By BENJIE VILLA

TARLAC CITY — The Filipino nation may be unaware of it, but the province of Tarlac is very much proud to celebrate this weekend the centennial of the country’s first public high school.

The affair will, however, be simple. It will be held for two days, and the guests of honor will be Tarlac’s top political leaders, namely, Gov. Jose Yap Sr., Representatives Gilbert Teodoro Jr., Benigno Aquino III and Jesli Lapus, respectively representing the province’s three congressional districts, and this city’s mayor, Genaro Mendoza.

The historic gathering will be hosted by the Philippines’ first public school, the Tarlac National High School (TNHS), which was established on September 1, 1902 by the American colonial government and produced some of the country’s best leaders, among them the late statesman Carlos P. Romulo, the first Filipino to hold a ranking position in the United Nations, and novelist-academician Jorge Bocobo, seventh president of the University of the Philippines.

OLD LOCATION

Prof. Lino L. Dizon, Tarlac’s contemporary historian and chair of the Center for Tarlaqueño Studies of the Tarlac State University (TSU-CTS), said that the first TNHS (formerly Tarlac Provincial High School, later renamed Tarlac High School) was established at the eastern end of what was the Plaza del Toro. That was during the incumbency of Tarlac’s second Filipino governor, Alfonso Ramos (the recognized first Filipino governor of the province now is Gen. Francisco Makabulos, who founded the local Katipunan chapter in his hometown of La Paz and liberated Tarlac from local Spanish control).

Plaza del Toro is the present main campus of the Tarlac State University (TSU) along the Romulo Boulevard (named, of course, after Carlos P. Romulo), with the country’s first high school built on what is now the three-storey Smith Hall, home of TSU’s College of Arts and Sciences (CAS).

Dizon said that TNHS’s first principal was Dr. Frank Russell White, one of the about 600-strong American teachers who were ferried on board the USS Thomas that docked in the country on August 21, 1901.

The Tarlac historian insists that White should be similarly recognized as the country’s first public high school principal.

He explained that the TNHS’s establishment was in compliance with a March 7, 1902 order of the American colonial government which authorized the establishment of such schools that were to be managed by the Thomasites.

White, however, only served as principal for two months, as he was later appointed as division superintendent for Tarlac province.

According to Dizon, when the school was opened, it then had an original enrolment of 35 students, which increased to 93 before the end of the year.

One of TNHS’s first students then was Bocobo, who was later to be said by his daughter-biographer that "Dr. White took special interest in my father because he was always at the top… He predicted that my father would someday be an ‘eminent man of this his country."

FIRST SCHOOL BUILDING

Dizon said that the TNHS’s first building was made of Oregon pine, and 76 by 42 feet in diameter. It was two storeys, with two classrooms and an assembly hall on the 2^nd floor, while the principal’s office and four other classrooms were on its ground floor.

Except for the equipment, which Dizon said were all imported from the US, the total cost of what was the Tarlac Provincial High School was P48,000.

White initiated the school building project, while Gov. Ramos directed its construction.

But it was not until January 1904 when the country’s first public school building was finally completed.

"A large flag of the United States, the gift of the Martha Washington Society of New York, was unfurled at the time in honor of the first Public High School in the Philippine Islands," said Dizon.

The following year, Don Marciano Barrera, a native of martyred former Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr.’s hometown of Concepcion, donated a monument in honor of national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

"There were those who were to cite that this was the first statue ever built for the national hero in the whole of the Philippines," Dizon said.

UNDER PANGASINAN

At the time when the country’s first public school was established, Dizon explained that Tarlac was then under the Schools Division of Lingayen, Pangasinan.

With a permanent school building, he said that the school then opened in 1906 a "school of carpentry," also then called "Boys’ Trade."

"Woodworking and Drawing were early introduced into the course and were done in the basement of the old Government building which faced the Provincial High School," stated the Tarlac High School Historical Sketch of 1918.

The old government building referred to is presently located in the College of Engineering compound of TSU, which is being renovated to house the university’s Center for Computer Studies. The same building was used by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo for his Cabinet when his revolutionary government fully functioned in Tarlac while on the run from pursuing American occupation forces.

Unfortunately, the Boys’ Trade building was razed with fire, also in 1906.

"All the equipment used in the course were lost," said Dizon.

TARLAC’S FIRST VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

Three years later, the late Tarlac governor, Jose Espinosa, ordered the construction of a three-room "temporary building" for the Provincial Trade School (PTS), which would primarily cater to vocational training.

After its establishment, the PTS commenced admitting Grades V and VI pupils. In 1918, Dizon pointed out that the said edifice was mentioned of having had been "built of reinforced concrete… It was well preserved and housed 91 boys of the Trade Course."

The PTS building soon replaced the old government building of Tarlac, as the Capitol was transferred on top of a hill about a kilometer west of the location of the country’s first public high school.

"This (PTS building) was to become the Engineering campus of TSU decades later," Dizon pointed out.

COUNTRY’S FIRST SCHOOL AT PRESENT

As the old location of the TNHS is now occupied by the TSU’s main campuses, the country’s first public school presently stands between two roads named in honor of Tarlac’s prominent sons: Carlos P. Romulo and Gen. Makabulos.

The school’s main campus, one of the province’s most populated, is located just behind the Diwa ng Tarlac Convention Hall.

It now has an extension, called TNHS-Annex, in Barangay San Miguel right beside Camp Gen. Servillano Aquino, the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) headquarters, which caters to high school students in Tarlac City’s southern villages.

According to Dizon, "It was only in 1918, as the first (school’s first) Souvenir attests, that the first high school in the Philippines was to have its initial batch of full-fledged graduates."

As part of the celebrations for the centennial of the country’s first public high school, Dizon, who has extensively written on Tarlac’s history, disclosed that he is coming out on September with a new book titled, "Mr. White: A Thomasite History of Tarlac Province, 1901-1913."