19/09/2026
𝐒𝐈𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐘 𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑: 𝐀 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐀 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐎 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓
Some leaders are remembered for the programs they launched, the policies they signed, or the milestones reached under their watch. Others are remembered for something harder to quantify: the way they made people believe that the work mattered.
For Dr. Reynante Z. Caliguiran, CESO V, Schools Division Superintendent of SDO Cagayan, these two sides of leadership have often met in the same place—the learner.
Today, as we celebrate his life and service, perhaps the most fitting tribute is not simply to enumerate accomplishments, but to look at the thread that has consistently run through his work: whatever the issue, whatever the program, whatever the table where decisions are made, bring the conversation back to the child.
“Lagi nating isipin na ang dahilan ng lahat ng mga ginagawa natin, ang sentro ay ang mga bata.”
It is a simple line, but those who have worked with Sir Rey know how often that principle surfaces in the decisions of the Division.
When conversations turn to school calendars and activities, there is the insistence that instructional time be protected. When the concern is sports, the question becomes how coaches, facilities, systems, and partnerships can better develop learners. When parents gather, he reminds them that schools cannot raise children alone. When private school administrators sit with DepEd, the relationship is not framed as competition, but as a “sacred partnership”—public and private institutions serving the same Cagayano children.
And when policies appear distant from local realities, his leadership leaves room for an important question: How do we make this work for our schools?
That may explain why his leadership has always seemed to move in several directions at once.
There is the administrator who looks at systems, compliance, resources, and results. There is the education leader who asks what the numbers actually mean inside a classroom. There is the partner-builder who understands that an SDO with hundreds of schools cannot accomplish its mandate from the Division Office alone.
And then there is the Sir Rey familiar to many colleagues—the one who speaks about respect, family, responsibility, and service in language that people remember long after the meeting has ended.
During one Monday convocation, he reminded personnel:
“Hindi pinipilit ang paggalang. Maging isang pamilya tayo. Pagtagumpayan natin ang lahat ng ito para sa mga mag-aaral na Cagayano.”
In an organization where deadlines, reports, targets, and urgent concerns can easily consume the day, that reminder carries weight. The magalang bow he encouraged within the Division Office was never merely about a gesture. It pointed to something larger: culture begins with how people treat one another.
And leadership, before it becomes strategy, is relationship.
A leader who sees education beyond the school gate
Under Sir Rey's leadership, the language of education in SDO Cagayan has increasingly included words that go beyond teaching alone: health, safety, learner rights, partnerships, governance, data, sports, community, scouting, technical assistance, and shared responsibility.
That wider view matters because the life of a learner does not begin and end inside a classroom.
At the Handog ng Pangulo activity in Peñablanca, he spoke of health as something directly connected to school performance: when people are healthy, they are better able to fulfill their responsibilities. In engagements with parents, he has emphasized their role in values formation, discipline, and community protection. In learner-protection initiatives, the Division has strengthened mechanisms for prevention, reporting, and response. SDO Cagayan's official Learner Rights and Protection issuances have also placed the Schools Division Superintendent within the Division's protection and contact mechanisms.
His engagement in Scouting reflects the same philosophy of formation beyond academics. Records of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines Cagayan North–Tuguegarao City Council identify him as Council Scouts Commissioner, linking his education leadership with youth character formation, service, and citizenship.
𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚—𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣
Sir Rey's style also reveals a recurring impatience with activity for activity's sake.
During reviews of research and workplan manuscripts, he challenged proponents to ask how novel and innovative their interventions truly were. In management discussions, the emphasis has repeatedly been on what data reveal—not just what offices can report.
That orientation is increasingly visible in SDO Cagayan's work: technical assistance based on diagnosed needs, school programs analyzed through actual indicators, resource requirements mapped against inventories, and interventions expected to lead to learner outcomes.
There is a lesson in that approach.
A report should not exist merely because it was required.
A program should not continue merely because it has always been done.
A workplan should not be approved merely because all its boxes have been filled.
The real test is whether it solves something, improves something, or opens a better possibility for learners.
Even years before his current assignment, official DepEd records showed him leading initiatives focused on learners at risk of dropping out and ensuring access to basic education. In his leadership, he described education as a right that must remain accessible and inclusive, with schools required to identify learners at risk and develop interventions for them.
The position may have changed. The scale may have grown. But the concern remains familiar.
𝙁𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙢𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙞𝙚𝙡𝙙𝙨
There is also another side of SDO Cagayan that has flourished through deliberate partnership: sports.
For years, Cagayan has carried a strong sporting tradition, but sustaining it requires more than sending athletes to competitions. It requires systems—coach development, facilities, equipment, accreditation, school sports clubs, partnerships, and long-term athlete development.
Sir Rey's administration has continued to place sports development within the Division's broader educational agenda. More recently, the Division's Sports Coach Academy and its progression from grassroots development toward higher performance have embodied a familiar leadership principle: invest in the people who develop the learner.
The same is true in research. In technical assistance. In leadership development. In school governance.
Build the people, and stronger systems follow.
A superintendent, but also a fellow worker
As the Schools Division Superintendent of Cagayan, he is leading the Division alongside its assistant superintendents and management teams.
But titles tell only part of the story.
For those who have sat with him in planning sessions, listened during convocations, accompanied him in activities, or watched him engage school heads, teachers, parents, LGUs, private schools, and partners, leadership becomes something more human.
It is the willingness to listen.
The willingness to correct.
The courage to demand more.
The instinct to protect what matters.
And perhaps, most importantly, the capacity to remind people why they entered public service in the first place.
His own message to graduates once encouraged young Cagayanos to carry their learning forward, make a positive difference in their communities, and use their innovation, vigor, and resilience to help propel the country forward.
In many ways, that challenge also describes the organization he continues to lead.
𝙊𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙝𝙙𝙖𝙮, 𝙖 𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙝—𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙚
So today, the birthday greeting from SDO Cagayan can be more than Happy Birthday, Sir Rey.
It can also be thank you.
Thank you for reminding us that excellence must never become detached from compassion.
Thank you for challenging us to see beyond activities and toward outcomes.
Thank you for making room for innovation while keeping our feet grounded in the realities of our schools.
Thank you for insisting that partnership matters—between offices, between schools and communities, between public and private education, and between government and the people it serves.
Thank you for reminding us that respect cannot be commanded into existence—it must be lived.
And thank you for repeatedly returning us to the one place where education leadership must always return:
the learner.
On your birthday, Sir Rey, may the years ahead bring you strength for the responsibilities you continue to carry, wisdom for the decisions yet to be made, and fulfillment in seeing the people and institutions you have helped nurture grow beyond what they once imagined possible.
The work is far from finished.
There will be more schools to strengthen, more gaps to close, more partnerships to build, more difficult decisions to make, and more Cagayano children waiting for education to fulfill its promise.
But perhaps that is precisely why leadership matters.
Happy Birthday, Sir Reynante Z. Caliguiran.
From the people of SDO Cagayan, may your day be a celebration not only of another year of life, but of a life continuously spent in the service of others.
Para sa bata. Para sa g**o. Para sa paaralan. Para sa Cagayan.
