FEATURE STORY|| September 2, 2026-๐๐ฒ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฆ๐ฒ๐บ๐ถ๐ป๐ฎ๐ฟ๐: ๐๐ผ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ถ๐๐ต ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ถ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐น๐น๐ฎ๐ป ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ผ'๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ฝ
Sep 2, 2026 - 3 minutes read
MANILA โ Before the meetings, decisions, directives, and demands of leading a regional education office, Dr. Allan G. Farnazo began his day in prayer.
Inside the National Shrine of the Sacred Heart early this morning, the DepEd Caraga Regional Director paused from the pace of public service and returned to a spiritual language that has shaped much of his life.
โLord, as a new day dawns send the radiance of your light to shine in our hearts. Make us true to your teaching; keep us free from error and sin,โ he prayed.
He later sent prayers and blessings to the regional employees from the shrine, paid homage to the Pilgrim Mother of Our Lady of Peรฑafrancia, and visited the Adoration Chapel.
For an ordinary visitor, these may have been moments of quiet devotion. For Farnazo, they also reflected a journey that began decades earlier, when he entered the seminary with the hope of becoming a Catholic priest.
He spent seven years in seminary formation.
The priesthood, however, was not the path he would ultimately take. His life led him instead to education and public service, where he would eventually rise to become one of the country's leading education executives.
Yet the seminary never really left him.
The discipline of prayer. The search for truth. The formation of conscience. The call to serve. The understanding that leadership is not simply the exercise of authority but a responsibility for the lives entrusted to one's care. These were lessons deeply imbibed during his years of formation, and they continue to find expression in his work today.
As a Doctor of Theology holding the top post in DepEd Caraga, RD Farnazo carries his theological formation into a sphere far beyond the classroom or the confines of academic discourse.
For him, theology is not merely something to be studied. It is something to be lived.
It is reflected in the way a leader treats people, listens to them, encourages them, and recognizes their dignity. It is translated into decisions that affect learners, teachers, personnel, and communities. And it finds its ultimate meaning when knowledge and faith become instruments for inspiring people and transforming lives.
Perhaps that is where the connection between the seminary and his present vocation becomes clearest.
The altar was not to become his lifelong place of ministry. But the spirit of service cultivated through years of religious formation found another mission field: education.
Today, RD Farnazo leads thousands of personnel and serves hundreds of thousands of learners across Caraga. The scale of the responsibility is immense, but the principle remains remarkably familiar to the young seminarian he once was: leadership begins with service.
His visit to the National Shrine of the Sacred Heart, the Pilgrim Mother of Our Lady of Peรฑafrancia, and the Adoration Chapel was therefore more than a personal stop during a journey. It offered a glimpse into the spiritual foundation behind the public official.
For behind the Regional Director, the education leader, and the theologian is a man whose years in the seminary continue to speak through the way he lives.
His vocation took a different direction.
But perhaps it never truly changed.
It simply found another way to serve.
By: The Public Affairs Unit
DepEd Caraga
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For more information, contact (085) 221-1151, 0961-737-0873, or 0915-808-4734. Website: www.caraga.deped.gov.ph; email: caraga@deped.gov.ph; pau_caraga@deped.gov.ph
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