Reminiscing High School Life at Quezon National High School in Lucena City!

Finally back inside our Alma Mater after 34 years! To hundreds of thousands who graduated from Quezon National High School with a legacy of 120 years of excellent academic tradition, walking around this campus once again was a great nostalgia trip. This is undoubtedly the best school in Quezon Province! Not bad coming in at No. 3 out of 1,362 high school graduates during our graduation in 1989. If you have an old building with exotic Capiz windowpanes that’s a window to its glorious past, this school by itself is a historical attraction. We just hope the school restores the main Gabaldon Building (dilapidated already) reflecting again one of the classic heritage school buildings in the Philippines during American colonial era.
All of us in the family studied here in QNHS. Being the youngest in the brood of 5, it helped that teachers had an easy rapport with an introverted version, perhaps my siblings were all that good academically (my eldest sister was even a Miss QNHS runner-up in the 80s). No wonder we had the same teachers (all were par excellence) in English (Ms. Flores & Ms. Amat), Biology (Miss Orbe), Filipino (Miss Mojica - oh how we missed Noli Me Tangere), Algebra (Mr. Basanes), Physics (Mr. Rama) even in Rondalla Club (Mr. Rolle). We knew only one principal all throughout high school, Mr. Abelardo V. Sevilla & yes the lone security guard by the nickname Oca.
Our high school lives were so intertwined (as I was at the receiving end of old textbooks & worn school supplies but thanks to Fil-Saudi Scholarship for new shoes) that my eldest brother even had a brief romantic relationship with our school librarian when I was in 4th Year & I couldn’t go back to the library again LOL. We also had a little competition among us brethren when it comes to NCEE. In the 80s, the National College Entrance Exams was the bar for academic competencies of all high school graduating students all over the Philippines. We all got a rating of 90+ but my elder sister was the topnotcher with a rating of 99%.
Quezon National High School, a major public secondary science high school is a top 10 largest contingent national high school in the Philippines both by size & population with more than 11,000 enrollees from Grades 7 to 12. It’s also the province’s oldest public high school having founded in October 1902 when Aubrey Boyles, a Thomasite, organized the then Tayabas High School in a convent in Lucena on the northern side of what is now the St. Ferdinand or Lucena Cathedral. Through the years, a super typhoon, fire & war forced the school to be transferred & rebuilt to new locations in Quezon capital of Lucena. The school finally settled in at M.L. Tagarao Street, Brgy. Ibabang Iyam, Lucena City.
In September 1946, President Manuel Roxas signed Republic Act No. 14 renaming the province of Tayabas to Quezon, thus, the then Tayabas High School became the Quezon Provincial High School (QPHS). The Batas Pambansa No. 1820 renamed QPHS as Quezon National High School with Dr. Cesar Villariba as the author. Today, it’s offering the K-12 Basic Education Curriculum & many different subjects & electives through its various Special Programs with specific curricula for Science, Technology & Engineering, Journalism, Arts, Sports & Foreign Languages.
The school also published a school paper called The Coconut (Ang Niyog) since 1928 coming out twice a month in a 4-page tabloid; the magazine came as the graduation issue (sadly I lost my copy to typhoon Ondoy in 2009). We were a lousy Coconut writer back then as I am today hehe. The Lucena-based publication’s golden years were in the 70s headed by adviser Delicia Unson usually going toe-to-toe with Baguio’s The Pine Tree. In 1997, it was the 3rd among the best school papers in the Philippines. The publication celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2003 attended by its alumnus, now GMA-7 reporter Joseph Morong. Our batch salutatorian then also is a seasoned writer of the Philippine Daily Inquirer today.
In the end, it’s the logo that binds us all Quezon Highers. The QNHS logo keeps a vision of excellence presented in a spherical perspective. The secluded landscape represents the green pastures that the school offers to its students. The book is an effigy of knowledge a student should muster. The coconut tree is the by-product of knowledge & creativity & also the school paper in recording the school’s past & what the future holds. The sun’s bright rays assure of a brighter future in infinite possibilities. The name of the school emphasizes the pride that it supremely holds, then & now, from 1902 onwards.
So let’s sing our QNHS Alma Mater song once more:
Hear the call of Alma Mater
Bidding us to be together
Let her name stand forever
Symbol bright of shining luster
Hear the ardent call of duty
Give her loyalty eternal
Show your courage everybody
Hail and Cheer the Quezon High!
Altogether win the battle
Of our dear old Alma Mater
Altogether we will conquer
All the foes of Quezon High!

[@TraveloguebyECLTV]

Please visit also our playlist on our pre-pandemic travels abroad including our most treasured pilgrimage of the Holy Land --> th-cam.com/video/HexAulNbOls/w-d-xo.html 😇✌🙏

[@GonzaloBabilonia-pc1fb]

Very nice insan

[@TraveloguebyECLTV]

Thank you our Batch Prez. See you all soon! :)