A Brief History of the San Jacinto Catholic School
By: Class 1960
Great things, great institutions evolve small thing and humble beginnings. This pattern of change and evolution was also undergone by the San Jacinto Catholic School as it stands today, half a century after its birth.
That the San Jacinto Catholic School today has become a respected and revered institution of learning cannot be denied. How it came to be lies the fond memories of its storied past, its struggles as well as its accomplishments.
It was in late 1947 and early 1948 when the idea to put a secondary school in San Jacinto, Pangasinan was conceptualized. The idea germinated through several months and series of meetings that grouped together sixteen illustrious yet deeply concerned citizens out of the town’s then less than 10,000 population. Parenthetically , as reliable sources say, great credit can be attributed to Mrs. Remedios Y. Lopez, then a faculty member of the Mangaldan High School, who broached the idea to establish a private high school to the then Parish Priest of San Jacinto, Rev. Fr. Amado Ballesteros. The same sources say, she was a straightforward and uncompromising educator and due to some policy differences with her school, she quit her teaching position at the Mangaldan High School.
She goaded Rev. Fr. Amado Ballesteros into organizing the school under the auspices of the catholic hierarchy. The birth of the San Jacinto Academy could not have come at a more propitious time. It is not only auspicious but indeed a very timely answer to a felt need of our hour. At the time there is no high school in San Jacinto and the few who graduated in the only three complete elementary schools in the town namely, San Jacinto Elementary School, Sta. Maria Elementary School and Lobong Elementary School, have to go to other towns to pursue there secondary education. The establishment of San Jacinto Academy therefore has opened vast opportunities for the young children of our town to soar to greater heights by giving them a greater access to education.
It was the following school year, 1949 – 1950 that it opened classes up to fourth year. It has its first set of graduate in March, 1950
