. We also sang the Mother Goose Hymn which I had not really memorized. In fact, I can recall and sing the Bedan Hymn better than the MG hymn although I stayed at San Beda for just only a year.

I have enjoyed my high school life at Mother Goose Special Science High School. We had a small school population that: 1. We were well taught 2. Everyone had the opportunity to shine 3. We were like one big family. This is one of the reasons which I believe had developed my being well-rounded. In other words, holistic learning. I assisted in Masses (being an altar boy), competed in sports, won several essay writing, extemporaneous speech, debates, poster and slogan making contests, inter-school quiz bees (I specialized in general Info and current events), became feature editor of the Catalyst (school organ), and vice president of the Supreme Student Council. Sounds like my resume. I sucked in dancing and singing though.

We were all in all 35 graduates of Batch 1991 (we had two sections). Our batch is one of the three consecutive batches that have brought honor not just to our alma mater but also to Pangasinan at that time as we were ranked the top school in terms of NCEE performance (Numero Uno!) when the National College Entrance Exam was still in vogue. Mind you, we bested Philippine Science High School, Xavier High School and Ateneo (the top three high schools at that time).

When asked where we came from, it was no longer Mother Goose what? Sounds like a nursery school (as verbalized by the previous batches). It was like: "Oh the school that almost all graduates scored 99+" Do I have to modestly state what was my NCEE score?