Vol. 11, No. 17, Dec. 3, 2007
Batch 1982 Silver Jubilee Donations
The Lanao Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Inc. and the LCHS Board of Trustees, together with the academic community, profusely thank the alumni members of Batch 1982 for their Silver Jubilee donations to LCHS. Among their donations are twelve (12) teachers' tables; 7 volumes of instructional video CDs of Chinese folk dances; 10 volumes of Chinese music CDs; and 300 books from the U.S.A. for the school Library. The batch is spearheaded by James Booc, president of the LCHS Alumni Association.
Subscribe
now to Spectrum new format
In keeping with new digital technology, the LCHS Spectrum will change its format from HTML to PDF (Portable Document Format), starting January 2008. The PDF edition is designed in the same style as a standard newspaper tabloid (photo). It comes with better layout, column partitions, pagination, photos, graphics, and full color. The new format is readable and printable using Acrobat Reader or Adobe Reader in any PC. It is ideal for readers with an eye for a more presentable layout that they can read with ease or pass around to friends. Average file size of each issue is 500KB to 800KB only.
All subscribers (specially those who have DSL or Broadband connections) are advised to subscribe to this new format as the current HTML format will be phased out by next year. To start receiving regularly your free PDF copy of the Spectrum, simply send an email to: lchsspectrum@yahoo.com. It's not necessary to put in any message; simply indicate the following statement on the subject line of your email: "Subscribe to PDF edition."
Those who do not subscribe to the new format will cease to receive their copy of the Spectrum by January 2008. They can however continue to browse regular issues of the Spectrum on our website at: www.oocities.org/lchsspectrum
Christmas raffle tickets
Buy your Christmas Raffle Tickets now and help raise funds for the Scholarship Program of the LCHS Foundation, Inc. Tickets are priced at only P100 each, or P1,000 per booklet. Raffle draws will be on Dec. 30, 2007 during the Christmas Party at the LCHS gym to be hosted jointly by the LCHS Alumni Foundation, Inc. and LCHS Batch '82 (Silver Jubilarians). The prizes at stake are: 2-door 7 cu.ft. refrigator, 1st prize; 29" color television set, 2nd prize; 6-seater dining set, 3rd prize; and 30 consolation prizes. Tickets may be obtained from any LCHS-AA officer.
Great
to see you
Sun, 18 Nov 2007 04:03:17 +000
I would like to thank the Spectrum for
featuring a group picture showing Willie Kwan, Wilson Lim (Batch '70),
Laureto Lao (Batch '68), Elsie Tan-Lao (Batch '70), and Shirley Co-Schneider
(Batch '70). It's really great to see you guys in that photo shoot after
all these years. You are some of the many that I haven't seen after all
these many many years that we've been separated after our LCHS days. Hopefully
we'll see each other in person during our 3rd LCHS Grand Alumni Homecoming
come May 23-24, 2008. In His Time.
--Henry L. Yu, M.D. (Batch '69), Cebu,
Philippines; email: hvty@skyinet.net
Things
I've learned
Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:44:03 -0800
o I've learned that, no matter what happens, how
bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
o I've learned that you can tell a lot about
a person by the way he/she handles four things: a rainy day, the elderly,
lost luggage, and o tangled Christmas tree lights.
o I've learned that, regardless of your relationship
with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.
o I've learned that making a living is not the
same thing as making a life.
o I've learned that you shouldn't go through
life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw
something back.
o I've learned that if you pursue happiness,
it will elude you. But if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs
of others, your o work and doing the very best you can, happiness will
find you.
o I've learned that even when I have pains, I
don't have to be one.
--Ellen Lim, Manila, Philippines; email:
ellenlim427@yahoo.com
Sometimes
Thu, 22 Nov 2007 07:18:18
Sometimes God breaks our spirit to save our soul. Sometimes He
breaks our heart to make us whole. Sometimes He sends us pain so
we can be stronger. Sometimes He sends us failure so we can be humble.
Sometimes He sends us illness so we can take better care of ourselves.
Sometimes He takes everything away from us so we can learn the value of
everything we have.
--Julia Dy, Cebu, Philippines; forwarded from SMS, cell +639226794071
European Swing
Every time you sip Nescafe with Coffeemate or Nescafe 3-in-1, drink Milo or Nestea etc., do you know where these consumer products came from?
