AHS '73 Fan Page (Arellano High School Class '73)

alcyon days of our high school life. We ventured into a new world of high hopes and expectations to find our future careers and build our own families. Most of us succeeded, a few even reached envious career highs, many became professionals, some went into businesses and many went overseas to work and ultimately chose to settle there. We got married, had children of our own and since then have worked hard to bring up our next generations’ future. We went on to educate our kids into becoming independent beings until such time that they were able to leave the comfortable nests that we have created and nurtured for them. After all these years, we have all matured, became semi-retired middle-aged former youngsters and are now left back on our own again. Now, it is time to return to our dream in reminiscence of our past glorious happy youth, searching for our former good friends and people who have defined our characters and personalities including those we failed to interact with during our past. We started longing to find and meet them again as we enter into the twilight of our life. We are extremely fortunate that our generation was blessed with the wonders of the Internet and
the Information Technology developments so that soon enough, a number of us managed to connect with each other again, initially through the Yahoo Messenger or YM application, then
through the now ubiquitous Facebook or FB. First contacts were made through YM in 2010 between batch-mates Benjie Laylo, Jun Maala, Emmanuel Asuncion, Celia Ocampo Factor, Rizalina Yambao Sulit, Ricardo ‘Ogie’ Vicente, Ruby Ignacio Vicente and our recently deceased batch-mate Chief Danilo ‘Dan’ Sulit and Captain Castor ‘Toots’ Olguera. A few of us already had FB accounts so the rest were also convinced to join FB. From then on, batch-mates started making contacts with each other’s and before we knew it, the group has already swollen to 150 towards the end of 2011. Most of the newly found batch-mates were even physically tracked down by the Ruby Ignacio Vicente, Erlinda Lim-ang, Ogie Vicente and German Gapac’s search team through their sheer tireless unyielding efforts. The Batch ’73 group was originally created by Dan Sulit in early 2010, although it included other members who were not from Batch ’73, so Ogie Vicente later on decided to create a Fan Page exclusively for Batch ’73 in support to Dan Sulit’s original Batch ’73 FB profile. There were initially some misunderstandings between Ogie and Dan but were later on treshed out amicably between the two of them. Consequently, a plan was hatched towards the end of November 2010 through a thread in FB for Batch ’73 to hold its very first class reunion on the 28th of December 2011, 38 years after graduating high school. A series of informal meetings cm bonding’s were then conducted by an initial small group of batch-mates led by Dan Sunlit every last Saturdays of the months at Cafe Bocobo, which culminated into a decision to form a temporary transitional Core Team, that will plan and organize the first Batch ’73 Class Reunion that was set for 28th of December 2011. It was further agreed that this temporary Core Team will be promptly replaced by the new set of officers that will be duly elected by our batch-mates present during the Reunion program. And so a full year of selfless, tiring and dedicated works and efforts were sacrificed by this ragtag team of dreamers to make this quest into a resounding reality. However, the first quarter of the year was dogged by some petty misunderstandings stirred up by a faction of batch-mates, who were insisting that the Temporary Transitional Core Team was illegal, thus creating a leadership crisis requiring an abrupt revamp on the composition of the Core Team. This was resolved when June Salas was unanimously appointed as Temporary President by everyone to steer Batch ’73 towards our dream of having the first Class Reunion after 38 years. The dream came true last December 28, 2011. It was aptly themed as “We Are One” in our fervent wish to convince the other faction to join us in this celebration of friendship and camaraderie amongst our batch-mates. The Reunion was a resounding success leaving the attendees wanting for more. The new set of now duly elected officers for the year 2012-2013 were sworn-in and installed during the Reunion program, as planned. In February 2012, our first duly elected president; German Gapac was declared the new President of Batch ’73, replacing Junel Salas in helming the group towards our 40th Year Ruby Anniversary Reunion on the 2nd of February 2013. The group is now known as “Samahang AHS Class ‘73”. In memory of our dearly departed batch-mates, we therefore dedicate the fulfillment of this dream, thus rekindling the glow of youth in all our hearts. God bless Samahang AHS Class ’73!