The World's Educator by Claudio V. Tabotabo, MA (March, 2006)

Among the things Fr. Ragonton left in 1996 were books with edition date backing up to the pre-vatican period. They are so brittle that reading them is like deciphering the old sea-scroll. Too much care is necessary. I don't know what is their original color because when I found them, they were all brown like a color of a fertile soil. In the cobwebbed room they littered together under the ramshackle shelf that leaned on the naked wall. There was a makeshift bed where the old priest rested after his voracious readings. I went there for the books but I cannot avoid the sight of a humble life that one time gave meaning to this poor abode. He was a rich man in Ilocos who sold his share of land to put up a school in the scarcely populated island of Mindanao in 1950. There he lived and died among the people he so much loved. And in his remembrance the people of the town petitioned to bury him in the very school he founded. Now in our town his life is a legend.

The books, from the heap of ball-weevils I picked up one. I cannot remember the author but it is about the Jesuit system of education published around 1896. I smuggled it and in my room and I digested the system of the world's greatest educators. Somewhere in the book I came across with how a certain priest described St. Ignacio de Loyola. It says, when a Spaniard tries to drive a nail into the wood, and the hammer breaks, the Spaniard uses his head to drive the nail. The Spaniard here refers to St. Ignacio. He was a Spanish soldier who surrendered his sword and founded at first, The Companion of Jesus that is now the Society of Jesus or shortly called Jesuit.

It is about determination to do the mission. In the pantheon of great missionaries the Jesuit is at the top of it. Jesuits are men who spend their lives for the glory of His people by way of education. The Jesuits founded the Ateneo schools of the Philippines, the Fordham University of New York, Loyola University of France and other known schools of the world.