Chua Tek An is LFCCCI President

Christopher Chua Tek An (Batch '56) is this year's president of the Lanao Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LFCCCI).  The other chamber officers are Sy Chu Pin, vice president; Henry Dy, 1st vice president; Jimmy Co, 2nd vice president; Johnny Sim, treasurer; Stephen Sy, secretary (English); Jose Lim Teck Hua, secretary (Chinese); Henry Siao, PRO; Robert Co, asst. PRO.  Heads of committees are Arturo Samson, general services; Fernando Khu, assistant, general services; Sy Chu An, auditor and arbitration; Stephen Gaisano Jr., assistant auditor and arbitration; Francisco Dy Pico, social welfare; and Sy Bing Tee, assistant, social welfare.

More Firms Invade Iligan

More service firms are flocking to Iligan City.  Among them are two broadcast companies, one of which is the GV Broadcasting.  Both have applied for permits to operate FM radio stations.

The city government, however, is encouraging the establishment of AM stations as there are now plenty of FM stations in the city.  Iligan has seven FM stations but only one AM station, DXIC. The three other AM stations have ceased operations, namely DXWG, DXRI, and DXMI. Meanwhile, the Super Cat passenger ferry is also interested to service the port of Iligan soon. The National Marine Container, a cargo shipping company, has also recently opened its branch in Iligan.

CDO-Iligan Airport Ready by 2001

The Laguindingan airport along the Cagayan de Oro-Iligan Corridor (CIC) is scheduled to be operational by the year 2001.  This was disclosed in a report by Sol Ante,  economist of the University of Asia and Pacific (UA&P).   The future airport, located in Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental, will ensure a reliable 24-hour service and accommodate A-300s and other wide-bodied aircraft.  The Korean government has pledged a soft loan of US$25 million for the project.
 

Regarding election of officers for the LCHS Alumni Association, can we try it via the Internet? After all, we dedicate this service for the benefit LCHS alumni "globally".

Vinson T. Ngo, Batch '83, Iligan, Philippines

Interesting but Text-Heavy
From: maclin@mozcom.com
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 00:25:51 -0800

I'm amazed at how your writers can remember facts from way, way back in time. I found the stories interesting although I am sure that if I was an alumna, I would have found them more titillating as they would probably have evoked familiar memories for me.  The newsletter, however, is quite text-heavy, as such, I suggest that you increase the font size, reduce the margin, resize the columns, add graphics, whatever it takes to break up the large blocks of text.

Well, that's it. Other than that, I'd say "congratulations". You certainly are going places in the net!

Melanie T. Lim, editor, The Philippine Toastmaster, Cebu, Philippines

Hym Hym the Chessmaster
From: mtvland@geocities.com
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 19:18:01 -0800

After reading the article about Hym Hym (Ong Ching An) in the Nov. 24, 1997 issue of the Spectrum, I would like to add a few highlights of his achievements as a top-caliber chess player.

It was in the sixties when we graduated from high school in LCHS and transferred to Cebu to study (we were classmates then).  A national chess tournament was held in Cebu for the first time.  Hym Hym participated in the tournament.  He was the youngest participant. In that tournament he was able to beat Florencio Campomanes, who at that time was the president of the national chess association, and who later on became the international president of FIDE (world chess federation) for 2 consecutive years in the nineties.  In that same tournament Hym Hym also brought to a draw in a match with Eugene Torre, who was then the national champion. After the tournament, he became the object of admiration by chess enthusiasts all over Cebu.  Mathias Aznar, owner of the Southwestern University, had his driver fetch Hym Hym during Sundays just to play with him in his house.  And at that time, Hym Hym was only 16 years old.  A few years later, a Russian grandmaster came to Cebu and held a simultaneous game with 40 players.  Hym Hym was one of the very few who were able to draw with him.  During our time, we called him the "Chessmaster of LCHS", and I believe he truly deserved the title.

