TACLOBAN CITY — Students in Balangiga and neighboring towns now have greater access to higher education with the formal blessing and turnover of a new academic building at the Eastern Samar State University (ESSU) Balangiga campus on February 28.
The facility marks the third major expansion aimed at bringing quality tertiary education closer to local communities.
The project, realized through a three-year collaboration among national agencies, local government units, and education leaders, addresses the challenges faced by families whose children previously had to travel long distances or incur significant expenses to pursue college studies.
In his remarks, Tingog party-list Rep. Jude Acidre highlighted that the building represents more than just infrastructure. “Today, we turn over more than a building. We are entrusting a future to the community,” he said, emphasizing the shared goal of making higher education both accessible and affordable for local youth.
The Balangiga campus allows students to pursue state university programs while remaining close to their families, reducing financial and logistical barriers. Officials noted that the expansion will benefit not only Balangiga but also surrounding municipalities.
ESSU president Andres Pagatpatan, along with Commission on Higher Education representatives including Commissioner Desiderio “Bong” Apag III and Regional Director Maximo Aljibe, joined local leaders in celebrating the campus expansion as a milestone in community-based, inclusive education.
Local government support was led by Mayor Dana de Lira and the Sangguniang Bayan, while the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Eastern Samar Engineering District oversaw construction. National lawmakers, including former House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and Representative Yedda Marie Romualdez, were acknowledged for helping advance the project.
Acidre emphasized that the initiative reflects collective effort. “Development rarely moves forward through individual effort. It moves when people trust each other enough to work together,” he said.
While the new building strengthens the campus’ physical capacity, officials stressed that sustained investment in faculty, academic programs, scholarships, and student services will be key to long-term success. Acidre also called on students, educators, and residents to share responsibility for nurturing the institution and translating education into community service.
The ESSU Balangiga campus is expected to cultivate future professionals, educators, entrepreneurs, and public service.
(LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA)
The proper setting of our intentions
THIS is none other than to do everything in our life with the intention of loving and glorifying God. And given how we, as children of God, are related to him, we should also do everything with the intention of loving others. We should not be doing things just for our own good.
This is what purity of intention means. We should be very careful with our intentions. Since they are hidden, we can easily play around with them. We can appear good outside but bad inside. Our deeds may be considered as acts of generosity and compassion, but the intentions may be those of envy, conceit and the like.
We have to be most careful in handling our intentions. They play a strategic role in our life, for how and where we direct them would determine whether we want to be with God or simply with our own selves.
Our intentions express who and where in the end we want to be. Do we choose God, or do we simply choose ourselves, or the world in general? It’s actually a choice between good and evil.
We really need to take care of our intentions. We have to do our best to see to it that we always have purity of intention in everything that we do, so that we only love and serve God, and because of that, we can properly love and serve everybody else.
This concern was somehow referred to in that gospel episode where Christ lamented over the hypocrisy and inconsistency of the leading Jews at that time. (cfr. Mt 23,1-12) “All their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad, and enlarge their fringes. And they love the first places at feasts, and the first chairs in the synagogues,” he said.
When our intentions are not pure, when they are diluted with some ulterior motives, there is no way but for us to fall into some form of inconsistencies and improper priorities.
We need to realize then that we have to take care of our intention, making it as explicit as possible, and honing it to get engaged with its proper and ultimate object who is God. We should try our best to shun being simply casual or cavalier about this responsibility.
Right now, we can say that hardly is this concern given due attention. People seem to be simply pursuing their own personal intentions, practically doing self-indulgence. We need to correct this anomaly.
In anything that we do, let’s see to it that our intentions are pure. That is to say, that we have to be motivated always by love for God and neighbor. And by love, we mean that we follow God’s commandments as clearly articulated by Christ himself: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (Jn 14,15)
And the epitome of this obedience to God’s commandments is Christ himself, who said: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.” (Jn 6,38) The secret therefore of love, which is obeying God’s will, is to have the mind and heart of Christ. That is to say, to be ‘another Christ’ which we can always attain because Christ himself has given us all the means to achieve that ideal.
For us to have purity of intention, we should be humble enough to ask for it from God first. We should not dare to think that we can have purity of intention by simply relying on our own efforts. We need God’s grace first of all.