t the beginning of this school year, you
will hate me, but at the end of it, you will love me.”
These were the opening and very confident words of Rafael “Ralph” G. Cecilio upon stepping into our third-year high- school classroom in 1976. He was our teacher in English literature in the Xavier University High School in Cagayan de Oro City. There was something very different and compelling about this new teacher in our school, which we would soon find out. He was unconventional. He had an imaginative and inquisitive mind. He knew how to rouse the youth from their academic slumber. He appeared tough but deep down inside he cared for his students. Many of us feared him, but before long we came to revere him.
Indeed, at the beginning of the school year, we dreaded having to meet him in class. We wanted an easy class, but he made it
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