Vol. 7, No. 5, June 9, 2003

Kho Siok We (Batch '57), in photo, has been promoted to the position of Assistant Administrator of the Cebu Eastern College (CEC).   Her promotion was made by the CEC Board of Trustees upon the recommendation of the School Administrator, Yap Siok Eng, who is on sick leave.  Siok We will assume her new position as the second highest ranking school official of Cebu's oldest and biggest Chinese-Filipino school starting this new school year.  A multi-awarded teacher, she was adjudged one of the "Ten National Model Chinese Teachers" in 2002.   She was also recipient of the "Five Outstanding Chinese Teachers in Metro Cebu" award in 2000 sponsored by the Mario Osmeña Educational Foundation.  A dedicated teacher, she has devoted her entire career as an educator for the past 40 years.  After finishing high school at LCHS in 1957, she proceeded to the Cebu Chinese High School for higher Chinese education.  After her graduation in 1960 she proceeded to take summer classes at the Chiang Kai Shek College in Manila, after which she began teaching Chinese elementary education at LCHS in the early 1960s.  She comes from a family of illustrious educators.  Her father Kho Pic Yong was the first principal of LCHS and her mother Ng Pue Heng was one of the pioneer Chinese teachers of LCHS.  Her sister Victoria "Siok An" Kho-Chua (Batch '64), also an "Outstanding Teachers" awardee, teaches at the CEC.

Spectrum website visitors hit record high

The number of Spectrum website readers reached a record high of 2,385 hits in the month of May this year.  It is by far the highest number of hits in Spectrum history surpassing the previous highest record of 2,154 registered in August 2002.  This report was issued by GeoCities, U.S.A., host server of the Spectrum Home Page, in its Page Views Report (see accompanying chart).  The statistics indicate that more and more people are reading the website edition of the Spectrum.   Charles O. Sy, administrator of the Spectrum website, attributes the increased number of visitors to the addition of the LCHS Batch Directory on the website.  He says that more people also visit the website to read each issue of the Spectrum because its website edition includes photos in its content.  Spectrum internal record likewise shows that of the number of its e-mail subscribers, about 58% (consisting of overseas alumni) take time out to view the website edition posted on the Spectrum Home Page.

Franklin Siao joins GMA state visit

Franklin Siao (Batch '62) left last June 2 together with the official entourage of Pres. Gloria Arroyo on her state visit to South Korea.  The President will discuss a host of issues with the Korean government involving bilateral trade and security matters.  Franklin "Bobo" Siao is the president and general manager of Oroport, a Casco-Inport joint undertaking in Cagayan de Oro City.  With him in the entourage is Mayor Vicente Emano of CdO, among others.  From South Korea, Arroyo and her entourage are scheduled to fly to Japan for a three-day working visit.

New shopping mall to open in Cebu

A new shopping mall will soon open in Cebu City. Named Elizabeth Mall, the city's newest landmark boasts of an assemblage of specialty and novelty shops, a food arcade & food chains, an amusement center, three state-of-the-art cinemas, health and beauty salons, telecommunications and hardware centers and drug stores, along with Save More Supermarket and Star Appliance Center which are affiliates of SM Group of Companies. Located at the corner of Leon Kilat St. and South Superhighway, the mall is owned and developed by Cebu Central Realty Corp. headed by Augusto Go (owner of the University of Cebu). The 3-storey mall occupies a vast area of 9,000 sq. m., with a total floor area of 25,000 sq.m. It will have over 150 stall spaces for tenant leasing, with a wide parking lot. The mall, set to open in the last quarter of this year, expects to capture the B, C, & D markets, with clientele largely coming from southern Cebu, such as Talisay, Minglanilla, Naga, San Fernando, and Carcar.