Of course it's from Nestle. These consumer products are manufactured in Nestle's factories. But once they are produced, it is then delivered to and packed by another entity called Nestle's "co-packer." Well, one of these co-packers is based in Cagayan de Oro. It's called COFIPAC Corporation and owned by husband and wife team: Richard Lim (Batch '69) and Norma Tan Lim (of CdO) as chairman and president of the corporation, respectively.
Both parents of Richard and Norma started as green coffee trader, exporter and supplier of raw coffee beans to Nestle. Later on, as the coffee industry became more and more retail and farmer oriented, middlemen and traders began to feel the difficulty to sustain their operations. Richard recalled talking to a Swiss plant manager of Nestle Factory in Cagayan de Oro: "If you keep buying from the farmers directly, you are going to drive us out of business. You are going to break our rice bowl." The affable Swiss plant manager replied in jest: "Then you should use a plastic one so it doesn't break!".
The Lim and Tan families had since diversified into co-packing business for Nestle and other businesses. For the Lim's family: Johndorf Ventures Corp., Prohomes Development Corp., Hausplus Ventures Corp. real estate and housing subdivision; Jonrich Enterprises Inc. and Mechatronic Instrumentation engineering. For the Tan’s family are: Liberty Land Corp., TTT International Trading Corp. -for real estate and housing subdivision; 5N Glass Supply and Cagayan Auto Glass construction supplies.
In operation for more than 12 years, COFIPAC is situated in their sprawling 5 hectare compound in Tablon, Cagayan de Oro. Masterfully designed and layout in a very "green and clean" eco-balanced environment, among the number of buildings inside that house the admin office, laboratory, technical training center, seminar hall, canteen etc, are four huge super hygienic plants designated for each of the products. It's in there where the products are tilted, filled, packed, boxed and wrapped. Day and night, that is 24 hours a day 7 days a week, high tech machineries and equipments run unceasingly churning out sachets, sticks, packs and pouches continuously and efficiently. Once they get loaded into container vans, they are then transported to their designated distribution centers in Visayas and Mindanao in a well organized logistical operation. It's so environmental friendly and pollutions free that if you are standing inside the compound, you can't smell anything or hear any noise coming form these plants.
Right now, COFIPAC is the only company co-packing for Nestle in Visayas and Mindanao and supplying these regions with their entire requirements. The Company inaugurated its fourth plant, the Nestea Line, last November 10.
So whether you are at home or in cities like Iligan, Cagayan, Cebu, Davao, Bacolod or Zamboanga or even in some remote places like Siargao, Samal, Sumilon or Samonte island, every time you tear, cut or open a sachet, a stick, a pack or pouch of these consumer products, remember its route: Nestle to COFIPAC to your favorite cup.
Henry L. Yu, M.D., Batch '69
The Homecoming
One particular medical school in Cebu will be celebrating its golden anniversary or 50 years from the time of its birth in 1957. It is the very school that made me and all the rest of its graduates scattered all over the world what we are today. Yes, CIM as in Cebu Institute of Medicine.
All roads lead to CIM come December 2-8 as we come home to a place where we've been to once upon a time as struggling medical students all poised to become the doctors that we've always wanted to be. We come home to CIM and gather around for this one significant moment. This time more wise mentally and more mature physically. But in the eyes of our fellow classmates and friends we will always be the same guys and gals of decades past. Nothing has changed except that we have become better persons - as children of God, as doctors, as parents, or as senior citizens.
On this very important and significant milestone, we pay tribute to our beloved teachers for making us what we are today. Oh, it was such a long and winding and hard climb to the medical world. It was not a walk in the park (as today's lingo would put it).
Medicine is undeniably one such profession that requires long years of study, aside from the tedious and rigid academic and clinical training one has to go through before one can finally be considered a full-fledged doctor.
Many times in our life as medical students, we have to choose between the night life and staying home to study for the exams the next day. Indeed, there's no short cut to becoming a doctor, the life and struggles that we have to go through. As medical students, we went through a lot of stresses, anxieties, burnouts and fatigue brought about by a litany of exams that we have to hurdle in order to be able to graduate.
Truly, the road to becoming a physician is long and arduous. To become a full-fledged physician, one has to spend eight (8) years of one’s life after high school graduation at the age of 17, granting that one started grade one at 7. So by the time one finishes his medical studies, he will be 25 years old. That, plus one year Potgraduate Internship (PGI) plus three years residency training (some fields of specialization requires four or five, minus the subspecialty fellowship, if he so desired). So 25 + 1 + 3 = 29. A doctor will always be a student because medical science is such a dynamic field. What's true and applicable now may not be so in the next four or five years. For a physician, the learning never ends. It is a process.
