#passionpurpose

We have released all articles for our first series of Passion and Purpose! We hope that these young individuals inspired you even in a simple way as they have inspired us. Works of Heart will always advocate passion, love, service and love for country and we hope this blog series was able to do that. 

Here are all the articles (click the photo)! 

Miss Sabs gathers her students, who greet her with much delight, in a tight huddle as they place their hands on top of one another. Miss Sabs has asked her students for a kasunduan, oran agreement—that they should all graduate in March. Her students have missed her, ever since the Department of Education sent her to University of Melbourne for a Masters in Education earlier this year. This afternoon of our interview is the first time they’ve seen her since then, and they all shout her name as they spot her from their classrooms, from the other corners of the school grounds, from the third floor of one of the new and unpainted buildings in Culiat Elementary School. They love her. And she has always loved them – her students, her reasons to learn more about education and how it is a key to a better nation; her reasons to keep on pushing for every single requirement, for every sleepless night.

One might mistake her for the sunshine on a typical day. She dances in the light and warmth she gives the kids and her co-faculty at Culiat; one wonders if the hope that radiates from her eyes ever runs out. Apart from the hope she carries, Miss Sabs cradles in her arms heaps of teaching materials she prepares every night for her three classes every day. Science. Science. Then English. From twelve noon to six in the evening, she seeks the eyes, the hearts, and the minds of more than a hundred students from grade five in Culiat. Despite the many late nights spent on preparing for her classes, meeting up with people of a similar passion in education, and days of skipped breakfast and lunch, she chooses to get to know her students, to relay the values of hoping and believing as she strives with them in their education, to be with her students forced to face society’s realities, and in her words, to be the lesson, not just the one who teaches a lesson, from the Greater Teacher.

she says. Having spent her college days as a Biology major at the Ateneo de Manila, almost set for medical school, Miss Sabs encountered crossroads and people that led her to answer her calling to teach. She spent a year with the Jesuit Volunteers Philippines after graduating in 2005 by being a youth organizer in Iloilo for Pathways to Higher Education. Tied into this experience of the nation’s hunger for a better educational system were the questions she faced with one of her mentors, Ms. Assunta Cuyegkeng. It was a journey of much disturbance. Ms. Cuyegkeng would tell her, “Sabs, ganitong guro ang kailangan ng Pilipinas. May ganito tayong klaseng pangangailangan.” Miss Sabs would think, “Why was I bothered by it? The calling has always been there, but it took one mentor to help me ask the questions and one person to believe in me.”

Sabs has always been like your favorite teacher – enthusiastic, engaging, and very much dedicated to talk to and be with people. It was a very difficult task to choose between the medical and education field, given that they were both great avenues for her to love and serve the Philippines. Medical school was the sure path, a road her parents had prepared for her to take—and one that she herself had been preparing for for a long time.

She would tell us, “I think with every decision you have, the difficulty is the uncertainty. Ang pinakanakakatakot ay ‘di mo kasi alam. And med school was the sure road. My father was preparing for it. I was trying to prepare for it. But I know I’m not good with memorizing stuff, with stress, stress with studying. I have always wanted to go out and experience things, and be with people. Teaching was uncertain. I didn’t have background in education. Wala akong salo. I don’t know if somebody will catch me. But given who I am, my passion, my skill, this uncertain thing could answer my questions of where I can love more, where I can be more of use.”

Greater challenges came upon choosing education. Miss Sabs is the eldest among her siblings – a major factor she considered in trying to help her family after graduation. Her father was concerned about her security outside of a medical career; and even now, whenever they see a doctor, her mom tells her how she wished her daughter could have worn that same white coat.

Stress and exhaustion are definitely inevitable in teaching; Miss Sabs also talked about one night when she drove her way home crying from strain. But this particular night would also tell us exactly how she continuously finds God’s love amid the drawbacks and challenges in the road she chose.

“May isang time umuwi ako, pagod na pagod. Ang dami kong kailangang isipin tapos iyak ako nang iyak. ‘Di ako dumeretso ng bahay tapos nag park ako sa isang area na madilim. Sinasabi ko kay God na nawawalan ako ng pag-asa. Tapos tumingin ako sa labas, may nakita akong alitaptap dun sa may puno. Tapos may isa pa. Tapos isa pa hanggang sa sobrang dami nila. Umiilaw yung puno. Pakiramdam ko tuloy sinasabi sa akin ay Sabs, okay lang. ‘Di ka naman nag-iisang  nagsasayaw sa dilim eh. Marami kayo.”

                  Things just fell into place for her as she started responding to the call she received from God. She was able to find her way to study units in education through a scholarship, and made sure things were stable before she finally told her family she was going to teach. Miss Sabs would tell us how beautifully crafted God’s plan is as she repeats:

In three words, Miss Sabs is the lover, the beloved, and the teacher – one who, at the end of every school year, is not just someone her students applaud and honor, but one who truly enables her students to say that they have found greatness in themselves. She says, “Yung magaling na teacher ay hindi yung sasabihan ng estudyante na Ma’am ang galing mo, pero yung pagdating ng dulo ng taon, sasabihan ng estudyante na Ma’am ang galing ko na. Ma’am alam ko na.”

Miss Sabs says that, “I have always believed that I am a mere instrument for God, a greater Teacher who needs a face, a voice and arms to extend to the children. There is a mission to be accomplished—His story of love and hope to be told—and I am here to help in being part of that story.”

The faces of her students, says Miss Sabs, are God’s concrete call of love that no one can ever leave unanswered. She believes in the power of education and good teachers to influence every single child’s life in the Philippines. Every empowered teacher provides a chance to tell classrooms of over 200 children that someone believes in them, and that they can hope and dream bigger for themselves and their families.

Miss Sabs teaches about love and hope as she nurtures a community of children, showing them how to help each other and help themselves. As she continues to draw her inspiration from the people around her who do their work in a very extraordinary way, and her students who strive to go to school everyday, she reminds us how our real role models are with us every single day.

 Miss Sabs reminds us. She is an invitation for us to find our own calling by listening deeply to who we are and to the circumstances we are immersed in. And when we find this calling, we choose it, we commit to it every single day of our lives as Miss Sabs has committed to the love of her life. And even if she loses, she will continue to fight, hope, dream for, and believe in her students—her kids.

Seeing and talking to Miss Sabs with her kids and co-faculty showed me hope and love in action; a hope and love that was very much real. And in a world of confusion, struggle, and a lot of hustle and bustle, one can always draw strength from the simplest of things – those which are set deep within our hearts, those that we come to hold so dear. At our very core is a light that the world can use, a light that is ours to give. It was a very life-giving day for me, a very life-giving one indeed—having met someone who shares her love and light with the world, someone who has truly come alive.

Written by Colene Arcaina | Calligraphy Art by Inkscribbler.com | Photos by Angelo Sison, others from Sabrina Ongkiko, TEDxAdmu Photos by Matt Baguinon 

Passion + Purpose Team: