Tuesday, November 24, 2009

CNN Hero of the Year 2009

I couldn't be more proud of our CNN Hero of the Year. I've heard about him awhile back and followed his passion and effort to bring education to poor kids using his "pushcart classroom" as an alternative to joining street gangs.

I am really happy for him to have won this prestigious award.


"...the hero in you is waiting to be unleashed. Serve, serve well, serve others above yourself and be happy to serve...

...you are the change that you dream as I am the change that I dream and collectively we are the change that this world needs to be."

-Efren PeƱaflorida

Friday, November 20, 2009

Lawyer of Doctors/Doctor of Lawyers

Daughter and I love to watch TV, our bonding moment together, when home and got nothing else to do. Shows like “Bones”, “CSI Miami or Las Vegas” almost always makes us glued to the screen. Our fave though however is watching courtroom drama like “Law & Order” or “Raising the Bar”. So, it’s no surprise daughter loves to debate - to my expense, and argue for that matter, like a typical lawyer in court.



Recently, daughter was tapped to be the team captain of their school’s Defense team to participate in the California state-wide Mock Trial competition held in real court with real judges and lawyers’ doing the scoring of each team member’s and overall team performance.



It was so nerve-racking, for me actually, as I watched daughter did her opening statement, argued and raised objections during the course of the trial, in front of a real judge, and lawyers playing the role of jurors.



Their Defense team did an excellent job of proving their client’s innocence of murder in the first degree that it’s no surprise the judge rendered a “not guilty” verdict, easily defeating their opponent from another school.



Everyone was so excited winning the case for their accused murder client.



Their school’s Prosecution team is a different story though!

The following week, it’s their school Prosecution team’s turn to take the floor. I honestly thought they did an excellent job proving the accused is guilty of murder, beyond reasonable doubt.



However, the final verdict of the judge proved otherwise and apparently they lost by a just a few points.



Everyone in the team was shocked at the result but it was more so disappointing when daughter told me the day after that her young career as a lawyer was cut short as their team did not make it to the next round of an exciting competition.



Overall, it was quite an experience for all, especially for parents like me, being in the courtroom watching lawyer-in-the-making daughter doing as well as anybody.



We all dream as parents to have our sons and daughters grow up to be doctors or lawyers...or perhaps astronauts...or GIS Analysts, whatever that is! ;-)



To this day, daughter and I are still debating if she wants to be a lawyer or a doctor, so I told her next time, I’d like to see her in a "Mock Operation" doing actual brain surgery of patient, in a real hospital, with real doctor and nurses, doing the judging and scoring...so I can have comparison which career she can do better...hehehe

Like always, she has good arguments in return and told me so that there would be no more debate...and I'll be quiet...

...she’ll be the doctor of lawyers or the lawyer of doctors,

...whichever comes first! hahaha

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Annual Membership Fee

As you may recall, we made a Board Resolution (see content below) for alumni members to make an annual payment of membership fees of Php100 for members residing locally and $50 (or peso equivalent) for the rest living/working outside of the Philippines.



Collected membership fees are important for us to sustain at the very least our budgetary needs for administrative maintenance of our association’s good standing with SEC and other government entities for annual license renewals etc.. We also need these collected fees to fund regular meeting necessities, special events for our group, and contributions to the annual alumni homecoming event at SDA, and donations possibly to deceased or sick members or relatives.

Please consider making your payment of annual membership fee for year 2009 before the end of this year, if possible. Send your payments directly to Eva/Wena or to our BDO account.

If you are somewhere in the continental USA, you can write a check and send it to me via snail mail (let me know if you need my postal address) and I’ll make sure to deposit them directly to our BDO account, thus saving yourself the usual fee charged by remittance center when sending money overseas.

Also, please let me know if you did not receive the latest summary fund report I sent you all via email today. If you are interested in the detailed report, please send your request for a copy to our new email address: sdabatch78 at yahoo dot com...I will be more than happy to furnish you one.

Thank you all for your cooperation and continued support!

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Ultimate Goal

The pledge season will NEVER be over until we reach our ultimate goal. I’m still calling all who have not made their pledges to please consider doing so.

Your time is now!

Just because we have already met our target, doesn’t mean pledging should stop?

What you should all realize is that the goal reached so far was just the initial one. Providing scholarship to two souls is NOT the ultimate goal at all. It is only the by-product of the effort to bring us ALL together in unity, in harmony...


...playing good music together...


...in a concert hall,


like a symphony!

Unfortunately, we’re still short on that one...evidently!

Just like I’ve been saying and preaching you all since this scholarship project begun to unfold, all of the money pledged and contributed will ONLY be used for this specific project. Let me make it clear to all that any unused money will either be returned to the contributor or put somewhere else depending on what will be agreed upon by all who put their money on it. Rest assured that your pledge and support, financial or otherwise, will not be for naught.

I said it once and I’ll say it again,
Every pledge count, every peso counts.

We would rather have A MILLION OF US donating one peso each, than have a handful giving big amounts. That means a million of us are getting involved. Not just a few.
Moving forward 5 years or so from now after our scholars get their high school diploma; I would like to see them continue to pursue their quest for knowledge at the college level under our guided wings, still financially supporting them until the day they become real professional in their field of studies and ready to face that tough world out there with full confidence and maturity, determined to make something of what WE, in all unity, opened the door for them...and offered them, unselfishly.

Now, that’s the ultimate goal!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Revised: Night High School Scholarship Guidelines

I made some revisions to the initial draft posted here.

Revisions were made in particular to Section III - Funding and Coverage and Section VIII - Administrative.

Please review and let me know if you have any concerns, questions, comments, and/or suggestions. Our new email address is sdabatch78 at yahoo.com