Roger Suminguit, Batch '73

Tidbits from CdeO

"Tracers" stumbled on a goldmine of information in the person of Salvador "Sheik Kian" Booc (Batch '66) who has been doing business in Cagayan de Oro City for more than thirty years.  The first time he went to the City of Pineapples, as it was known then, he had no inkling that he would be residing and raising his family there someday.  He recalled that in the late 1950's, he was a member of the basketball team that was invited by the Kong Hua School to play against its team.  He forgot who won the game but he could not forget that while riding the school bus on the way to CdeO, all the passengers led by Nelson Sy (Batch '62) were enthusiastically singing, "And he's a boy, and she's a girl, and baby... that's Biology!"  One wonders how Nicomedes, the school bus driver, could tolerate such a raucous and noisy bunch of teenagers. Sheik Kian missed playing basketball with the likes of Fernando Khu, Kim Huat Go, Nelson "Toto" Dy, Ay Kok, Jaime Rodriguez and Bienvenido Lim.  Before we parted, he threw down a challenge:  If the LCHS Alumni Association could extend an invitation to play basketball with the Iligan alumni team, he could assemble a team of basketball players to be drawn from sizable alumni population now residing in Cagayan de Oro.

Sizable alumni population?  You won't believe it, but over the years, more and more of our fellow alumni have relocated their homes, works and businesses to CdeO.  Among them are:  James Tiu Huan, Florcita Tiu Huan (in photo, top row, left) and husband Ben "Chu Eng" Sy, Lily Tiu, Manuel Tee Tiu, Rene Tio, Agustin Tiu, Gloria (Baby Dako) Jo-Yu, together with their mother, Mrs. Tee Shu viuda de Ho Kim Sing, and known to many as "Sowa."  Following the trail of the Tiu Huan family are the brothers Jaime and Roberto Sy Handumon (in photo, top row, middle) who actually lives in Jasaan, Misamis Oriental, just a few kilometers from CdeO.  Adding to the list of long-time CdeO residents are:  Apolonia Chiu, Josephine Jane Go (Lim), Leonardo Go, Dina Tan, Marciana Sy Roa, Dina Uy (Buenaventura), Alicia Velasco (Ang), Segundina Velasco, Marietta Kwan (Yip), Arlene Yap, Kwan Huy Ching, Victor "Eng Bik" Sy, Venancio Alvarez Jr., Peter Lee, Johnny Yip, Anita Uy and Mansueto Villanueva.

Sheik Kian said although he missed Iligan, CdeO felt like home because of the presence of his sister Felisa "Chiao Hong" Booc (in photo, top row, right) and children Allan, Lizalie and Bonard Booc who are also our fellow alumni.  From time to time, he sees Virna Sy (Oh) [in photo, second row, left], Cristina Lim, Leoncia Sy (in photo, second row, middle), Corazon So (Tan) and Alim Yap (Tiu) who used to be his neighbors along the old Quezon avenue.  Seeing these familiar faces -- and those of Franklin Siao, Nelson Jo, Nelson So (Tan), Edgar Lim, James Siao, Nelson Uy and Hipolito Guiritan -- makes him feel as if he had never been away in time and place.

The list of alumni now residing in CdeO would not be complete if we don't include the names of Christopher Tan, Elizabeth Yap, Josefina Chua, Bradly Chio, Guat Bing Chiu, Mary Evelyn So (Cabili), Anthony Tan, Roger Jimenez, Terence Chua, Golda Sagario, Suzette Ylanan and Mae Angela Talingting.  On the second thought, "Tracers" believes that the list will never be completed and will keep on getting longer.  Sherlita Racines who is presently assigned there might opt to stay in CdeO for good.  Johnson Sy, Lucio Choa Tan (in photo, second row, right), Clemente Lim and Manuel "Bandoy" Sy who own residential houses there might decide to settle in CdeO too.  As the economic condition in Iligan deteriorates, more and more of our fellow alumni might choose to leave town and join the burgeoning LCHS community in the City of Golden Friendship.

Marie Janiefer Q. Lee, Batch '87

Last May 30, my classmates in Iligan had a mini reunion.  It was supposed to be just a kiddy party of Joy’s (Ellen Joy Sy-Yulangco) second child Jhed Boldwin.  Joy was on vacation in Iligan with her three tots, Jalisha Belle, 5 years old; Jhed who turned three that day; and her youngest baby Janssen Bryce who’ll be turning one this coming December.  By the way, Ellen Joy is the youngest daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Sy Chu Pin.

