This morning, they found Jesse’s body. People hoped and prayed but it just wasn’t going to be. So instead of being sadder, I’d rather dig up my memories of him.

I have more to say about this incredible man. I remember about eight years, in one of his speeches to Synergeia teachers and Mayors following his lead, he talked about “transparency.” I was quite impressed. The word was just coined, gaining currency among non-profits who then were not even identified as civil societies or good governance groups. Jesse articulated this word in conjunction with having the Naga City budget on a website so anyone could access and check who’s spending what. That was even more incredible. I mean, transparency to me still was a fashion term like gauzy or showing skin. This guy was saying something earth-shaking, like Where Your Taxes Are Going.

He didn’t suffer fools easily. He had little patience for Department of Education heads who were bureaucratic and turf oriented protecting teachers who were lazy and incompetent. He would relate stories of cleaning that area up at the expense of gaining enemies. He would push for a merits system for teachers if they got their students smarter. Naga’s students outperformed their peers in the country.

But he didn’t lace all his work saying it ” Was For The Filipino Children.” He wasn’t into advertising himself. It was a public duty. Interestingly enough, the Obama Administration later introduced the same merit system with its teachers just like Jesse’s formula. And I never heard him ever mention his Magsaysay Award or any of the numerous others he received.

What fascinated me was meeting a Mayor who may as well have been the Dept of Education head for the region or the country. Before Jesse, mayors to me where these guys who raided their education fund budgets and instead of using it for the schools, would spend the money for uniforms for the student athletes and for their fatty selves and then hold these provincial sports games hopefully getting to Boracay or Baguio. You’d think after all these years of sports meets, we’d get one fucking bronze medal in the Olympics. It seemed the money was wasted on beer and jackets.

Jesse was not in that league. He taught Mayors and teachers about the education fund, how to get the PTA’s to wrestle the money from sports meets and spend it on teacher training and field trips to museums. He shamed those other mayors and became a model for using their authority and influence to make education work in their district.

There was a good and upright man called Jesse. There will be others. Instead of mourning too long, let’s figure out what we can do to carry on his good work.

Thank you Jesse for helping our nation’s children be smarter. 

John Silva

Trustee, Synergeia Foundation