Nelson Sy, Batch '62, Cebu, Philippines
 

By all measures, anesthesiologists are specialists who, in their nurturing phases, were molded to be meticulous and amusing.  Immersing an ill patient in a state of monitored coma with tranquilizing and sensory-numbing intravenous agents as well as potentially lethal vapors warrants a keen awareness of details.  After all, the teeny-weeny thread that dangles the pumping dynamics of a sedated heart can readily detach within a minute or two if a clinical miscue is left to grind its disastrous climax.  Luckily, this critical complication translates roughly in 1:250,000 operations in the United States, an incidence way inferior to the odd of choking in a vehicular mishap.  Logically, if your basic physiology is alarmingly disarrayed prior to your trip to the operating table, your statistical score will obviously narrow down to the "farewell-earth" scale.  The other personality profile (the bubbly half) of an anesthesiologist is his being a sane professional who injects humor as inherently natural as dosing a soul to la-la land.  Hence, here are some real-life dramas from my being a gas-passer by birthright.

"Doc, are you going to let me count backward from one hundred?"  Mrs. Smith calmly queried. "Nope," I countered, "since you are a math teacher, I have to give you algebra equations." Then, she tossed a disturbing question that jerked my heart to skip, "What will you do if I accidentally wake up in the middle of the procedure?" "You mean while the surgical team still actively swings the scalpel and retractors?" I verified.  And without waiting for her to compose a reply, I blurted out, "You'll get a 50% discount!". "Final inquiry, Dr. Yu: What happens if you put me down too deep that I never wake up?" she mumbled in a concerned voice. "Trust me, this will never occur. How would I get paid?".

A trademark of mine as I attempt to silence a patient's maniacal neurons is to hum.  On one occasion, I was airing out a catchy tune when our operating nurse amplified, "Sing it, Ernie. Give the melody a life."  "I can't, I was warned before that humming is the only way I can reverberate music without an accent," I responded with a chuckle.

And there was this geriatric man who pinned all his miseries to his spouse.  "This is all her wrongdoing.  She compelled me to have this hernia resected.  To start with, my discomfort stemmed from her monotonous nagging to set out the massive garbage can every Monday morning, to swing the heavy laundry basket into our room everyday, and other back-breaking do-this-do-that. To top it all, she doesn't fix me breakfast; she just loves to hit the shopping malls and bingo social..."  "Pardon me, sir," I interrupted in an apologetic tone his litany of emotional fury, "I need to call my wife. Your story is driving me homesick."

These samples of anecdotal tales exemplify how I mask the grim sameness of my daily rituals, to stage a paradise for adrenaline junkies, with a garnish of stern caution and an ample pinch of laughters. I will never trade places with a pathologist. He may amass a hefty nest egg out of minuscule slices of breast tissues (droplets, if silicone-fed), but to be snared in a cliffhanger deliberating if the autopsy specimen grasped your punch line is just not my cup of tea.  How about portraying the surgeon's role?  To borrow a quote from a colleague: "Surgeons are the blood, we are the brain."  Or, at least, we perfuse oxygenated nutrients to snoring cells. Other than ours.
 

My earliest impressions of Christmas were the picture of Santa Claus on the sleigh pulled by a handful of reindeers on a snowy night, or the Christmas tree at home where the green crepe paper on the branches were overlaid with white cotton to simulate snow.  And, of course, there was this very popular song by Bing Crosby, "White Christmas".  All my life, I always thought about yuletide season as a period with snow and cold winter nights.  Until my first Christmas here in Sydney.

Being in the southern hemisphere, Australia officially starts its warm summer season on the first day of December and ends on the last day of February.  Christmas Day is usually a very hot day or even a heat wave, sometimes even bush fires rage on in some forests or national parks. I had to re-orient my mind that Christmas here is not associated with cold and snow, but it is a yuletide season under fire!  Our summer solstice here is on December 22!

I may even join a group of people here who annually celebrate Christmas in the middle of July when we are in the deep of our winter and we have snow in the mountains.  This particular group observes Christmas with everything in the tradition like the X'mas tree, the gift giving and even a visit from Santa Claus, except on the wrong date but on the correct winter season!

After a few weeks as a bank officer, I was excited to attend my first Christmas party in the bank among all the rank and file.  A few days before, each one of us had to draw a name of a co-worker from a box and then had to prepare a present for that co-worker with a minimum amount set.  I thought this was a better system than an outright exchange of gifts which may prove unsuitable to the surprised recipient.

