​‘Midst land of smiling beauty

ONE of the biggest organized events to be staged in Baguio City is the Grand Alumni Homecoming of the Baguio City National High School.
          
It may not be “big” on extravaganza because other high school homecomings hereabouts might be more in expense, but rather City High is big in tradition. The holding of a City High homecoming hasn’t been broken since I attended this high school ages ago, and I am just limited by my own generational recollection.
          
In the line of unbroken traditions, City High will have another homecoming this year to be held on May 3 and 4. Hosted by silver jubilee class of 1988, the event will gather alumni from the time the school was first called Mountain Province High School.
          
If you are born in Baguio, chances are you are a City High graduate. It is a public high school thus we, whose parents couldn’t afford to send us to private high schools, end up here as with older siblings, parents or grandparents before us.
          
Proof that City High is really big population-wise was when we graduated. There were 800 or so of us who were called individually to receive our diplomas.  Imagine the order of the alphabet where your family name starts with the letter “R”, then you have an idea what it must be like to wait for your name to be called.
          
This year, there were 800 in just one of three batches of graduates. That’s b-i-g.  School principal Dr. Elma D. Donaal said she had to split the graduates into three; otherwise she might split her palms and soles just by standing on stage glad-handling graduates with their diplomas.
          
To be sure, with so many City High graduates, one would likely bump into one or two along Session Road. Graduates whose lives diversified through the years, with claims to fame or ignominy. Let’s face it: City High can’t be held responsible on how we lived our lives hence. But somehow, with society’s standards of a life well lived, a successful graduate will always look up to his or her experience at City High as a factor that brought them to the leading edge.
          
This is one of the most compelling reasons why once a year, a graduate will attend this homecoming – a gesture that pays homage to a school that molded and honed a person regardless of whether the person is a chronic high school “escapee” like me.
          
As an unwritten code, a City High graduate will always obtain preferential treatment from another City High graduate. One senior alumnus once told me that in hiring personnel for his business, an applicant will always take prior consideration if it is written in the resume that he or she is a City High graduate.
          
That’s the unwritten code. By the same token, personal experience dictates that I was not that privileged when I applied for a job which process was mishandled by a Personnel Selection Board, the majority of whom are City High graduates.
          
This proves that the City High fervor is personal and subjective.  Located “midst land of smiling beauty” according to the school song, graduates from City High are so pervasive, they can be found all over the world.  However, this will not allow for a homogenous set of graduates’ sentiments however we may idealize the concept of fervor.
          
But once in a year, the romance of City High will play out during two days of official activities set in the school grounds. Perhaps that is the very essence of tradition. All graduates are thus invited to perpetuate this time-honored act.*