Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. (Left to right) Grace Semilla, Pioneer CPMS Parent, Canduman Brgy. Councilor Wilmer O. Zanoria, DepEd Mandaue City Schools Superintendent Dr. Nimfa Bongo, CPMS President Marivic Bathan, CPMS BOD Chairman Vicente Bathan, GSG Architects Principal Archt. Clive Aaron Guanzon, GSG Architects Design Director Arct. Clive Andrew Guanzon, CPMS Parents’ Circle President Stephanie Nablo, CPMS Grade 6 student Aeisha Sepulveda
Sinulog isn’t over just yet for the students and staff of Children’s Paradise Montessori School (CPMS). As they celebrate their 15th Founding Anniversary today (January 28), CPMS is also inaugurating their newest school building – the St. Therese of the Child Jesus Building. And what better way to kick off the festivities than doing it the Sinulog way?
“January 28, 2005 was when our SEC registration and Charter were signed. For 14 years, we did not really celebrate that. This is the first time in 15 years that we are celebrating our Foundation Day. Sto. Niño has been the source of everything. This is our thanksgiving,” said CPMS President Marivic Bathan.
After a Holy Mass in front of the new school building, a re-enactment of the arrival of Magellan, who gave the image of Sto. Niño as a gift to Queen Juana and Raja Humabon in 1521, until the victory of Lapu-Lapu was presented by the parents and teachers of CPMS.
The four-storey St. Therese of the Child Jesus Building, which features green and environment-friendly elements, bursts with the lively beat of the Sinulog as the students themselves performed the traditional dance in veneration of the Snr. Sto. Niño on each floor, while the priest blessed the building.
While they don’t usually commemorate their Founding Anniversary, the students and staff of CPMS always make sure to celebrate the Sinulog Festival every year through dances and performances. After all, culture and arts are some of the disciplines that CPMS instills on their students. CPMS Consultant Rudy Aviles shared that this yearly tradition is usually done in the same week as the actual Sinulog Festival. But this year they decided to hold it on the 28th in order to celebrate the school’s other milestones.
“This year is important for us. Aside from the 15th Founding Anniversary and the new building, we are also having a new thrust and revisioning for CPMS. We want to instill in the school a nature-loving consciousness and connectedness,” he said. Aviles explained that CPMS officials and staff have been brainstorming on the school’s focus on green living. Bathan added that in CPMS, they create an environment that will nurture and cultivate children “to grow to be truly human.”
“We lead everyone back to nature and being natural. The human beings have the spirit that makes us one with nature and connects us to each other, making this world as one, just as our creator intended it to be at the Garden of Eden,” she said.
The CPMS BOD with its collaborators & partners from GSG Architects Co. and Siteline DBS Team, the OAD Community, Barangay Canduman, Department of Education Mandaue City Division, and consultants.
CPMS has been putting in place several activities and programs in their curriculum on how to embody the green lifestyle over the years – from exposing students to nature and the outdoors, eating healthy, and even solid waste management. Part of its strengthened focus on nature and the environment is the inauguration of the St. Therese of the Child Jesus Building which is set to be a green building. “We want to be anchored on caring of nature. If I take care of nature, nature will take care of me. It’s a symbiosis. It’s a communion between me and the environment,” Aviles explained.
CPMS tapped the services of GSG Architects Co. in the design and construction of the new building features sustainable and tropical design concepts. Among these is a water recycling system wherein wastewater from washbasins are recycled and used to water the garden on each floor’s terrace garden and drip irrigation system. The building’s three main columns also have a plant climbing support structure to encourage vine growth and supply cool fresh oxygen to the hallways and classrooms.
“Two-meter wide balconies and three-meter wide hallways on each floor provide planting strips to bring in the fresh air, provide shade, and puts nature in close proximity to the classrooms even if these are elevated from the ground,” explained Archt. Clive Aaron Guanzon, Principal Architect of GSG Architects Co.
The new green building broke ground last year and is set to be completed within 2020. It will host the preschool and elementary classrooms as well as administrative offices.
It is part of the CPMS 2025 masterplan wherein four new school buildings will be built by CPMS within three phases. By 2025, in its 25th year, CPMS foresees a population of 400 to 500 students from toddler to Senior High School.
About Children’s Paradises Montessori School (CPMS)
CPMS was founded by Marivic E. Bathan, who has been its President since its inception in 2005, with the mission of providing children with an education for life. CPMS has created a learning environment based on Dr. Maria Montessori’s philosophy and principles that guide and nurture the development of each child’s potential to become an informed, creative, compassionate, and lifelong learner who will make a positive contribution to the global community.
For ten straight years, from 2010 to 2019, CPMS has been awarded as Montessori School of the Year in the Business Achievement and Recognition Awards. CPMS has exposed its students to real-world experiences and to the beauty and discipline of the arts. CPMS is located along H. Abellana St. in Canduman, Mandaue City.