Some of you may recall that I’ve mentioned Joy in my article “Soundtrack of My Life” as my best friend in elementary.  How we were inseparable in school during daytime and how we were burning the phone lines at night.  How I wish I could see her again soon.

I only learned that she’s in Iligan the morning of May 30 when our classmate Romeo Sy texted me about the birthday.  Had I known that she was in Iligan I would have squeezed the last few days of summer and spent some time in Iligan too.  It’s been so long since I’ve last caught up with her.  If I’m not mistaken, the last time we saw each other was on her wedding day. Time really flies so fast now she has three kids and we haven’t even seen each other since then.  Sometimes we get a chance to catch up on the phone or text, but that “sometimes” comes once in a blue moon.  I guess this happens to busy mothers like us.  And to think that we’re both living in Manila, I really wonder why our paths just never crossed.  Maybe because we’re living at opposite ends of Manila.  While I’m in the south part (Parañaque) she, on the other hand, is residing in the north part (Caloocan).  We’ve made several attempts to meet but something will always come up which would once again postpone our date.  Ay ambot!

Thanks to modern technology, I know that even if we don’t get in touch that often, just one text message would bring us connected again.  (Sounds like the TV commercial of Globe).  Just as long as she doesn’t drop her cell phone in the bathroom again.  During their mini reunion that night, I was at home ga kisi-kisi, as in very restless and very suya  (jealous) just imagining the fun that I was missing.  I was following the “events” like a sports caster during an NBA match through text messages, even if some were too preoccupied to text back.  I even called my sister just to get some first hand account of what’s going on.  Then thanks to MMS (Multi-Media Services) and cell phone cameras I was able to see how they all looked that night.  How big their smiles were, even if it just made the obvious clear that I really was missing a lot that night, at least it eased some of the nostalgia I had.  So I’m once again indebted to modern technology.  Even if it made me say “maayo pa sila,” at least in a small way I was also part of their night.  As in ga-samok-samok gyud, in a small way I was able to steal a few seconds of their attention through my constant texting.  Hehehe.  They asked me to send them how I look that night through MMS too, but I don’t want to ruin their night by showing them me in my favorite hole-laden nightgown in other words: buslot nga daster.  By the way, to all my classmates in the pictures, I just want to tell you that without any dapig-dapig, you all still look the same as when we were in high school.  It’s not that I have cataract or that the MMS picture resolution is bad but, honestly, I just think that you all look the same.

I asked Romeo to take the pictures according to beauty, as in unaha ang mga gwapa, but the one I got was a group picture.  I guess no one wanted to be the last in line. Hehehe.  Anyway, thanks a lot to Romeo and Wek-wek for those pictures.  Hope we could all get together when I get home.

Speaking of TV commercials, well, the very gwapo guy in the new KFC commercial is my cousin GJ (Gregory James Dy).  He is the only son of my equally gwapo uncle Dr. Greg Dy (dala sip-sip ba).  He is the one launching the new product of KFC, the Oriental Rice Bowl which came out in May.  It’s not that we are conceited but ever since the That’s Entertainment (80’s) days we’ve been egging my uncle to send Gj here and be a star.  At a young age, we can all see that the mixed genes of Dy and Paynor produced that certain X-factor in both Gj and his sister Girlie.  Although it’s Gj’s easy and ma-PR personality that best fits that of a celebrity.  I know and I’ve seen how dedicated G is to this career, so I believe that he can make it big in the industry.  When he finally gets his Tagalog straight I’m sure he’d be able to bag more roles both in TV and in the movies.  For us, G means “go, get, and God,” so to my cousin G, GO as far as your dreams could take you and GET there in style, but don’t forget to have GOD by your side.

