Dear Completers of the Junior High School of Xavier Ateneo!

First of all, my warmest congratulations to all of you who will now move up higher from Junior High School to Senior High School. Also, my congratulations to your parents, guardians, and other family members who, for years have guided and supported you in your high school studies.

Four years of quality Jesuit education that was tough and demanding was not easy to hurdle. More so, with the COVID pandemic which has made your high school education become even tougher and more challenging. I salute all of you, for coming out successful in your studies against the restrictions and difficulties imposed on you by the pandemic. I salute also the teachers, administrators, and staff of the Junior High School who have accompanied and helped you during this extraordinary year.

I tell you, my dear students, the pandemic has formed you into more responsible students. I know that because the online mode of learning has shifted its focus to you, the students, thereby making you more responsible, resilient, creative, and persevering. There is always an important lesson that we can learn from our experiences even from something as worst as the COVID pandemic.

With your years of Jesuit education and formation, I am confident that you are now ready to move higher to the next and last level of Basic Education, where you face serious questions and will attempt to answer them, like, what do you want to take up in college? and what do you want to do to become dutiful citizens of this nation? Your years in Senior High School will help you resolve these questions to be more focused on your plan in College. Next school year 2021-22, I hope to welcome all of you to Xavier Ateneo Senior High School. But if you are not coming back to Xavier Ateneo, I wish you continue to be exemplary Ateneans of competence, commitment, and conscience in whatever school or place you maybe.

Again congratulations to each of you, may the good Lord bless all of you always. Be courageous and resilient Ateneans/Xavierians as ever! Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!