INTERNET NEWSLETTER OF THE ALUMNI OF LANAO CHUNG HUA SCHOOL
Vol. II - No. 28, October 26, 1998, Iligan City, Philippines

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Jone Raye C. Racines (Batch '96) won the championship in Class-B of the MaraTel Golf Tournament held at the Iligan Golf & Country Club. The tournament, the biggest so far with P200,000 worth of prizes in different categories, was held during the city fiesta celebration last Sept. 24-27.  Jone Raye, with a handicap of 13, romped off with an Astron Karaoke System and championship trophy as his prizes.  He is the son of Julius Racines (Batch '69) and currently an Information Systems (IS) student at the MSU-IIT.

New LCHS-AA members

Our congratulations and hearty welcome to the newly registered members of the LCHS Alumni Association: Janet L. Tan; Franzel O. Lee;  Lucille O. Lee; Igdono U. Caracho; and Ernesto L. Yu. Aside from those on the list, the Association also received a few other membership applications through our Internet Registration System. Confirmation of their membership, however, will be effected upon receipt of their remittance of membership dues.

Teaching the art of debate in LCHS

Rodolfo Paulin Yu (Batch '69) was one of the resource speakers and facilitators during the Communication Skills Development Course sponsored by the National Power Corporation, Ditucalan, Iligan City, last Sept. 21 to 25.  Rudy, as he is fondly called, spoke on Sentence Structure, Precise & Abstract Writing, Correspondence Skills, and Preparation of Reports. He is a Professor of English and Senior Staff Assistant, Office of the Chancellor of  MSU-IIT. He is the founder of the MSU-IIT Debating Club, now MSU-IIT Noble Debating Society (MINDS), which has garnered local, regional, national and international awards. He was an adjudicator in the Fourth Asian Intervarsity Debating Championships held at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in May 1997. As Chairperson of the Education Committee of the LCHS Alumni Association, Rudy envisions to train LCHS students to become competent debaters.  The family of the late Sy Chui Ling vda de Co, with Edwin and Robert Co as spokespersons, has been sponsoring the LCHS Debate Festivals since 1994, in coordination with MINDS. The 5th LCHS Debate Festival is scheduled in January 1999.

Different versions of Spectrum?
Sun, 18 Oct 1998 08:24:35 GMT

As a teacher of Geography, I find the materials in the Spectrum both enlightening and entertaining as well.  They offer a candid perspective of life at your place. Your newsletter is well worth reading and I often share it with my students.  What I'm curious about is: why is the Spectrum that we receive on our e-mail different from the version posted on your web site?

Fiona Mackay, Ixopo, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
mackay@iafrica.com

(Editors' Note: The Spectrum that is e-mailed to subscribers is the same in content as the website version.  The e-mail version, however, doesn't contain any picture because graphics attached to e-mails can prove burdensome to download. Photos in each issue are included in the webpage version posted on our alumni home page.)

The article "Magnificent Autumn, Mice and Moon Cakes" by Aurora Tansiokhian (Spectrum, Oct. 19, 1998) reads like a classic piece from the "Prose and Poetry" book of our school days. Magnificent! By reading it slowly, one is treated to a tour by the writer showcasing punctiliously the beauty of America's autumn. With colorful autumn leaves picture accompanying the article in the Spectrum Internet edition, the reader's imagination is left without lack. Coalesce this with a tinge of medieval Chinese mid-autumn tradition of passing mooncakes from home to home, the article brings our imagination to a even higher dimension. Bravo!

Rene Tio (Batch '70) Cagayan de Oro, Philippines
fishers@cdo.weblinq.com

By Ernesto L. Yu, M.D., Batch '65

Lately, all our stores of precious sweats, bank accounts and stock certificates are in red alert. We are packing our economic might and greed for things-beautiful for the 4-holidays-in-succession phase of the year: Halloween (Oct. 31) - pricey mask and costume, candies, parties; Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 26) - vacation, reunion, dinners; Christmas - gifts, gifts, parties; and New Year's eve - champagne, caviar, social functions. These can be financially draining depending upon how you direct your priorities and attitude. Notice the common denominator in all these festive madness - PARTY. Seemingly, American culture capitallizes on these no-work breaks, except Halloween night where only the hours after sunset are branded rest periods by witches and goblins. In between lapses of these godsent time-offs, we breed migraines and chip our spines in no-choice labor camps. And you wonder why we are a nation of headaches and citizens who can't shoot straight?