The party was held the Friday before Christmas after our banking hours.  We were told that day to discard our corporate attire and report to work wearing something with red and white.  Luckily, I had my Hawaiian polo shirt with large fiery, bold, and red flowers and a pair of white trousers which were my Aloha Temple Shriner's informal parade uniform.  That day many of my customers thought I was really a genuine Hawaiian.

There were beers, some liquors and soft drinks plus biscuits and some sandwiches with prawn cocktails.  I thought this was just the entree, but I was wrong!  That was it!?!  Where was the lechon?  I did not stay long for the party.  This was not a conducive place for me, a middle-aged family man.  After a few drinks, those single men and women would have another agenda in their minds to satisfy their other needs.

Christmas here is really a silent night affair.  No firecrackers!  No house to house carolling either!  Christmas eve is usually celebrated among family members while the New Year's eve is a bigger gathering with the addition of friends.  Christmas carols are usually confined to the shopping malls and the public parks around the many suburbs.  And the New Year is greeted with a multi-million dollar spectacular display of fireworks which lasts for about half an hour at the harbour with the Sydney Harbour Bridge as its centerpiece.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year! (End of the series)
 

There were two ways to enter the auditorium--one was through the left side near the faculty room, and another one was via the main facade where the bigger main entrance was.  As one entered the auditorium, one would immediately notice the framed pictures of the MIB (not Men in Black, but Men in the Board, as in board of trustees).  They occupied the upper portion of the wall.  There was a large mirror on the right as one entered thru the faculty room.  This big mirror often came in handy for teachers to catch students cheating during periodical exams at the auditorium.  There was another passageway right after the location of the mirror.  As one got out of that passageway, one noticed the faucet nearby.  That was where we drank water direct from the tap specially during ball games like basketball, volleyball, etc.

In line with the faucet was the back portion of the graders' classrooms which was lined with tall gumamelas serving as fence and divider between the classrooms and the volleyball court.  Turning to the left was the path to the library which was located too high up on the second floor of the auditorium building.  As one proceeded along this path, he passed by the school canteen which was manned on rotation basis by the Chinese faculty.

As one proceeded further walking on this road, he reached the two-storey high school building which was colored cream and maroon.  The first year and fourth year classrooms were on the first floor.  The second floor was for the second and third year students.  The same floor also housed the quarters of female Chinese teachers.

In front of the high school building was the huge mango tree with so many mysterious and ghost stories behind it through the years.  The historic mango tree stood on the same area where we had the swing, the slides, and other playground amenities of our time.  To the left of the high school building was the dining hall of the faculty staff and the kitchen nearby, the vegetable gardens as back portion of the kindergarten classroom, the grade I and grade II classrooms.  Facing the grade I and II classrooms was the three-step split-level stairs leading forward to the road towards the entrance gate with the laboratory on the left side continuing to the spacious open air playground surrounded by tall pine trees and the right as the basketball court.  The school bus garage was located on the left side in line with the playground.

So there you are, my colleagues, you have just traveled along this sentimental journey back to the LCHS of our youth.  I hope that with this description of the LCHS that we knew, somehow, you were back in your younger days momentarily in dreamland, reminiscing and wishing you were that young again...For now, LCHS has transferred to its new location in Pala-o.  Very soon the new generation students will have their own memories built in this new site, just as we had ours in the LCHS that we were in once upon a time, in our youth, in our era, where a truckload of memories lingers on as time goes by, forever imprinted in our minds.

Jokes from the Internet: The Van Gogh Family of the Philippines
Grand uncle who was tortured during World War II:  Na Lahti Gogh
In-law who is serving time in Muntinlupa:  Vinny Lang Gogh
The olympian athlete niece:  Reddy Ghetzett Gogh
Overstaying relative in America:  Tagoh Nang Tah Gogh
Smelly relative:  Ahyaw Ma Lee Gogh
The Van Gogh family favorite Pinoy talk Show:  Showbiz Lin Gogh
The sister who likes dancing in bars:  Ah Go Gogh
The cousin who moved to Illinois: Chicah Gogh
The niece who lives in Mexico:  Amee Gogh
Those who don't get these jokes:  Ma Nga Ga Gogh
Those who don't like these jokes at all:   Please Gogh