Another special thing that happened this May was my own reunion with a long lost classmate Mr. William Cua.  I got a surprise call one Saturday afternoon from somebody who calls me “Fer” and only my LCHS classmates call me that.  But what sets this one person apart is the fact that he was my closest friend in high school. The last time I saw him was probably seven years ago.  After he got married we lost track of him.  Nobody knew where he was until that Saturday afternoon.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry on the phone.  We talked until my ears were red-hot, then we talked some more the next day. Just imagine catching up for those seven long years, one small piece of information was like one puzzle piece in its right place.  After that meeting I asked him for just one tiny favor, and that is he should never disappear like that ever again.  I hope he is still the same person I knew before, somebody who keeps his promises.

My May Specials would have been extra special had my ex-boss Mr. Charles O. Sy just had the chance to give me a call when he flew in last May 22. “Sos nanglood gyud ko,” in other words: I really felt bad that he didn’t tell me he was here.  It would have been nice to see him again.  Boss, ikaw gyud ha.

My special month of May ended with a big bang, courtesy of the typhoon Chedeng.  A namesake of our famous peanuts back home.  But it was nothing like the peanuts; it was ruthless all the way.  I was still thinking that we could use the last few weeks before the school starts to spend sometime basking under the summer sun.  But as you’ve all seen in the front pages of the newspapers, those plans of mine were drowned by the knee-deep flood that covered the metropolis for almost a week.  So my plans will have to wait until the next summer, and I hope that next May will be just as special as the one that just came to pass.

Most people talk about people.  Others talk about ideas.  Of the people I have known, only a few come close to fit the latter.  One such person was Yolando Siao of Batch '64.  (In photo, from left: James So, Yolando Siao, Charles Sy, and Sergio Siao, at a send-off party shortly before Yolando's departure to the U.S.A.)

I had my first lasting impression of Lando back in the mid-60s when I was in high school. He was among Manila's top campus personalities featured in the Sunday Variety Magazine of The Manila Times.  He was then an Economics student at the Far Eastern University. With that national prominence, he became the talk of the town in Iligan, a pride to his family and friends, and a source of inspiration to many of his town mates like me.

Since then I hadn't heard about Yolando until 1968 when I was pursuing college education in Cebu. He had graduated from the FEU and was back in Iligan working at the Kim San Company.  While in Cebu, I launched the LCHS Spectrum and was struggling to keep the publication afloat due to financial constraints.  Among the first few alumni who came to our rescue was Lando.  He volunteered to assist the fledgling newsletter by helping raise funds among LCHS alumni.  He personally approached the LCHS principal, Tan Lian Hun, for financial aid.  His efforts paid off and the Spectrum continued steadily on its course.

At the height of my involvement in student activism the following year, I found myself transported back to Iligan and was temporarily enrolled at the St. Michael's College.  My forced exile brought Yolando and I together.  He had also enrolled at the SMC to pursue further studies in evening classes after work and I had passed the school exams to become editor of the SMC student publication, the Sword & Shield.

On many occasions we found ourselves together in the forefront of many school activities and campus debates.  In pursuit of our shared vision to foster friendly interaction among Filipino and Chinese students at SMC, we organized the Iligan Student Amity Association.  Together, we led the group that later grew in membership to include students from other schools.  Our members also included several alumni who were studying at SMC, among them were Antonio Chan, James So, Henry Dy, Gloricita Racines, Virginia Ngo, Pablito Tan,and the late Sy Hong Kiau.

Lando was a man who loved to grapple with issues of significance and matters of consequence. The hotter the issues, the more relentlessly he pursued the debate. Our ideas often clashed.  He did not always agree with my militant advocacy in the school paper. Often he would pick an issue of our school paper and engaged me in endless discussion of my articles on student radicalism, state fascism and U.S. imperialism. Neither did I agree with him on several issues confronting the times.  More often than not, he would prove me wrong. Yet despite our disagreement on issues, there was harmony in our friendship.  He called me his "sparring partner," not in drinking sessions or boxing bouts, but in intellectual discourses.

