I first met Miss Leticia Borromeo on my first day at Carlos P. Garcia High School. She was the Third Year students' Chemistry teacher. When my classmates and I arrived at Room 305, a thin woman in her late twenties greeted us at the door and told us to fall in line; boys in one line and girls on another. She then told the girls to tuck in their blouses under their checkered skirts and the boys their shirts under their khaki pants. "You may be attending a public school, but you represent your school everywhere you go in your uniforms. I want you to look decent and make our school proud," she said.
She was a very strict teacher and students were terrified when they were in her classroom. She had the reputation of being a "Terror Teacher." When she called our names during class discussion, we'd better have an answer or she'd embarrass us with questions like: "Didn't you do your homework last night?" Or "Where is your book? What is it doing at home?"
At school, we always saw her in school uniform - beige blouse and chocolate brown skirt which made her already dark skin look even darker. She wore big round spectacles that looked too big on her small face. She had thick black hair that she grew only to her neck. She had thin hollow cheeks and after she talked, she always closed her mouth tightly. She wore a college ring that appeared too big on her bony fingers. She was so thin and seemed so fragile. She was like paper that could be blown by a slight breeze.
Miss Borromeo was a very different person outside the classroom. She was very warm and caring. In the staff room, I'd see her smile when she talked to the other teachers and students who dropped by and lovingly called her Tita Letty. Tita is Auntie in English.
She was also the coordinator of the Youth Marian Crusade in our school. Every Friday after school, she held prayer meetings at the community center near the school. Before we started the prayers, she encouraged students to share their problems. Sometimes, she'd ask us what our fears were and then we would talk about them. She told us that she was doing these prayer meetings to keep us "out of the streets." I thought that was really a noble thing to do.
At Christmas time, we went caroling around the neighborhood. We enjoyed walking together in groups and singing carols from house to house. The money that we collected was given to charity.
I saw her again in a picture that was taken during the 20th anniversary reunion of Garcia High. She still looked quite the same, perhaps just a little older and weary. She still has the hollow cheeks and that tightly closed mouth. She wears smaller glasses. She goes by Mrs. Lopez now. She got married just a couple of years ago.
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