Hope in the south

Gertrude Santos is the registrar at St. Scholastica’s Westgrove in Silang, Cavite.  She had reservations when she was first asked whether she was willing to leave Manila and move to this new campus, which opened its doors in June 2001. She decided to move there with her family and has not regretted that decision.

Arlene Choo is the principal of Xavier Nuvali in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, which started classes only last June.  Because Arlene’s own children are in year levels that Xavier Nuvali still doesn’t have, they have to study in Xavier and ICA in San Juan, which means that Arlene does a daily commute between Nuvali and Manila.

Arlene’s only regret is that her children can’t be at Xavier Nuvali, which is a sprawling 10-hectare work in progress, full of life and excitement. Standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass window, she told me, “On a clear day, you can see mountains.”

Rebirth

It was raining that day so the mountains would have to wait, but that was fine.  I did feel nostalgic, reminded of my own days in Xavier San Juan many (many) years ago, when I could look out of my classroom and see mostly cogon fields.  During breaks we’d run out to the soccer field, which still had dragonflies, now rarely seen in Manila.

I thought of how Xavier has gone through three births—the first in 1956 when it started out in Echague, Quiapo, with a handful of students, and the second in 1960 when it moved to San Juan, still a small undeveloped town in the province of Rizal.  I was among those who entered Xavier that year.

And now Xavier has Nuvali, which will be a second campus. It took in 130 students in June for kindergarten and Grades 1 to 3, and will add Grades 4, 7 and 8 (the equivalent of high school) next school year.  The curriculum is the same in both campuses, and will include the International Baccalaureate (IB) option.  The teachers come mostly from the San Juan campus; a few are now full-time at Nuvali, while the others are still based in San Juan but devoting selected days each week to the new campus.

There are two striking differences between the Xavier campuses. First, Arlene explained, there will be many more scholarships offered in Nuvali, with different kinds of financial assistance for those who need it. Second, Nuvali is no longer an all-boys school. Right now boys and girls still take classes together while the administration mulls over the original plan of a co-divisional arrangement, which means some classes might have the sexes separate because of different learning styles and paces.

I drove out to Nuvali after Xavier’s director, Fr. Johnny Go, suggested that I visit. I confess that I did so mainly out of a sense of loyalty to my alma mater. I’ve driven past Sta. Rosa many times, on the way to Tagaytay, and was not particularly impressed with the malls and offices that all looked alike, but the visit to Xavier Nuvali was full of surprises.

I will be following Ayala Land, the area’s main developer, for the next few years with what I feel is a bold experiment in alternative urban planning. Clustered near the schools (to which the firm donated land) are a range of housing options. At Nuvali prices start at around P1.4 million for a basic bungalow and a 110-square-meter lot. In Manila, that price will get you a rabbit hutch of a studio condominium. The prices go up depending on the subdivision, but even high-end Westgrove still has lots going for between P14,000 and P17,000 per square meter—dirt-cheap compared to Metro Manila.

The subdivisions are gated but inside, many of the houses have no fences. There’s a greater sense of security in the area and I’d extend that to a sense of environmental stability and conservation, with a large bird sanctuary within Nuvali as well as areas that Ayala has supposedly committed to keeping green.

I asked Jesy, the real estate agent who was taking me around: “Do you think the area will become like Manila in a few years?”

Jesy, who has lived in Sta. Rosa for several years, sounded almost like she was protesting when she answered, “No, no, it won’t be like Manila.” She took me to her subdivision, a pleasant middle-class area that, again, has many houses that don’t have fences, and a good mix of young families and retirees.

In Nuvali itself, the main roads are wide with grass strips in the center, clearly in anticipation of more traffic, and the need for more lanes in the future.  But I’m hoping they won’t need those extra lanes if they could just come up with more bike lanes and shuttle services (not jeeps and tricycles, please) to connect residential and commercial areas, and the schools.

Kindred kindness

It was Jesy who showed me St. Scholastica’s Westgrove, which I wasn’t even aware of.  There are other schools in the area: Brent, Caritas-Don Bosco (not a branch of Don Bosco in Manila and Makati), Acacia Waldorf, and all kinds of preschools,  a sign that the area is drawing young families. Ateneo has a graduate business school there, while De La Salle is putting up a science and technology campus. Coming up are Miriam College and the University of Santo Tomas, with flood-free campuses.

I want to add a bit more about St. Scholastica’s. That’s my mother’s alma mater, so I’ve always had a kind of vicarious pride in its being socially progressive and innovative. The Westgrove school has done well, the campus now filled with buildings but with room to spare. And although it has opted to remain an all-girls school, it’s not the typical “convent school” out to cultivate, as one school once put it to me, “ladylike girls”.

I just had to ask about its sports programs and held my breath as Gertrude mentioned badminton (nice), basketball (very good), a soccer field (very, very good), with a swimming pool in the pipeline (stupendous!).

I did ask, and its tuition is about the same, in fact slightly lower, than the Manila campuses.

I guess I was being one weird parent asking questions like “what do you sell in your canteen?” and feeling relieved that both Xavier and St. Scholastica’s don’t offer soft drinks and junk food. But sometimes I just kept quiet and watched how the teachers interacted with the children. In both schools I saw that the kids were respectful to, but comfortable with, their teachers.  At St. Scholastica’s, Gertrude took the hand of one of my daughters as we walked down a flight of stairs, and I was the one who nearly stumbled out of surprise.

You don’t see too much kindness in Manila’s schools; the urban jungle has made us all so jaded, sometimes mean. South of Manila, maybe because of the fresh air, or the smaller number of students, or just being in the company of kindred spirits, there’s hope and a renewed sense of mission.

For more information on St. Scholastica’s Westgrove, visit sscw.edu.ph or call (046)5110421 to 24.   For Xavier Nuvali, go to 24.xs.edu.ph or call 7230481 local 385.  For Nuvali housing options, drop by the Ecoliving Center about half a kilometer away from the entrance.

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