JOLO—The Department of Education renamed a public elementary school in Patikul town after its Christian principal who was kidnapped and beheaded by suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits.
A belated report received here recently by the Sulu schools division office from the DepEd central office information division said former Education secretary Jesli Lapus approved a local government resolution seeking to rename Kanague Elementary School to “Gabriel K. Canizares Memorial Elementary School to immortalize the name of Canizares, the only non-Muslim education field executive in Patikul.”
The report said Lapus presented a posthumous award—crystal plaque with Canizares photo—to the late principal’s parents who were invited to a special program at the DepEd’s main office in Pasig City. Leaders of various national teacher groups, including the Sagip Guro, testified to the heroism of the deceased.
The Education department praised the late field school official “for serving as an active catalyst in local teacher trainings and seminar-workshops undertaken by Synergeia, an educational promotion arm of the United States Assistance for International Development (USAID), deployed in various depressed areas of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Zamboanga Peninsula (Region 9) and Central Mindanao (Region 12).
Former USAID country director Tom Crehan, who was invited to the DepEd rites for the 37-year-old school administrator, lamented that “for all the good things he gave to the children of the community, he certainly did not deserve that kind of death.”
Canizares’ colleagues considered him a “Good Samaritan as he would usually empty his pocket just to help his Muslim tutors purchase needed classroom instructional aids and devices.”
A Tausug co-educator, who asked not to be identified, mourned his passing, saying “he is a great loss not only to the schools division of Sulu, but to the entire public school system and to the noblest of all professions. May his tribe increase!”