The burden of awards

Last Wednesday Metrobank Foundation celebrated its 35th anniversary by honoring its institutional partners that included my employers, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Ateneo de Manila University. Metrobank Foundation also chose from its roster of Outstanding Artists, Teachers, Policemen and Soldiers and conferred on them the Awards for Continuing Excellence and Service (ACES).

The prestige of Metrobank awards is rooted in the diligent screening that awardees have to pass in order to even make it to the finals. During my time I had to demonstrate my classroom lecturing to a jaded group that included an undersecretary of education and an undersecretary of science and technology, as well as former Metrobank outstanding teachers. Stripped of the magic of Keynote, all I had on me was the subject matter in my head, my voice, and a blackboard. In the finals I was grilled by a panel chaired by then Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, who peered over her eyeglasses and made me understand why criminals in her courtroom quake in their boots.

To make a long story short, I made it to the 2006 batch of Metrobank outstanding teachers. In Malacañang, as the then president of the Philippines hung a medal around my neck, the then secretary of education, who was assisting her, remarked: “Napakyaw mo na lahat nang awards, ah.” (You have bagged all the awards.)

I replied: “Meron pa pong kulang, Mr. Secretary.” (There’s still one lacking.)

“Ano pa ba?”(What else?)

I breathed deeply and declared: “The Order of Sikatuna.”

When the then president overheard this, she exclaimed: “Sikatuna? Isn’t that for retiring diplomats?”

“I will retire someday,” I countered, “and I can only hope that will be the next thing to be hung around my neck.”

Two presidential awards and three knighthoods later, I have yet to retire and receive the Order of Sikatuna.

I was an average student and never brought home any school medals for excellence in academics or sports, so it can be said that I am a late bloomer by receiving the Presidential Medal of Merit last month and the Metrobank ACES this month. People blinded by the glitter of medals and trophies often presume I have grown blasé to recognition; what they fail to see is the heavy burden that honors actually bring. Awards should not be given to people for merely doing their job, or doing the right thing. Accolades should come to those who do ordinary things in an extraordinary way. Awards challenge people to maintain excellence and to outdo themselves.

I often wonder why I became a historian and teacher. I remember people asking my father if his only son would follow in his footsteps. His repeated reply was: “One poor engineer in the family is enough.” Not many know that my father and some of his colleagues at the University of the Philippines College of Engineering augmented their UP salaries by moonlighting in what was to grow into the biggest consulting firm in the country. Two of my father’s UP colleagues, Alfredo Juinio and David Consunji, served in various times as secretary of public works, and at work my father was always addressed as “Prof,” the only reminder of the teaching profession that he gave up in order to earn a living. In retrospect, my father’s teaching in UP and Mapua, plus my being conceived in UP Diliman, probably made me genetically predisposed to iconoclasm and the teaching profession—but that is not why I became a teacher.

I teach and lecture and write this column because I have stories to tell. It is a long and complicated story of how men developed from a cave in Tabon or Cagayan thousands of years ago into the nation that they want and often fail to be. There are other historians who weave the same tale, but the difference is that I was fortunate to have been taught by five Metrobank outstanding teachers (Doreen G. Fernandez, Marcelino Foronda, Emerita Quito, Julia de la Cruz, Esperanza Chee Kee) and doubly fortunate to have personally known or interacted with the majority of Metrobank outstanding teachers.

While most teachers will tell you that they model themselves on the teachers they liked, some were inspired by teachers they didn’t like! Even a bad teacher can sometimes have a positive effect, as a living example of how not to teach. Some teachers grow in the profession and, like me, often learn more from their students than the students learn from them. Despite the long hours, teachers remain young because of the constant interaction with young people who gift their teachers with a sense of their times, their hopes, their dreams and fears. In this way, teachers actually touch the future.

At the end of each semester I know that my students will forget much of their Philippine history. After all, they can easily learn history by themselves by reading a textbook or searching through Google, but what I impart to them is a sense of how a historian works. I show them how enthusiasm or passion can transform work into a vocation. They won’t be historians, but seeing me at work may motivate them to be the best that they can be.

In the years since my Metrobank award I have explored other venues to tell my story outside the classroom: like writing columns for the print and Internet editions of the Inquirer and by moderating a growing Facebook Fan Page. I will never get the Order of Sikatuna, but the effort to become a good teacher and storyteller has changed my life and warped others for the better.

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