Ma’am Simby

CHIT ESTELLA was the reason I didn’t graduate on time. It was early 2006, and my thesis partner and I were only weeks away from graduation. “Ma’am Simby,” as we called her, had just joined the journalism faculty that school year, and we were her first set of thesis advisees. We were disappointed when we found out that she would be our adviser, because we knew little of her, and we had heard that she was another Yvonne Chua or Desiree Carlos, who had previously made our papers bleed and our lives miserable.

The day of the bad news, she called me into her office looking so stern, and told me that she wouldn’t approve our thesis the way it was, even if I begged (which I didn’t do), and even if it meant that we could not graduate. Our thesis needed major revisions, she said. She then gave me a sermon on responsibility and life in general. She compared us to herself as a student, back when there was martial law, and spoke of how she wrote her papers using only typewriters, and gathered data without the convenience of cell phones, photocopying machines and Google, but still turned in the best work. It was the first time that I cried in the presence of and because of a teacher, but she gained my respect after that. I don’t remember what her exact words were, or what she said to change my perspective without agitating my rebellious spirit, but I remember deciding that someone like her deserved only the best from her students, and I vowed to give her the best.

I took thesis-writing seriously after that. We went through three more drafts, which she painstakingly read and edited, all 300+ pages of the thesis. She would find a new minor error or suggest a better approach each time. She was a perfectionist. It was frustrating at first, but I learned to appreciate her edits. She always had a better way of putting words together, and soon I was looking forward to seeing her red marks. I became a fan of her writing. I clipped and read the articles that she wrote for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and Manila Times, and read the editorials in PJR because I knew she wrote them. I drank every sentence, not so much for what she said, but how she said it.

The dynamics of our relationship eventually changed. She wasn’t intimidating and scary anymore—she became motherly. She liked sharing nuggets of wisdom, and she became more of a mentor than a stern professor. I won’t forget the time she called and asked my thesis partner to find me after I was physically harassed by the accused in one of the cases we were writing about. I thought it was so kind of her to even bother about the welfare of a student. I especially loved how she would make me realize that there were bigger social implications to a story, that a story isn’t just a mere narration of facts. She spoke with so much fire that it was hard not to be moved.

She eventually gave us a 1.25 for our thesis even though she had a reputation for being stingy with grades, so I would like to think that we were able to redeem ourselves. She also recommended us to her friend who needed young writers to help in a high-profile rape case. It was unpaid work, but she said it would help us establish contacts in the industry and experience covering a huge trial. I knew she was trying to help us. Even when we were already officially out of the university, she would call or text to ask us how we were doing. When we needed materials and resource persons on the political implications of the rape case and the Visiting Forces Agreement, she got her husband to help us. When we needed manpower when the case was in full swing, she talked to her students and tried to recruit them to help us.

The night before her accident last Friday, I was at a meeting of people’s lawyers, where I ran into the lawyer we had worked with for our thesis, after not seeing him for five years. He told me that yes, the farmers we wrote about won their case. I meant to visit Ma’am Chit to relay the information and tell her that I am now working on becoming a lawyer with a purpose. She cared about the poor and the oppressed, and I knew she would have been happy to hear the news. But alas, it is now too late.

I hope she had lived longer to realize that she was able to touch the lives of her students and see the results.  Still, I hope that someday, like I promised, I could do something that would have made her proud, and I, worthy of the honor of having been once mentored and molded by Chit Estella. Maybe that’s when I can truly say that we were able to redeem ourselves, after giving her all that headache years ago.

If she were still around, I am pretty sure she would fill this note with red editing marks. I’m sure she has a better way of saying what I am saying. These days I myself fill other people’s papers with red marks, and I’m sure I frustrate them, too. But whenever someone appreciates my work, I tell them that it is because I learned from the best editors, among them, Chit Estella. You just can’t help but learn from the best.

Paalam, Ma’am Chit. Thank you.

<em>Aileen Estoquia, 25, is a third year law student at the University of the Philippines College of Law. She finished her degree in Journalism at the UP College of Mass Communication where Chit Estella taught.</em>