30/09/2026
𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐘 | Ma’am, Am I Still Allowed to Comply?
The storm of alarms, unanswered modules, and names called like thunder from the attendance sheet.
We enter the classroom already drowning, carrying backpacks with pending requirements, excuses, and apologies rehearsed on the way to school.
We live with many tabs open, in our browsers and in our heads. One for the research due tomorrow. One for the quiz we pretended to study for. One for the group chat that never stops buzzing: “Where’s your part? We need to pass it tomorrow.”
When the deadline comes, we all become the same person, asking the same question in different tones — guilty, hopeful, defeated:
“Ma’am, am I still allowed to comply with my pending requirements?”
And I am one of them. I stand in that line, hands empty, eyes tired, holding crumpled papers that should have been submitted last week. Because I am the student who said, “I’ll do it later,” until later became too late.
We speak of unexpected things — and yes, life does happen. The internet fails, the lights go out, and the heart gets heavy for reasons that cannot fit in a one-sentence excuse letter. But it was not the storm outside. It was the storm inside us.
We became masters of postponement. We whispered it like a prayer: “Ma’am will understand.” As if understanding was infinite, as if patience was a sea that never ran dry.
But have we ever wondered what our teachers carry? Have we seen the tremor in their hands after checking fifty papers where only twenty arrived on time? Have we heard the quiet sigh behind the faculty room door?
We thought teachers only had one job: to wait. To wait for us to pass, to understand, and to forgive. We thought their table was only a place where our excuses pile up. We never thought to ask what else is on that table.
We complain about one sleepless night because of one activity. While they have lived a thousand sleepless nights because of a hundred students like us. And yet, when we come empty-handed, they never welcome us with anger. They welcome us with, “Sige, pass mo lang. I understand.”
We mistook their kindness for a free pass. We thought patience meant we could keep coming late. We forgot that patience is also heavy, that kindness also gets tired.
They are not just teachers. They are second mothers who remember our birthdays when we forget our deadlines. They are the silent cheerleaders who clap for us in rooms where no one else does. They are the ones who say, “Kaya mo pa,” on the days we already gave up on ourselves. And they became a lighthouse that never turned off, even when the ships they guided never looked back.
So today, I will not line up with another excuse. I will line up with nothing but thanks in my hands — a compliance far too late, but far more sincere.
Gratitude for the sea that did not run dry even as we kept drawing from it. For the light that stayed on even when we sailed without looking back. For choosing to ask, “Are you okay?” before asking where my output was, and for never shaming me when I came with nothing.
Ma’am, if you are still accepting late papers, may I pass this one last piece of paper? It has no score, no grade, just four words I should have passed on time: Happy Teachers’ Month, Ma’am.
𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨 𝙗𝙮: Kamsi, Reema A.
𝙇𝙖𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙗𝙮: Tiblan, Scyamiah S.