NPS celebrates 60th year
By Daniel Aureus Jr.,
Grade IV, NPS
“IT WILL surely be festive and colorful. It will be celebrated the
Parokyalista way.”
Grade V-St. Francis of Assisi pupil Brian Paolo Z. Neola assured
when asked how the Naga Parochial School will go along with its
Diamond Jubilee celebration that started last January 30 until
February 4, 2006.
The fete started with the opening of trade fair for various school
products, stuff toys and reference books and materials.
On February 3, a Eucharistic celebration in honor of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus (First Friday Devotion) will highlight the day’s
celebration with Rt. Rev. Msgr. Jaime San Andres, P.A., V.G. as
celebrant. Msgr. San Andres is the School Director.
At 8:30 A.M. of the same day, NPS pupils and teachers will
participate in a motorcade that will take the city’s major
thoroughfares followed by exhibition games and ball games. In the
afternoon, parlor games will be held.
The next day, February 4 at 8:30 in the morning, a pontifical
concelebrated mass will be held with Most Rev. Leonardo Z. Legaspi,
O.P.,D.D., Archbishop of Caceres, as the main celebrant. Monsignor
Legaspi is the school’s chairman of the Board of Trustees. Mass
concelebrants are priest-alumni of the Naga Parochial School.
At 10:00 A.M., concluding activities highlighted with field
demonstrations to be participated in by NPS pre-schoolers up to
Grade VI pupils will be staged.
In 1983, NPS became the country’s first elementary parochial
school accredited by the Philippine Accrediting Association of
Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU). The school has been
reaccredited for another five years, until 2009, after its 4th
PAASCU resurvey last 2004.
The Naga Parochial School was founded in July 1, 1947 by the late
Archbishop Pedro P. Santos, D.D. of the Archdiocese of Caceres.
It was granted government recognition by the Department of
Education on (no. 152, series of 1948) on March 6, 1948.
During this year of operation it has an initial enrolment of 489
boys under the tutelage of 15 faculty members. It was headed by
Msgr. Porfirio Ramin, V.G., P.A. (1947-1950) then pariest priest
of Naga Cathedral, as director.
In the middle of 1950, Msgr. Ramin was succeded by Msgr. Nicanor
C. Belleza, V.G., (1950-1983) under his leadership, enrolment
continued to increase.
At that time, Archbishop Teopisto V. Alberto, D.D., chairman of
the Board of Trustees from 1965 - 1983, continued to guide the
school through the years.
With the demise of Msgr. Belleza in 1983, the Archbishop of
Caceres, Mst. Rev. Leonardo Legaspi, O.P., D.D. appointed an
alumnus of the school, Msgr. Jaime M. San Andres of Class 1950, as
the third NPS director.
The present crop of 885 boys is handled by a 58 man staff, 40 of
whom area full-time teachers. These young boys will also receive
the special education experienced by some 10,805 alumni of the
school.
