Good teachers instruct; great teachers inspire. Teachers who inspire several generations and leave a legacy beyond education are legendary.
Onofre Pagsanghan is one such teacher.
“Mr. Pagsi” joined the faculty of the Ateneo High School in 1951 and taught for well over four decades. He was the homeroom teacher to the first-year honors section. Mr. Pagsi received the Metrobank Outstanding Teacher Award (one of its first recipients) and countless other accolades for his work in molding both students and teachers. He was who Ateneo wanted to mold its teachers into—new instructors and education students were sent to the high school to observe him. A second-hand experience is not even possible today because strangely, not a single video of Mr. Pagsi teaching in the classroom exists. He was an oft-invited inspirational speaker, traveling continuously even in his 80s, but his family has no video recording of any of these speaking engagements, either.
Fortunately, Mr. Pagsi wrote everything down and his wife, Florinda “Lynn” Pagsanghan, kept them. His columns for Mr. & Ms. Magazine, songs for the Mass and for theater, eulogies he wrote for students and friends, his inspirational speeches—all these survived to allow a glimpse of the Pagsi magic (his Magis).
The best of these were collected by Dr. Vernon “Von” Totanes—Mr. Pagsi’s former student, Dulaang Sibol member and now Ateneo de Manila’s university librarian—into a book called “Pagsibol: A Biography of Onofre R. Pagsanghan in Speeches, Songs, and Other Writings” (Ateneo University Press, Quezon City, 413 pages).
“Pagsibol” is part biography, part anthology. Totanes, its content curator and editor, explains its raison d’etre: “’Pagsibol’ is a nontraditional biography that attempts to tell the life story of Onofre Pagsanghan—now 96—using his own words from the 1940s to the 2010s. It organizes them in a way that suggests what he would have written if he had ever tried to write an autobiography. This book was produced because of a dream that many more will ‘hear’ Mr. Pagsi as we, his students and countless others, have heard him.”
Speeches and songs
“Pagsibol” is divided into three parts: “School,” the longest, contains writings from his high school and college days at Ateneo de Manila, plus speeches delivered to students, fellow teachers, and audiences at his numerous inspirational talks; “Theater” includes creative work such as elocution pieces and songs for theatrical plays, and lyrics of Mass songs he cowrote (“Mariang Ina Ko,” “Huwag Kang Mangamba” and “Hindi Kita Malilimutan” among them); and “Family,” the most personal, has writings about family members and lyrical letters to his wife Lynn, his “Sinta.”
In these we indeed “hear” Mr. Pagsi passionately talk about his calling and life purpose: to bring young men closer to Jesus (whom he calls “Kuya Jess”) through theater and to advocate the creative incorporation of Filipino (then called “Pilipino”) into the curriculum. He rechristened the dramatics club Dulaang Sibol—sibol meaning beginnings—and started a true revolution: plays would be written not just in English but in Filipino, too, and high school students would perform them in what is now known as Tanghalang Onofre Pagsanghan.
He launched competitions for creative work in Filipino such as “Paligsahang Pandulaan,” whose early winners included now-famed playwrights Paul Dumol and Tony Perez, and “Timpalak Awit,” which then-14-year-old Manoling Francisco (later Fr. Manoling Francisco, S.J.) won by cowriting and composing the melody for “Hindi Kita Malilumutan”—the title of which came from Mr. Pagsi himself.
His advocacy expanded beyond Ateneo: He worked for 15 years in Balik-balik, Tondo, and brought theater to the slums. Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” was translated into “Doon Po sa Amin” and was one of many Filipino plays that raised funds for the Boys Club in Tondo.
In the 1970s, he was named artistic director for drama at the Folk Arts Theater where he wrote and directed the dance-dramas “Alamat” and “Kristo.” It was also at this time that he conceptualized and guided to fruition what is now known as the Philippine High School for the Arts in Mt. Makiling in 1977, where talented children are trained in theater arts, visual arts, creative writing, dance and music.
