Jose Abad Santos Memorial School Quezon City

JASMS evolved from the preschool (est. 1933) of the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) under the leadership of President Francisca Tirona Benitez. President Benitez hired Doreen Barber Gamboa and Priscilla Abaya to first set up and run the preschool in the fenced-in area which was the PWU gymnasium.

In 1949, the PWU elementary department was renamed the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS) in honor of José Abad Santos, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines and chairman of the PWU board of trustees, who was executed by the Japanese invading forces during World War II.

• 1933 Nursery class opens for children 18 months to 3 years of age under the Elementary and Training Department of the PWU at A. Flores Street in Ermita, Manila,
• 1936 Kindergarten expands into the Child Development Department headed by Doreen Gamboa,
• 1938 Boarding nursery is set up for children whose parents were working or not in the city.
• 1941 Experimental grade 1 is opened when parents ask that the child development approach is carried on to the grade school. The class is abruptly closed by the onset of WWII but Gamboa sets up a kindergarten and ungraded primary classes in an old house at the corner of Taft Avenue and Tennessee (now Malvar Street) in Malate, Manila.
• 1944 PWU building was burned during the war. Quonset huts are built to house the kindergarten and elementary by day and to serve as a dormitory by night. Fronting PWU, these huts were at the site of what would later be referred to as the JASMS Annex. Other big houses undamaged by the war became the classrooms. One such house was owned by the late Chief Justice Abad Santos, once PWU board chair, who was executed by the enemy during the war.
• 1949 Doreen Gamboa leads the rebuilding of the preschool and elementary department following the principles of child development; the school is renamed the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS)
• 1956 JASMS in Quezon City (QC) is established through the generosity of Earl Carroll, president of the Philamlife Assurance Company to serve the new communities opening up in the vicinity such as the Philamlife Homes, West Triangle Homes, and the government housing projects. The new JASMS QC with Gamboa as director offers preschool to Grade 7.
• 1961 JASMS QC high school opens.
• 2010 JASMS QC is cited as the Quezon City Gawad Parangal Most Outstanding Institution by the QC government.[1]
• 2012 JASMS Manila and the PWU High School and JASMS QC are selected by DepEd to model the Grade 11 curriculum.[2]
• 2015 PWU JASMS Manila and JASMS QC are granted permits by the Department of Education to open Senior High School (Grades 11 and 12).[3]
• 2017 JASMS Quezon City campus relocated from its original site in EDSA, West Triangle to Congressional Avenue in Project 8, Quezon City.

• Bea Alonzo (Phylbert Angelie Ranollo) - actress, and singer
• L.A. Lopez - actor, and singer
• Eduardo Manalo, third and current executive minister of Iglesia ni Cristo (INC)
• Janus del Prado - actor, and comedian
• Meryll Soriano - actress
• Adel Tamano, lawyer and politician, 7th President of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
• Dennis Trillo (Abelardo Dennis Florencio Ho) - actor, singer, and model
• Coco Martin (Rodel Luis Pacheco Nacianceno) - actor multi awarded TV Commercial voice and director

• Jose Abad Santos Memorial School

• Official website
• Jose Abad Santos Memorial School Quezon City on Facebook