How God Blessed the Vision of Starting a Christian High School in Bacolod City
The Maranatha Christian College was among the projects which Pastor Samuel Irving Colinco Sr. had envisioned he would undertake when he prayed for the Lord’s leading as to how he would serve Him in Bacolod City after his seminary studies in the U.S.
The Lord’s Leading
The desire to be involved in Christian education was shaped by his training and experience in the field of education. Having attended the Ilog Private Academy during his high school years and University of the Philippines-Manila just before the war, he earned after the war ended a Bachelor of Science in Education degree at Silliman University and a Master of Arts in Education degree at Central Philippine University. For 12 years, until he finally heeded God’s call to full-time ministry, he taught in various educational institutions — high school, agricultural school, and trade school—and served as education instructor in CPU and West Negros College. He also worked as high school principal of the Dancalan Private Academy in Ilog, Negros Occidental.
While studying at Temple Baptist Seminary and asking for the Lord’s guidance as to His plans for Him as pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church which he was going to organize upon his return to Bacolod City in 1961, Pastor Colinco saw the need for a school which like the Tennessee Temple Schools, his alma mater, would be “distinctively Christian”. He observed that the handful of Christian schools that existed at that time were not that much different from other schools. It was then that he realized what his academic training experience and seminary studies had all been leading to. He understood that over the years, the Lord had been preparing and equipping him for ministry in Christian education.
His late first wife Rosita, herself a product of the Central Philippine University and Iloilo Mission Hospital, shared his vision. She too was an educator—a registered nurse who underwent special training in pediatric nursing at Boston University as a Fulbright scholar and earned a Master’s in Education degree at Loyola University, she was a clinical instructor of the Negros Occidental Provincial Hospital School of Nursing and later dean of the college nursing at the Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Bacolod City.
Another Field of Ministry
In 1982, after 20 years of ministry, Maranatha Baptist Church in Villamonte, Bacolod City was ready to embark on the Christian school project. Pastor Colinco had prepared the congregation for the new and bigger project through other projects which it had earlier successfully undertaken, namely the Gospeltime Radio Broadcast and Maranatha Baptist Bible College. It was time to undertake another endeavor, one which no other independent church had dared undertake.
Then the Villa Soledad Subdivision offered for sale 1,000 sq. m. lots along the national highway to the upland barangays in the eastern portion of the city. The subdivision which was then nothing more than a rice field seemed like an unlikely location for a school campus. Not only was it sparsely populated, it was also located about five kilometers from the downtown area. Believing however that this was the place God had chosen, the congregation prayed for the money needed for a down payment. Soon after, Pastor Colinco received a love gift of $1,000 from his brother in Los Angeles, Engr. Simplicio Colinco, Jr. and his wife Flora May. Its peso equivalent of P8,000 was more than enough to make the down payment on six lots.
As soon as payment was made, brethren from the church and other churches in the city as well as those abroad started giving towards the building fund. Its first building which now houses the Sunshine Baptist Church was named Hartley-Ammons Building, in honor of its two American donors. With funds raised through the College Founders’ Club and College Helpers’ Club, construction of a bigger school building started. When funds were exhausted in December 1982, work was suspended while the congregation prayed.
The Lord answered its prayers when the proceeds from Mrs. Colinco’s insurance policy were received, not long after she died on Feb. 1, 1983 from cancer while working as chief nurse of the Downtown General Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her family decided to use the $25,000 (equivalent to P200,000 at that time) for the building which was subsequently named the Rosita Caña Colinco Memorial Hall, a modest two-storey structure with six classrooms. During her funeral, her friends and relatives had responded generously when requested to give a donation to the RCC Memorial Fund instead of giving the usual love gifts and flowers. Even in death, she contributed to the realization of her husband’s vision.
Humble Beginnings
Meanwhile, an application to establish a Christian college and a Christian high school was submitted to the then Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. The college was initially to offer the Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Literature degree, a course which integrates liberal arts education with Bible training. A MECS official however suggested the opening of a high school department first and the opening of the college three years later to absorb the high school graduates. The suggestion was followed and in April 1983, the MECS granted a permit to operate the first and second year levels of the Maranatha Christian High School.
With the enthusiasm of missionaries going to a mission field, as indeed they were, several church members volunteered to teach. The first teachers were Phoebe Reyes, Henry Prado, Mary Ann San Jose, Ericson Padilla, Severino Yamoyam and his wife Anita, Elsie Pineda, Samuel Colinco, Jr. and Samson Tupas. Fe Colinco, an experienced public school teacher who was Pastor Colinco’s sister-in-law, was chosen principal. All of them spent the summer months visiting homes in surrounding areas to invite parents to enroll their children at the new school. In June 1983, classes started at the unfinished Hartley-Ammons Building with 35 freshmen and 22 sophomores enrolled.
The school’s name, “Maranatha”, is taken from the Bible (I Cor. 16:22). It is an Aramaic word which means, “The Lord is coming”, referring to the return to earth of Jesus Christ, the God-Man who resurrected after He was crucified, as He promised, before ascending back to heaven. The school was granted government recognition in 1986, three years after it was founded as a ministry of Maranatha Baptist Church.
His Provision and Sustenance
Its name was changed from Maranatha Christian High School to Maranatha Christian College following its incorporation and registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1987 as a non-stock, non-profit corporation and the opening of its college department which offered the Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Literature degree. By then, the school was holding classes from the pre-elementary to the college levels. After two years, classes in the other levels were suspended as the Maranatha Christian College Inc. board of trustees decided to prioritize for the meantime the operation of the high school department and to use its limited resources to strengthen and improve it in preparation for the eventual re-opening of the college department. Since 1983, a total of 2,153 young Filipinos, among them Bacolod City Cong. Greg Gasataya who was valedictorian of HS Class 1988, have graduated from the MCC high school department.
In 2016, at the inception of the Department of Education’s K to 12 curriculum for basic education, it added Grades 11 and 12 to its existing Grades 7-10 (junior high school), initially offering the General Academic Strand for senior high school students. In 2018, the Accountancy, Business and Management (ABM) and Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS) Strands were offered to incoming senior high school students. In the coming years, it plans to offer additional strands such as the Technical-Vocational-Livelihood strand.