Br. Armin Luistro FSC, Superior General

In the Philippines, they are known as the De La Salle Brothers. The formal name is the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. This organization is a global Catholic teaching congregation founded by St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle which consists of about 3,800 Brothers who are running over 1,100 educational centers in 80 countries with more than a million students. The highest position in this order is the Superior General.

To date, there have been 28 Superior Generals (SGs) elected since the order was founded in 1725 as a Catholic organization dedicated to education. It started as a French congregation and therefore all the SGs were French until the 1960s, when the SG was either American or Spanish-speaking.

Br. Armin Luistro FSC is the first Asian to be elected as the organization’s SG. He is a Filipino Lasallian Brother who was born on Dec. 24, 1961 in Lipa, Batangas where he initially studied at De La Salle Lipa. He received his religious habit of the congregation in 1981 at the La Salle Novitiate in Lipa and made his final vows in May 1988.  He was made the provincial or the head of the De La Salle Brothers in the Philippines in 1997. One of his outstanding achievements at that time was being co-founder of the De La Salle University in Menado, Indonesia in 2000. It was in 2004 when he succeeded Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC as president of De La Salle University. It was during his term when he worked at establishing De La Salle Philippines, which would replace the DLSU system. He then became the first president of De La Salle Philippines which included all the De La Salle institutions in the country.

In 2010, when President Benigno Aquino III took office, Br. Armin accepted the position of secretary of education.  When he accepted the position, his immediate problem was a lack of 130,000 teachers, 72,000 classrooms, 7 million desks, 141,000 comfort rooms and 97 million textbooks.  While he was able to address these staggering problems substantially, his greatest achievement as education secretary was the implementation of the K-12 basic education program. An idea that has been studied for decades by previous education secretaries but never came close to implementation.

The program added two years of senior high school to the basic ten-year program. At that time, the Philippines was only one of two or three countries in the world that had only 10 years of basic education, with almost all the other countries having 12 years.

Although initially this K-12 program was met with many objections, Luistro was able to successfully initiate this revolutionary change which is now the current curriculum in Philippine schools.

For this achievement, I consider Br. Armin as the most outstanding secretary of education in the Philippines.

Br. Armin has also become known for his leadership in the political arena in the country. In this past election, he was one of the convenors of 1Sambayan which rallied the nonpoliticians and the citizenry to actively participate in the electoral process.

Today, the La Sallian educational institutions found in 80 countries have more than 90,000 teachers and lay associates. They are found in countries ranging from poor nations to developed countries, where the schools are post-secondary institutions like La Salle University in Philadelphia. Their mission is dedicated to education, that is why the La Salle Brothers are religious who are not priests.

The order was founded by St. Jean Baptist de la Salle in 1694 with a novitiate and the normal school where he studied. It actually started as a free school for the poor boys in Reims, France. Its mission statement has continued to be “to provide a human and Christian education, especially to the poor.”

When the La Salle Brothers gathered recently for their 46th chapter meeting where they elected Armin Luistro as the 28th Superior General, Pope Francis had a message for them. Among the things he said was: “Educating the youth is a big responsibility for which to be grateful because education work is a great gift. First of all, for those who do it, it demands a lot and also gives a lot… The constant relationship with educators, parents and especially children and young people is an ever-living source of humanity despite all the hardships and problems that it entails.”

Pope Francis also noted that the world today is experiencing an “educational emergency” which has been made more acute by the consequences of the pandemic. He said that one of the great challenges of our time is caring for the “common home” which can only be addressed by education.

“The educational path has been broken and now the state, educators and families are separated. We must seek a new path and work together.

“You are in the frontline in educating to pass from a closed to an open world; from a throwaway culture to a culture of care; from pursuing partisan interests to pursuing the common good.

“As educators, you know only too well that this transformation must start from the conscience or it will only be a façade. And you also know that you cannot do this work alone but by cooperating in an educational alliance with families, communities and ecclesial groups.”

Pope Francis concluded by encouraging them to continue “evangelizing by educating and educating by evangelizing… A Christian educator is above all a witness of Christ and is a teacher to the extent that he is a witness.”

Br. Armin as the incoming Superior General of one of the largest congregations devoted to Catholic education has been entrusted a vital mission by Pope Francis. I am confident that the De La Salle Brothers have chosen a person with the leadership, the vision and the fortitude to make the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools fulfill this great mission of bringing the pope’s words into reality in every corner of the world.

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Young Writers’ Hangout on May 28 with Joyce Bernales (“The Secret of Good Stories”), 2 -3 p.m. Write Things’ six-day summer workshop “Writefest” (now on its 8th year) is winding up tomorrow. This week’s special guest was poet Dinah Roma. Workshop facilitators are Roel SR Cruz and Sofi Bernedo.

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