23/02/2026
I was fifteen when I first sat in Maโam Felicidad Beltranโs class.
At that age, history to me was small and familiar, stories of our islands, names I had memorized, dates I tried not to forget. I thought I understood what history was.
Then she began to teach.
I still remember the day she spoke about the Yellow River. It was the first time I heard of a civilization so far from our shores, yet so deeply connected to our shared humanity. She did not just explain it, she brought it to life. There was fire in her voice, a kind of joy in telling us that the world was older, wider, and more beautiful than we knew.
Because of her, the map no longer looked flat. It felt alive.
There was something deeply sincere about the way she spoke of cultures, religions, philosophies, and beliefs. She handled differences with respect, almost reverence. Long before we learned words like โdiversityโ and โinclusivity,โ she was already teaching us to see beyond ourselves. She showed us that people may live differently, believe differently, and think differently yet remain bound by the same human longing for meaning, for belonging, for hope.
At fifteen, I did not have the language to describe what she was giving us. I only knew that I was becoming curious โ curious about places beyond our archipelago, curious about possibilities beyond what felt familiar. She made me realize that there was something bigger out there, and that perhaps we were meant to step into it.
Years have passed, but her lessons stayed.
Not the dates. Not the exams.
The perspective.
The openness.
The courage to look beyond what is comfortable and explore what is unknown.
Maโam Beltran did not simply teach Social Studies. She shaped the way we see the world. And in doing so, she shaped who we would become.
Today, as we remember her, I feel grateful and I feel the ache of loss. But I also feel something else: the certainty that her voice, her passion, and her gentle insistence that the world is vast and worth understanding will continue to live in all of us who once sat in her classroom.
Thank you, Maโam.
You opened the world to a fifteen-year-old boy who did not yet know how far he would go.