MAELSTROM

BY YAYES BASARES

We were 29 when we entered OLPS way back in 1982 – about a thousand hairs ago. Only one became a priest. Some left early, others almost made it. Some (may) have shed tears, for others a feeling of frustration, still others resignation.

I left early and carried the mark of an ex-seminarian like a stigma attached to an identity of failure. I tried, in vain, to go back. Truth to tell, every single soul who entered the portals of OLPS and stayed there for at least a year carried with him in his heart the burning desire of becoming a priest. I am no exception.

Nothing outside could offer the same feeling of joy and happiness OLPS did. There was always a void space inside, an empty feeling. Joy and happiness inside OLPS was joy and happiness rooted in faith. It was this joy and happiness from where MAELSTROM was born.

Now in the midst of my agony of dwindling hairs and early manifestation of memory gap (Jesus H. Christ) I could no longer recall the names of all the girls I have loved before (hehehe) nor the names and faces of all my classmates in high school and college, but MAELSTROM remains embedded.

For MAELSTROM is special. It speaks of bonding in diversity; of respect and concern, of friendship between distance; of family through ages.

I am proud I am MAELSTROM. I am proud I am SANO.

I told my son, “when you finish your elementary please enter OLPS. By that time you need not call me daddy, call me SANO.”

My son smiles back. As always in his most mischievous manner. God help me!