Holy Cross of Digos after 50 years

DIGOS CITY — It was in 1963, half a century ago, when our high school class graduated from the Holy Cross, boys department. Digos then was just a small outback town in the south. Ours was the first batch of graduates under the tutelage of the Canadian SACRED HEART BROTHERS. It was then an exclusive boys school. The French-Canadian Brothers, all young, pinkish-faced missionaries came to town and forthwith built the present school facilities upon arrival. In no time, the boys moved to the interior new site, separating the boys and girls departments then under one roof of the Holy Cross Academy of the RVM sisters.

When Dr. Eric Lobaton, lead organizer of the 2013 alumni homecoming of class ‘88 (the 25th year jubilarians) personally saw me in our Guihing farm house where I spent most of my holidays, I immediately contacted our Batch ‘63. A few of us batchmates used to occasionally meet in fellowship although some had to beg off due to schedule problems and of course some due to physical disabilities that go with age like rayuma, arthritis, diabetes. (Facing the inevitable. Hahaha!).

High school days are always best to reminisce. During the December 30 homecoming, when I was asked to say a few words representing our Batch, (together with ‘82 alumnus honoree, Ambassador to Iraq EDCEL BARBA) I couldn’t help but recall several unforgettables. For example, during graduation, I got a medal for 100% attendance . Not a single day was I absent for four years, although I had to travel 8 kilometers from our barrio in Guihing to be in Digos everyday. Talking of persistence! While there, I learned the early rudiments of journalism when BROTHER CONRAD trained me as writer and editor of THE CRUSADER, the school publication. I got my ears for music and the arts when I played trumpet in the school band (later playing my way to college at the Ateneo with band scholarships), sang in the school choir and do gymnastics for physical education (under BROTHER ROGER). I was an altar boy helping fix early dawn the small chapel in the Brothers’ Residence for their daily morning mass, at times unable to resist taking a small sip of the Mass wine (oooops!) as I went along with my chores. I could not escape from the early evening “rosary walk” of BROTHER ELRIC around the buildings whenever I would occasionally stay overnite at the kitchen quarters. I learned how to drive while on campus, using the old rickety van to deliver things from the boys’ campus to the girls’ department outside in the highway area while doing my chores as a working student. And yes, those “crushes”, although the girls department was a bit far in another campus outside and we get to see them only during Friday benedictions at the church by the highway. Those were the days!

The old-fashioned values of integrity, hard-work, prayers, love of God, generosity, service, excellence– all there for starters for all of us at Holy Cross. Yes, I almost entered the “Juniorate”, the seminary for the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. But that was not to be my vocation as I was meant for other things. But still the BROTHERS’ motto “PARATUM COR MEUM” (“my heart is ready”) has always been the guiding light for all of us at Holy Cross, our alma mater. (Jess G. Dureza)