The insane bargains in the malls that are timed to detonate around this lively parade of gala events are demons of a different variety. They splash temptations to our bundled salaries and bonuses - the root reasons for our stooped stature and intracranial explosions - until we run out of steam, and thus be compelled to endure another rounds of nagging workplace torments just to reset the elasticity of our individual credit cards. Oh well, payroll monies are transiently moistened in savings institutions with the sole aim of being desiccated later in the pool of materialistic desires. Such is life. Besides, shopping is a crude course in math. It drills one's sense of fractions and percentages: If item one is $44 and the second is 35% off...

All these decades in Planet Buffalo, partly weaved in shop-till-you-drop-dead rituals, we hit the dawn in our lives when we are pretty jammed with bartered, ransacked, haggled merchandise items from pre and post-holiday sale spectacles. These used to glitter but are now mere pieces of sentiment-hollow memorabilias (Junk, in plain English!).  Now, if I can just bar Verna and the boys from scouting in their favorite heavens for more marked down knick knacks that dazzle their eyes, I can pump on the break to this "rumble in the flea markets" lunacy. And rest easy with all my auction-bound treasures from holidays past.

By Leonardo "Eddie" Tan, Batch '66

On August 20, with our rented Caravan, we traveled south to Miami, Florida. It was a 4-hour drive thru the Florida Turnpike. Almost all of my wife's relatives were now about to converge at the house of Aunt Vicky in the suburb of Hollywood. Uncles and aunts plus a number of cousins planed in from Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Chicago, Germany and Manila. Also a boyfriend and another male work mate were there. Relatives of Aunt Vicky's husband, Uncle Maning, would come from Hawaii and the Philippines with family friends from Vancouver, British Columbia. And there were eight of us from Australia. There was an air of excitement as it was more than a decade since we had that happy reunion. And this was because of cousin Joyce's wedding on the 23rd.  And those were very busy days for Aunt Vicky and Uncle Maning whose only child was about to walk down the aisle in a few days. She was on the phone most of the time as it never stopped ringing while he was constantly in the kitchen with never ending chore of dishwashing.

As we arrived for this grand affair, there was a threat of a very forceful gate crasher about to land in Florida as well. If she wouldn't change her course of action the wedding would have to be postponed and all our travel arrangements would be in disarray. The 110 mile per hour Hurricane Bonnie, which was just hovering over the east coast of Florida, was becoming a big worry.

After a week of simple living or eating in Orlando, with usually sandwiches or honey chicken on toothpick for lunch and McDonalds or 2-minute noodle packs for dinner, we arrived Miami with every meal a fiesta. Aunt Monina was the best cook of the clan and she presided over the kitchen. And surprise, surprise!  she is a vegetarian! At one time there were about 35 mouths to feed and it seemed that the dining table was never empty of people having their meal.  After our second day here, my wife was afraid that her new dress for the wedding might no longer fit. And I stopped worrying about my figure. It was just a hopeless battle of the bulge!

For me, I got a little bonus here. That was my meeting with our Spectrum's Dr. Do Little - my old friend Dr. Alex Rodriguez. He wasted no time in fetching us after being notified of our arrival. With my wife and her mother, Alex drove us to his magnificent house which was only about 20 minutes' drive away.  Luckily, his teenage son was also home. And we learned that he had a few hours of flying time already as a pilot!  I had a real talk with Alex and he revealed some of his inner feelings about life in America. He called again on our last day for another possible meeting, but unfortunately we had already decided to go "rolling and sliding" or shopping again. Hasta la vista, amigo!

A week of constant walking in Orlando was now substituted by non-stop chatting especially for the ladies. I thought my stay in Miami would be a relaxing one with early to bed and early to rise, which was not to be at Orlando. But I was wrong! Uncles Henry and Denny, with my brother-in-law Al, and myself had to recite alternatively: "3 sticks," "chao," "5 balls," "phoong!" and other classic mahjong lingo until the early hours of around two in the morning! And we really had some fun.

