Angel Faith rises beyond first impressions

Angel Faith Palla has learned that people sometimes look at a body before they bother to meet the person living in it. Some notice her height, posture, or scoliosis first. She would rather introduce herself another way: determined, gritty, grounded, and almost always smiling. Her cheerful expression is not an attempt to hide every difficult day. It is her way of claiming space in a society that has not always known how to receive her gently.

An incoming second-year Bachelor of Science in Fisheries student at the Iloilo State University of Fisheries Science and Technology Main Campus-Tiwi Site, Angel Faith is also a beneficiary of the Department of Labor and Employment-Civil Service Commission Special Program for Employment of Students. She belongs to the College of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, where she is slowly building a future shaped not by other people’s assumptions but by her willingness to try.

“I would describe myself as a brave, tough, and happy-go-lucky person,” she said. There have been moments when Angel Faith wondered whether people saw her condition before they saw her as a person. Those moments hurt. But they never lasted as long as her determination to keep smiling and showing up.

She comes from a farming family in Mina. Her father tills the land, her mother manages their home, her older sister studies in the city, and her younger brother attends school in their hometown. Angel Faith calls her family “small, imperfect, and flawed,” then adds the part that matters most: They remain her home. From them, along with her teachers, friends, and surroundings, she learned gratitude for the daily things that can become invisible when one has grown accustomed to receiving them.

A childhood close to the ground

Her early memories are filled with mud, rain, farmwork, and games that required little equipment but plenty of imagination. She played baseball, bahay-bahayan, and luto-lutuan and bathed with other children in the rain. She also harvested rice with a sickle, or garab, and did hugot, the manual separation of grains left behind when the thresher could not finish the work.

Those experiences taught her that beauty and difficulty often occupy the same field. Farm life gave her joyful memories, but it also showed her how much labor lies behind every peso earned. Her childhood dreams shifted from year to year — teacher one season, veterinarian or agriculturist the next. That uncertainty did not mean she lacked ambition. It meant the world still looked wide enough to hold many possibilities.

She also learned early that humor could soften an unkind moment without surrendering to it. When people teased her about her height, she would answer that “the ground just loves me,” which was why she remained small. The line was playful, but the resolve behind it was not. She knew she could work as capably as others, sometimes even better, and she refused to let teasing become the final measure of what she could do.

Talking about scoliosis has never been easy. Angel Faith has learned that silence rarely means a change of heart. She has been talked about and judged. She has felt the loneliness that can come with being misunderstood. But she prefers to be transparent rather than secretive, believing that understanding begins with listening.

The most persistent misconception is that disability automatically means weakness. Some assume she cannot perform the same tasks as others. Her response has not been a long argument. She simply keeps doing her best. Capability, after all, becomes harder to dismiss when it is repeatedly demonstrated.

Judgment still follows her at times. She cannot control every whisper, stare, or careless conclusion, and she no longer pretends these do not hurt. What she tries to control is the authority she gives them. Other people may have opinions about her body, but they do not get to decide the size of her life.

A campus that made room

Angel Faith chose Fisheries partly because she wanted to try something new and believed the field offered promising career opportunities. ISUFST was a practical choice because it was near her home, offered her chosen program, and, as a state university, allowed her to pursue college without paying tuition. Yet her reasons for staying became more personal. She found a place that helped her recognize and strengthen abilities she had previously kept hidden.

Before college, Angel Faith rarely joined school activities or organizations. She was shy and afraid of being judged if she failed. At ISUFST, that slowly changed. Surrounded by people who accepted mistakes as part of learning, she found the courage to step outside her comfort zone.

She remembers something as simple as being greeted, spoken to, and treated like everyone else. Those ordinary moments made her feel that she truly belonged.

Her classmates made her feel safe and respected, while her teachers treated her fairly. For Angel Faith, inclusion is not complicated. It is about seeing every student as a person first and treating everyone with equal dignity.

Her story reflects the spirit of Sustainable Development Goals 4, 8, and 10, which focus on quality education, decent work and economic growth, and reduced inequalities, respectively. These global goals become meaningful when they reach students whose lives test whether institutions truly fulfill what they promise.

As one of the country’s public higher education institutions, ISUFST carries the responsibility of producing empowered graduates while creating pathways for learners from varied circumstances. Angel Faith’s story gives that mission a human face. She does not need to be presented as evidence that disability can be “overcome,” as though her body were the central problem. The more useful question is whether schools and communities are willing to remove the attitudes and barriers that unnecessarily make her journey harder.

Not a hindrance, not a headline

To another young person with a disability who is uncertain about college, 19-year-old Angel Faith offers direct advice: Do not give up, aim high, stay positive, and remain anchored in what you believe you can become. People may judge someone based on appearance, she acknowledged, but disability should never be treated as a hindrance to reaching one’s dreams.

She especially wishes people would look beyond stereotypes about persons with disabilities. Some have judged her posture without knowing her personality. Others have even used her appearance to frighten children. The cruelty of that experience is difficult to miss. Behind the figure being pointed at is a young woman who describes herself simply: “I’m nice, and I want to play with kids.”

There is nothing sentimental about pretending that Angel Faith’s road has been easy. She has encountered gossip, misjudgment, financial limitations, and the private uncertainty that comes from repeatedly being underestimated. Still, her story is not centered on suffering. It is about participation: studying Fisheries, joining campus activities, completing work through SPES, and learning to be seen on her own terms.

Asked what message she hopes her life might leave, Angel Faith turned to a line associated with Brené Brown: One day, people may tell the story of how they survived what they endured, and that story may become someone else’s survival guide. Angel Faith is still writing hers. She has not reached the final chapter, and there is no need to hurry her there. For now, the student from a farming family in Mina is moving into her second year with her familiar smile intact — not because the world has always been kind, but because she has decided that its unkindness will not have the final word. (Bernadeth Biona | Herman Lagon | PAMMCO)