“Let us make Constancio Padilla National High School known to the world!”  Thus did Ma. Cheryll Manzano Patulot, Class Valedictorian of Batch 1992, exhort the graduates of Class 2010 on Friday’s 66th commencement exercises which has the theme “Education: Changing Lives.”

Speaking before the 979 members of Class “Tahimik” who, true to form, listened in rapt attention to the guest speaker and deported themselves with remarkable discipline, which elicited praises from Messrs. Marianito Torres and Tristan Ray Manzano who emceed the program.

Having gained recognition as an environmental steward, Manzano encouraged the graduates to prophesy their own future, to visualize their ambition and focus their energy towards attaining their goals.

Drawing from personal experience where, finding herself on the operating table in view of a life-threatening illness, she found out that the true treasures are not material things but those whom you hold dear, she urged them to consider their priorities in life, and to embrace their loved one before it was too late.

She also advised Batch 2010 to share their blessings.  She told them to strive for excellence, to be the best of what they could be.

Exuding maturity and wisdom despite her youth, Manzano touched a chord when she addressed each of her former teachers by their names, reminding them of how she missed their company; at one point she referred to Mrs. Virginia M. Alayon, for instance, as her “guardian angel.”

She related an incident during her early days in the University of the Philippines: during registration, she was asked by some students from which school she came from, and she proudly answered “from Constancio Padilla (National High School),” to which they remarked somewhat snobbishly, “Never heard.” She said she was hurt to find that her school which she dearly loved would be so treated with indifference.  Noting that guest speakers often pledge to donate something like infrastructures for the school, Manzano said she dis not have the money as yet to construct a schoolbuilding, but she did pledge to make CPNHS known before the world.

Ma. Cheryll is the daughter of Mrs. Minerva T. Manzano, Head of the Filipino Department.

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