Deep faith
This lifelong love of theater and the arts was born in the old Ateneo in Padre Faura, where he watched plays directed by the likes of Jesuits Fr. James Reuter and Fr. Horacio de la Costa. He credits his Jesuit teachers, especially the equally legendary Fr. John Delaney, for believing in him and molding him into the teacher he is. It’s this deep faith in his students that Mr. Pagsi carries with him to this day.
“I look at my boys and I say, ‘Give my boys 20 years, 30 years,’” he says in the book. I worked so much with these boys. I’ve given these boys all that I can give. Wait 20 years and you will see what a bright Philippines it will be.”
Many Pagsi speeches end with a verse from “Fill the World with Love,” a song from the 1969 film, “Goodbye, Mr. Chips”: “In the evening of my life, I shall look to the sunset,/ At a moment in my life when the night is due,/ And the questions I shall ask, only I can answer:/ Was I brave and strong and true?/ Did I fill my world with love, my whole life through?”
“Pagsibol” inspires even if you were not one of the Ateneo “A-Boys” (students in the aforementioned honors class) or part of the audience in one of his many talks. It’s a book to give to teachers who’ve made an impact and to those who aspire to do the same. Parents can also find inspiration: Teaching by example, Mr. Pagsi’s method of choice, is part of every parent’s job description, after all. But it speaks most clearly to those just starting to look for, or have yet to find, their life’s calling. Mr. Pagsi’s words and life show the joy that awaits.
Understandably, some sections are more engaging than others especially if one is unfamiliar with Ateneo or Dulaang Sibol. But Mr. Pagsi’s main message rings true and resounds: “Love your calling with passion. It is the meaning of your life.” He uses this quote from the sculptor Rodin as the theme of many speeches tailored to specific audiences. Like Mr. Pagsi, it never grows old.
Totanes says he conceived the book 20 years ago: “I had been editing books at the time and thought I’d like to do this for an author I knew, and for a book that had more meaning for me. And then I started thinking, why not Mr. Pagsi?”
He began to put together the material and continued to work on it in Toronto, where he went for doctorate studies in 2006. “Back then, I’d assumed the book was going to be a collection of published works. I never knew that Mrs. Pagsi kept an archive! Mrs. Pagsi started turning over his speeches to me when I was in Canada. I came back in 2012 and just kept plugging away,” Totanes says.
There would be a long wait for feedback or requested materials, but he and Ali Figueroa (a fellow Sibolista and the book’s designer) would wait and get new material from Mrs. Pagsi to add to the book.
Cloudy to sunny
It was also a race against time. There was an understandable concern about Mr. Pagsi’s health. “When people ask me, I tell them that Mr. Pagsi’s state is like the weather. Sometimes it’s sunny, sometimes there are storms, sometimes it’s cloudy,” Totanes says. “And when the weather is very clear, wow! Something will trigger him and he’ll keep on talking, as if he were back in the classroom.”
Things finally came together during the pandemic and “Pagsibol” marks its completion with this preface: “The first edition of the book was presented to Mr. Pagsi and Lynn on the occasion of their 62nd wedding anniversary on Sept. 8, 2022.” And last June 12, Mr. Pagsi’s 96th birthday, “Pagsibol” was launched at Tanghalang Onofre Pangsanghan with a beaming and grateful Mr. Pagsi greeting friends and former students. Also present was the current crop of Sibolistas who met their founder for the first time.
Given that it lasted almost half of his adult life, Totanes has many stories to tell about the journey that was “Pagsibol.” One of the most touching is close to the end: “When he received the first edition of the book, on their wedding anniversary, it was what you’d call ‘cloudy’ in Mr. Pagsi terms. He recognized us and called me and Ali by name, but he kept saying there was a lot he did not remember anymore. That was in the morning. Later that evening, he heard Mass at the Ateneo High School and happened to pass by one of the classrooms. That triggered a transformation,” Totanes narrates.
“He became a different person when he got to the classroom. He saw where he was and got into his element. Nabuhayan siya. It was evening, but the weather became sunny.” —Contributed INQ“Pagsibol: A Biography of Onofre R. Pagsanghan in Speeches, Songs and Other Writings” is available at the Ateneo University Press website and on Lazada.