Keilo was from my town. A small, suffocating town where kids like us are desperate to leave and make a name for ourselves, make a better life out of the cards life dealt us with. 

We wore the same stuffy uniform, and I'm not sure if he hated it, but I did. We both knew the same girl with wild, curly hair and a bright smile. I don't know if he liked her weird laugh, but I did. We both stared into the same ocean. I don't know if he wanted to stay there forever, but I did.

Did he ever like the siopao down at Rebelito’s? I loved that quaint restaurant. Perhaps he frequented the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral? I never did. It all but reminded me of dreadful catholic school. I bet he spent hours walking wide-eyed through the kid's section at Novo like I used to—it was the only decent retail store there back then.

There's a lot I could've known about him: what he thought about the province that smelled like salt water, what his dreams were, and why he left the same small town that pretended to be something grander. He was a person with a million possible futures. He was a whole person, not just a statistic. He was a boy with his own history, likes, dislikes, heartaches, friends, and secrets.

But what I do know is what it's like to be let down by tarnished gold and toxic green over and over again. 

I know what it's like to have a single institute hold your future by a single thread and that sinking feeling, completely aware that there's no way you can afford to fail. Not a single chance you can afford to wait.

He left home for that sliver of hope to change his life—like most freshmen do—only to step through those gates and realize this place was going to eat them alive. 

Maybe, Keilo was like me in that sense: blinded by glittering gold and evergreen prestige.

They expected so much out of a young boy. Too much, even.

This campus is held up by unbending metal, caging every hopeful kid within its four corners, forcing them to run around in circles just to spit them out as empty shells of who they once were. After all, this system has worked so well for so long, why change it? But how many sacrifices does this place demand until it's one too many?

They can wash their hands all they want with bright posters and generic captions—we are here for you, your mental health matters—but the stains run deeper than that; it is in the very root that runs across these five hectares. They know upending those same roots will expose the rot beneath our feet.

How many sacrifices do they demand until they finally do better?

- Beatrice Diane D. Bartolome
(Photo courtesy of Darin Rogers, Wallpapers.com, and Walter Bollozos; Layout by Jonathan Carlos B. Ponio/FEU Advocate)