07/05/2026
Some unique stories are crafted in pain and silence but somehow meant to be shared to serve as inspiration to others.
Read the story of Romarie Rabago from the College of Health Sciences.
๐๐๐๐ง๐จ๐ฅ๐ | Where the Vegetables Grow and the Mother Forgets
๐๐บ ๐๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ช๐ง๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐ญ๐ค๐ข๐ฏ๐ต๐ข๐ณ๐ข, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ต๐ณ๐ช๐ฃ๐ถ๐ต๐ฐ๐ณ
She was born as a miracle โ or as what some might call a โmenopausal baby.โ The youngest child and the only girl among six siblings, Romarie Rabago entered a world where her siblings were already building their own lives, moving out one by one, getting married, and starting families of their own. Growing up, she watched her childhood home grow quieter, her parents growing older, and the spaces around her slowly emptying.
She never thought that one day, she would be the only one left to hold everything together.
After senior high school, the ground beneath her feet began to crack. Her mother, a simple farmer and vegetable vendor, started forgetting things. At first, it was harmless โ going back and forth to a destination, asking the same questions over and over. Romarie and her family rushed her to the doctor, but at the time, their mother could still answer every question correctly. No medication was given. They clung to hope: maybe itโs just fatigue. Maybe this will pass.
However, it did not pass.
The symptoms worsened. Soon came a devastating diagnosis: Alzheimerโs disease. Then dementia. Then schizophrenia. And as if the heavens were pouring all their weight at once, their mother was also diagnosed with bradyarrhythmiaโa condition so severe she needed a pacemaker.
โParang sunod-sunod na bagsak ng problema,โ Romarie recalls. โHindi naโko makahinga.โ
At that time, Romarie was enrolled at DMMMSU, taking up BS Food Technology. She managed to finish her first year, but as her motherโs condition deteriorated, staying away became unbearable. So she made the hardest decision of her life: she chose to go home.
She transferred to a school closer to home and shifted to a medical courseโnot out of passion, but out of necessity.
โPara kahit papaano, magamit ko sa pag-aalaga kay Mama.โ
But even that path was blocked. The program head initially refused to accept her because transferees were not a priority. Romarie begged.
She laid her heart bare: โKailangan kong makatapos. Sa aming magkakapatid, ako lang ang may chance. Ayoko mabakante pa.โ
They accepted her. And that was when the real battle began.
While caring for her mother, her father suffered a near-stroke due to hypertension. He was rushed to the hospital multiple times. And in the calmness of the night, Romarie sometimes wondered who to blame.
But she had no time for blame. She had parents to care for.
For four years, Romarie became a full-time caregiver while studying. Four years of waking up early to prepare meals, clean wounds, calm hallucinations, and run to the hospital at any sign of emergency. Four years of showing up to class with dark circles under her eyes, nodding off between lectures, and going home to a mother who no longer recognized her.
And her five brothers? They had their own families now. They lived far away. They did not know the weight she carriedโand even if they did, Romarie never once complained.
โKasi mahal ko ang mga magulang ko,โ she says simply.
Her fifth brother tried to help for two years, covering some of her school expenses. But eventually, he had to stop. He had his own family to feed. When he told Romarie he could no longer support her studies, her world collapsed.
โPakiramdam ko, wala na akong matatakbuhan. Sobrang bigatโฆ umabot ako sa point na gusto ko nang sumuko. Gusto ko nang mawala.โ
She was a young woman, barely into her twenties, carrying the weight of two dying parents, a stalled education, and an empty bank account. The silence from her siblings was deafening. The exhaustion was crushing.
But someone refused to let her fall.
Her boyfriendโthen just a student himselfโbecame her anchor. He had almost nothing, but he split his daily allowance just to share with her. It wasnโt enough to pay tuition. But it was enough to remind her that she was not alone.
Slowly, painfully, Romarie learned to ask for help. She reached out to an aunt who was an engineer. The aunt helped, though only briefly, as she had her own family to raise. She approached a clinical instructor, who extended a hand. Small acts of kindness that kept her breathing.
Then one day, a phone call changed everything. Her uncle from the United States reached out. He heard her story. And he decided to support her education.
That single act of faith reignited something in Romarie.
She kept fighting. She kept studying. She kept showing upโfor her mother, for her father, for the girl who once begged a program head to let her stay.
After years of sleepless nights and unimaginable sacrifice, Romarie finally saw the finish line. Her grades soared. Despite everythingโthe caregiving, the hospital runs, the emotional breakdownsโshe had done it. She had qualified for a Latin honor. After everything, her name would be called with distinction.
But the universe was not done testing her.
Days before graduation, a nightmare she never saw coming arrived. A tendency to be disqualified because of a technicality is about to happen. The title she had bled for was suddenly hanging by a thread.
โPuwede itong mawala sa akin.โ
Romarie felt the ground crack open beneath her feet for the second time in her life. She had survived her mother's illness. Her father's near-death. The loneliness of being the only child left behind. But this? This was different. This was not about survival. This was about recognition. After four years of being invisible, the Latin honor was the only proof that her suffering had meant something.
There were moments she wanted to collapse. Moments when the exhaustion from four years of caregiving caught up with her, but then she remembered her motherโthe woman who had forgotten her own daughter's face but had once carried vegetables to market before sunrise just to feed her family. She remembered her fatherโflawed, broken, but still standing. She remembered the boyfriend who split his allowance. The aunt and the clinical instructor who gave what little they could. The uncle from the US who believed in her.
โHindi ako pwedeng sumuko. Hindi ngayon. Hindi na.โ
Then the final decision came, Romarie fell to her knees.
She kept her Latin honor.
The technicality was resolved. Her name would be calledโnot just as a graduate, but as someone who had clawed her way to the top of that stage with nothing but broken dreams and stubborn love.
Today, after everythingโafter the sleepless nights, the hospital runs, the hallucinations, the heartbreaks, the empty wallet, the four years of being a caregiver and a student all at once, and the final, brutal fight to keep the one title that proved she had survivedโRomarie Rabago is graduating.
Not just graduating. Graduating with flying colors. A Latin honor.
"Hindi naging madali ang journey ko," she says, her voice steady but trembling at the edges. "Maraming beses akong nadurog, napagod, at nawalan ng pag-asa. Muntik na ring mawala sa akin ang Latin honor na pinaghirapan ko. Pero pinili kong lumaban. Pinili kong magpatuloy. Pinili kong ipaglaban ang karapatang tumayo sa entablado na may dignidad."
She looks back now not with bitterness, but with gratitude. Grateful for the life she was given. Grateful for the people who did not let go. And grateful for herselfโfor the girl who, even when she wanted to disappear, chose every single time to stand back up.
She stands as proof that the ones who stay โ the ones who carry the weight when no one else will โ are not the leftovers.
They are the strongest among us.
And soon, she will walk across that stage, diploma in one hand and her Latin honor in the other, with her parents in her heart, and a future she built from nothing but love and sheer, stubborn hope.
