Gratitude Makes Excellence More Meaningful: The Story Behind UM Grad's Top 1 In The October 2025 Foresters Licensure Exam

Assalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. The University of Mindanao produced another topnotcher this year. Nadzer Casan Abbas, Top 1, in the Foresters’ Licensure Examination (FLE) of October 2025. Alhamdulillah! He got a whopping score of 93.95%. Apparently on record, Nadzer C. Abbas, or Pao to his friends, holds the highest score in the history of FLEs in the Philippines. Before Pao, the highest record holder was Freddie S. Palermo, the Top 1 in 2018 from the University of the Philippines-Los Baños with a score of 91.80%. Last year in 2024, the Top 1 was Neña Rose Arnaiz Corpin from the Biliran Province State University, with a score of 92.60%.

With yet another sterling accomplishment of the BS Forestry program under the College of Arts & Sciences Education (CASE), UM has again reached – irrefutably – another apex of performance outcome (in 2003, the UM produced the first Top 1 in BS Forestry, a Ceriaco C. Sumaya, Jr.). This is one of the best evidences why students – and their parents – choose UM. This is one of the university’s traits that earn the respect of various stakeholders. Education does not have to be elitist and expensive; education is indeed the greatest equalizer, as Nelson Mandela would propagate. In UM, Nadzer is the embodiment of polishing diamonds in the rough, as he rose from the ranks and survived the clutches of poverty.

The topnotchers in the university are our polished diamonds from being raw and fresh when they came in as freshmen. This clearly reflects the university’s educational philosophy – catering to the hoi polois, discovering their native talents and their capacity to learn, transform, and excel. This is the kind of philosophy that challenges the selective creed of the hoi oligois (intellectual elites) of the crème de la crème (cream of the crop).

What is Nadzer’s secret? It is a story of persistence that keeps on moving on and pressing forward. He does not dwell and get stuck on being paralyzed in a situation. He does not complain; he just silently sets off to the next. He is goal-oriented as he knows what he aspires to achieve. Just keep on moving. This goal-oriented mindset is similar to BS SW’s 2025 Top 1’s Desiree Alimbon’s purposiveness and intentionality.

Nadzer’s nadir. Nadzer was born on June 2, 2000, to a poor Muslim family of seven siblings from the far-flung Tamugan in Davao City. His father is an itinerant farmer, his mother an Arabic teacher (ustadza) at a Muslim community. He attended his elementary at the Lower Tamugan Elementary School, his junior and senior high from the Lower Tamugan National High School, and his college at UM. As he entered college in 2019, he was supposed to finish in 2023, but he was delayed as he stopped schooling during the pandemic. He had to work; his family had financial impediments. He worked at a construction site for a year.

He came back to school after the pandemic, but in 2023, he had to stop again. He applied to the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA). He passed all his aptitude and physical tests, but he failed in his neurological tests. He did not complain and did not bother to question. Interestingly, he passed his neuro test for his OJT at the DENR-XI. He just moved on. His goal was just to finish. He graduated in 2025, took the review, took the board, and passed. And excelled.

He used to be an STA at the CCJE in 2019. This was his closest to fulfilling his first dream as a law enforcer. He did not apply to BS Criminology as he was skinny at that time. But with construction and as a working student on the side (promotions at Nescafé), he grew taller and burlier, this time as a forester, as his next dream. He joined the BS Forestry.

His passion for forestry was born out of his family’s hardship, too. His family was a victim of a massive flash flood in 2017. The entire family was displaced; their house was wiped out. He and his family had to live for a year in the nearby mosque as transients. He has since grown a compassion for the environment. His older brother was also a forester, and that added to his influence. More importantly, Nadzer was following the life and advocacy of the late Sec. Gina Lopez of DENR. Nadzer’s goal-orientedness was shaped with a passion, slowly but deeply. This was the reason why he chose DENR-XI for his OJT; this is the reason why he applied to work at the DENR-XI for a job (all board placers are exempt from taking the government eligibility exams). As a GIS specialist, he has the skills and the credentials, and he has the compassion and the passion for his profession. Nadzer’s nadir became his driving force to overcome and succeed. His goal-orientedness, his persistence to move on, and his compassion and passion were all his formula for excellence. He was not an honor student, but neither an average one. He had practical experience as a working student.

Upon receiving his huge cash incentive as a Top 1 placer, one of his first acts was to give more than half of it to his mother, to fulfill his promise to send her to the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Gratitude makes excellence more meaningful. Allah is pleased; Allah is smiling!