I once found myself embroiled in a heated exchange of words with DXIC station manager and Mindanao Scoop columnist Antolin Alcudia over a controversy involving St. Michael's College.  I had assailed Alcudia's criticisms against the school in his column. Our debate in the newspaper had gone a bit out of hand and I was advised by many to desist from pursuing the dispute.  I was fighting the Goliath of Iligan's mass media, they said. Yet Yolando Siao showed his concern by seeking out a stand among a few concerned SMC faculty.  Those who disagreed with me he tried to persuade to my side.  Those who agreed he made them known to me for moral support. When the smoke cleared, I thanked him for his help. To which he replied, "I didn't concur with everything you wrote in the Mindanao Scoop against Alcudia, but I went out for you because you fought a good fight."  That was vintage Yolando Siao:  Always candid and vocal with his thoughts yet supportive through and through as a friend.

I had thought that Lando was too absorbed in ideas and principles, often with a consuming passion. And I told him so.  I once teased him by telling him that he was carrying himself too far by misdirecting his passion on intangible and abstract objects instead of the pretty coeds in school. This once he didn't bother to argue. Unusual for a man easily given to fits of spirited rhetoric.

I later learned that I was wrong.  When the school year neared its end in 1970, Lando approached me for help.  He needed a place away from the prying eyes of nosy people where he could talk privately with someone he cared.  Being editor of the school paper, I had the key to our editorial office in school and gave him free access to it whenever he wanted.  I realized then that Lando had a girlfriend -- the only one I knew who had ever captured his heart.  They were classmates.  She was a girl of impeccable charm and personable trait. Anything short of such qualities would not have merited a second glance from my friend who never compromised his ideals, nor his choices of special friends.  But fate took a different turn.  Lando was soon scheduled to migrate to the U.S.A. I remember asking him about the girl he would be leaving behind.  And he said, with a sense of determination, that in due time he would work out a way for the girl to also migrate to the U.S.A. where they would settle down together.

Their paths never crossed again.  Lando passed away shortly after arriving in the U.S.A. and left behind a lingering niche in the memory of many people who knew and admired him, and sealed an imperishable legacy of love and affection in the heart of a special girl nobody knew about.

The great house has been this way since Grandmother died.  Three days ago.  My aunts, uncles, and cousins have swarmed the house like locusts to a rice field.  My uncles have become subdued shadows of the men they were, backs bent with the burden of grief, trembling hands tapping cigarette ashes uncaringly on the floor.  Smoke fills the quiet room, gray fingers intruding into our breath, as stealthily as death has crept into the great house.  My aunts, banshee-like in their wailing, aging quickly before my eyes.  Hair of stark whiteness and sunken eyes of flowing tears.  The cousins, black figures by the door, waiting for those who wish to pay their last respects.  It is as if silence has come to stay.  The smell of incense and joss sticks fill the air, joining with the chanting of ancient Chinese prayers.

I look at Grandmother in her coffin.  Her smooth, white skin has turned brown and parched.  Not a sound escapes her lips, lips sealed in peaceful slumber, everlasting slumber.  Her eyes are closed forever.  Only memories linger of their twinkle.  The hands which have seen much hard work, which had soothed many a hurt, now lay in clasped embrace.  Grandmother is dressed in layer upon layer of rich silk, befitting her station as beloved great grandmother.  Pearls have been placed beside her, the guiding light to lead the way.  Will she meet grandfather, I wonder.  Grandfather must walk with her; it would not be good for grandmother to be alone.

She stares back at me from the picture.  It is swathed by black flower-shaped cloth.  Black, because grandmother is dead.  And yet to my mind she seems so alive.  Flashes of a life well-lived pass endlessly before me.  Combing her long white hair, taking morning hikes around the city plaza, at morning prayers before the family gods and ancestors.  A trail of tears dampens my cheeks.  I wipe at them unseeingly.  Not a tear must drop on to the glass for then the dead would grieve forever.  I wish Grandmother were still alive.  The great house will never be the same again.  Not since Grandmother died, three days ago.

[Candice Ang Uy wrote this piece in commemoration of the memory of her maternal grandmother, Kho Hock Kee.  She is remembered by many for her love, patience, and goodness.  Even now, years after her death, Ama continues to be a guiding force in our lives.  Events described above happened as she remembered along with fond remembrances shared by her mother and sister.]