This once-in-a-lifetime event is geared towards fellowship and camaraderie among us all classmates, friends, teachers and the significant others, reunited as one big group, as we bring back our yesteryears - the five (5) decades of our joy, our fun, and our seasons in the sun, to sing and dance and laugh and chat... but most of all, to thank God Almighty for giving us the privilege of reaching this far. Oh, fifty years is 50 years, any which way we look at it.
Thank you, Lord, for the Gift of Life and Friendship. It’s nice to be back to a place where we have been. To a place where we belong. To a place we call HOME.
I
was greatly honored when Ma'am Jing invited me to share a few thoughts
this morning but I was a bit thrown off for a moment. After all, I'm not
a Lanao Chung Hua School alumnus, I'm not Tsinoy, not Pinoy, not Chinese
... but then I thought for a moment and saw there are certain things common
to all people everywhere: we are made for each other.
We have all heard the saying "No one is an island," though some of us are built like continents! From the very beginning the Bible tells us it is not good to live alone. Psalm 133 sings "How good it is, how pleasant, where people dwell as one! There the Lord has lavished blessings, life for evermore!"
Jesus didn't spread the Good News alone … he gathered around himself apostles and disciples, friends from all different backgrounds: men and women, young and old, saints and sinners. Even when he first sent the disciples out to preach, he sent them in pairs, so important is it to be in solidarity, to be in communion, to see the face of God in one another. He reminded us that what we do to each other, we do to him. He promised to be where two or three are gathered in His name. How He stressed solidarity, COMMUNITY! Do you remember your Latin? COM meaning WITH, and UNIO meaning ONE … with oneness!
And today as you of Lanao Chung Hua School celebrate your 69th Foundation Day, you have as your theme "Leading Towards True Solidarity." In a world so fragmented, so disjointed, so separated, how very important is your chosen theme!
How many years of your life's formation were spent at Lanao Chung Hua? Perhaps you are one of the many who not only attended Chung Hua, but also have a mother or father, son or daughter who are also part of the Chung Hua Family. What touches me very much about this school is that it becomes part of different families … generation after generation taking up the Lanao Chung Hua banner.
Can you forget the school that nurtured, molded, instructed and guided you? What is a school? Not walls, not books, not libraries or bells or exams! A school is a family of dedicated people who come together to share their wisdom and at the same time to learn what they do not yet understand. I'm sure many of us realize how much we learned not only from the wonderful teachers we've had over the years, but from our own batch mates; from the secrets shared, the questions voiced, the triumphs celebrated, the disasters comforted. Your first great crush and your first heartbreak! That, my friends, is school! Can we possibly forget?
And what now of the next generation? What is our gift to our children and to their children? Even if they are not the children of your flesh, aren't they the children of your spirit? Young, Tsinoy, trying to find their place in so overwhelming a world … trying to see the gifts and talents God has given them, trying to find the mission God has in store for them. They walk now in the path you walked once, with all its joy and all its pain. It is not so different. Sure, the cell phones and fancy gadgets are new, but the simple desire to find our place in life, to be who we are, and to love and be loved, that never changes. How can we be real family to each other … Lanao Chung Hua Family?
I am a foreigner, and I have heard people say that Tsinoys are only interested in business. And I have seen that that is not true. Good in business, YES! Hard-working and industrious, YES! But for me, Tsinoy is FAMILY! I have seen an amazing sense of family, of ties that unite people in spite of age, distance, ideology. I have been with families where the ancient elders sit holding newborns, where brothers and sisters, each searching for the holy, are Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant; where doctors and lawyers mingle with the grocery and hardware store owners, where the young are so much together that you can't tell cousins from brothers and sisters … one big united family!
Isn't Lanao Chung Hua a part of your family? Aren't you a part of the Lanao Chung Hua family? Young and old, rich and poor? How are you faithful to this family that has nurtured and guided you? You know what you have gotten from Lanao Chung Hua. And now, what will you give? Of your time, your talent, your treasure? So that others who now walk the path of life that you yourselves once walked may see their own special gifts and talents, and bloom like the great plum blossom of China.
Celebrate who you are … part of the great Lanao Chung Hua Family! And be real family to one another, my friends! Let your solidarity and communion grow and flourish, so that, as Psalm 133 promises us, the Lord will lavish blessings on us all, life for evermore!
Happy 69th Foundation Day! May God bless us all!
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