By Henry L. Yu, M.D.,  Batch '69

Stephen (Pin Pin) Sy - The only son of one of the taipans of Lian Hong Company. A very active member of the Student Council. I was a witness to his traumatic accident when he injured his chin on the iron hook of the volleyball net stand one afternoon during our P.E. class in 1965.
Teresita (Meh Meh) Siao - The daughter of Mr. Siao Chin Tin who owned Krisland Commercial along Juan Luna St. A consistent honor student, bespectacled, tall and slim, she was the barkada of Sio Tin Vy and Perla Yu. I was one of her wedding guests in 1970.
Sio Tin Vy - Another consistent honor student in Chinese class. She was a very active student leader.  The elder sister of Beng Hong and Sio Hua, and the younger sister of Sofia Vy (who was our teacher in Suan Sot).  They used to reside at the corner of Zamora and Roosevelt sts. before they moved to their San Cha Trading abode on Quezon Avenue.
Lalita (Chi Eng) Uy - The sister of Serio, Amang, and the late Poyang, et al. Known for her proficiency in Biology, also a member of the volleyball team, two classes ahead of me. They lived adjacent to the houses of Ang Han Tiong and Siao Chin Tin.
Lolita (Guat Ngo) Lua - She belonged to class 1968 in English, a barkada of Alex Handumon. She was into volleyball and dancing.  A sister of Lilia and Letecia (my classmate in Chinese).
Virginia (Bee Chin) Ngo - Team captain of  LCHS women's volleyball. Very active in sports, a leader in her own right. She frowned every time it rained because they could not practice for their volleyball game, and was always magnanimous when the team lost and won a game. She was the elder sister of Pablito (Pin Tok); they used to reside in Pala-o fronting Kim San Company.
Julius Racines - My classmate since Grade I in English.  Slim and dark, they lived near Kim San Company in Pala-o.  He was the scientist in our class, inventing something new all the time.  He was the brother of Gloricita, Teresita and Sherlita, etc.  (Continued next week)

By Alex S. Rodriguez, M.D., Batch '65

It always comes as a big surprise to anybody when a friend dies so suddenly, specially if such a person is young and an athlete. How about that American track and field Olympic gold medalist Joyner Griffith or a certain boxer, both of whom passed away suddenly? Unbelievable yet it's true. It took sometime for medical scientists to find another common cause, which is Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.

Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle. The heart loses its ability to pump blood and, in some instances, heart rhythm is disturbed, leading to irregular heartbeats, or arrhythmias. Usually, the exact cause of the muscle damage is never found. Cardiomyopathy differs from many other heart disorders in a couple of ways. First, it is fairly uncommon, affecting 50,000 Americans. However, the condition is a leading reason for heart transplantation. Second, unlike many other forms of heart disease that affect middle age and older persons, cardiomyopathy can, and often does, occur in the young. The condition tends to be progressive and sometimes worsens fairly quick.

There are various types of cardiomyopathy but for our purposes, we will only deal with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, otherwise known also as hypertrophic subaortic stenosis (IHSS), assymetrical septal hypertrophy (ASH), or hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM).

In hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the growth and arrangement of muscle fibers is abnormal, leading to thickened heart walls. The greatest thickening tends to occur in the left ventricle (the heart's main pumping chamber), especially in the septum, the wall that separates the left and right ventricles. The thickening reduces the size of the pumping chamber and obstructs the blood flow. It also prevents the heart from properly relaxing between beats and so filling with blood.  Eventually, this limits the pumping action.  Recent research shows that, in more than half of the cases, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy arises from a genetic abnormality transmitted by one or both parents. Most of the remaining cases are idiopathic (unknown cause), having no identifiable cause. Because of the strong genetic link, patient's family members often are evaluated for signs of the disease.  (Continued next issue)

Sitting alone on a bench at the university, I looked around for familiar faces. I suddenly longed to see the faces that I have almost memorized in high school. Those were the faces that helped me to carry on and give all my best. Those were the faces that stood by me during my quarter exams, smiled and cheered for me at the contests in which I took part, and shared with me the happiest times I ever had in high school. Those unforgettable faces belong to my ever-loving, ever-supportive, and ever-listening classmates and friends at Oro Christian Grace School (OCGS). Next to my family, they were the ones who helped me become who I am today.

Reminiscing my school days at OCGS made me realize that what I've had during my stay at my alma mater can never be replaced or forgotten. My school has not only given me the academic preparation for college but it has given me wonderful memories that will stay forever in my heart.

Oro Christian Grace School was founded on September 29, 1986. It started out as a small school located at Tomas Saco Street in Cagayan de Oro, the same place where the Cagayan Gospel Church is located. Only few Chinese and non-Chinese little boys and girls made up the pioneering batch of this school. Most were children of the Church's members, who were the school's supporters and founders. Then, by God's loving grace and bountiful blessings, the school eventually expanded and started building a bigger school in Macasandig area. The school then offered high school level as the years passed. Its students are taught about God and His unconditional love for us. Its focus is not particularly on religion itself but on molding the children according to God's principles.  (Continued next week)

(EDITORS' NOTES: Cherry Ann Co is a second year Arts & Science student at Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro City.  She was a consistent valedictorian in high school. She is the eldest daughter of Giovanni Co, Batch '71, who is now based in C de O, where he owns and manages the Conan's Bakeshoppe together with his wife, Rose.)

This section takes our readers on a trip back in time.  "Flashback" is a review of our life and times at LCHS as captured and immortalized in the photo archives of LCHS alumni. More of these rare photos are available under "Vintage Photos" on our alumni home page: http://www.iligan.com/~lchs/alumni