LCHS Alumni Scholarship Fund Drive On
By Johnny T. Chen (Batch '83)

The LCHS Alumni Association has launched its Scholarship Fund Drive anew.  The campaign is to raise more funds to enable the Association to grant scholarship to deserving LCHS students who cannot afford the high school tuition fees.  The grant may be in the form of full or 50% free tuition.  All-out efforts are being exerted by alumni officers to tap all possible sources of contribution.  They also express their appeal to LCHS alumni who are abroad or away from Iligan to help support the scholarship project.  Any amount will be appreciated.  Donations may be made payable to the "LCHS Alumni Association."

Out of town alumni are also enjoined to attend this year's homecoming and Christmas party on Dec. 30.  The party will start at 6:30 p.m., at the LCHS auditorium.  Former LCHS teachers are also being invited to grace the occasion as special guests.  Their presence is expected to enliven and add more meaning to the affair.  Many attractive prizes are now being prepared to be given away to the lucky raffle winners.  Raffle tickets are priced at only P100 apiece.

LCHS Alumni Join CEC Faculty

Kho Siok Uy, LCHS alumna and former LCHS teacher, is now a high-ranking administrative official of Cebu Eastern College.  She is also a teacher of the CEC Chinese department. Siok Uy taught Chinese elementary grades at LCHS in the 60s.  Her father, Kho Pit Yong, was a principal of LCHS, while her mother was one of the pioneer LCHS teachers.  Siok Uy is the sister of Luis Kho Chik Tee, LCHS Alumni Association treasurer.

Another LCHS alumna, Sio Hua Vy-Tan (Batch '70), has also joined the CEC faculty.  She is teaching Chinese elementary grades at CEC and the Bethany Christian School as well.  She was a consistent honor student in her days at LCHS. She is married to Truman Tan of Cebu City.

Class '68 Reunion Dec. 15
By Teresita Racines (Batch '67)

The LCHS Chinese Class of 1968 will hold a reunion on Dec. 15, at 8:00 p.m., at the residence of Richard Lim.  It will be a pot-luck dinner and members of the batch will bring a dish each to the party.  The members of this batch are Felipe Lim, Vy Beng Hong, Jose Lim, Constantino "Jonas" Sy, Terry Racines, Betty Bernardo, Cynthia Choa Tan, Carolina Dy, Gloricita Racines, among others.

Dunkin' Donuts now in Iligan

Dunkin' Donuts opened its new branch in Iligan City on Dec. 8, 1997.  It is located at the ground floor of the new Abalos Building in front of Loy's Pharmacy, Quezon Avenue.  Its opening was preceded by a motorcade around the city.  The store is open 24 hours daily.
 

I enjoyed reading Ernie Yu's ticklish drama in the operating room.  You should be writing more of this stuff  because it perks up one's mood from sentimental journey to the Loola Down Under and the latest happenings in Iligan.

I always look forward to receiving the LCHS Spectrum every week.  It's becoming more and more lively to read just like "Sak-Sak Sinagol."  I often locked myself in my office to be able to grin, smile, laugh and silently ponder about the good old days...alone.

Alexander S. Rodriguez, (Batch '65), M.D., Florida, U.S.A.
 

Three Former LCHS Mentors now Residing in Manila

Remember the ever-smiling Tung Tin Shen whom we fondly called "Superman"?  Or Mr. So Tek Hai who was our teacher, basketball coach and bandmaster?  Or Mr. John "Lao Kiat" Liu, the amiable Mandarin-speaking teacher of our Chinese high school in the early 60's?

They are all doing fine.  Mr. Tung now lives in Manila with his wife, with whom he has four daughters and a son.  He is teaching Chinese language at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.  Mr. So is the tall and jolly teacher we called So-sian.  He taught General Sciences, Math and History at the LCHS Chinese high school department in the 60's.  He now resides in Manila.  Mr. Liu, whom we featured in our June 23, 1997 issue, is the director of St. Peter the Apostle School in Paco, Metro Manila.  He also lives in Manila with his wife and three children.

Of late, shopping centers are the bustling nuclei of every cityscape contaminated with the Yuletide virus, the destination sites of rabid Christmas mob.  Store hours are typically stretched to the maximum sanctioned by the union teamsters.  Floods of gift ideas are stunningly unveiled in every square foot of the swarmed, money-gobbling boutiques.   Where snaking wheezily and rubbing elbows along jammed mall traffic is but a norm that can handily precipitate schizoid reaction among borderline psychopath. Cheery carols and jingling mistletoes are infectious echoes of the pomp and festive air that insidiously hypnotize dazed consumers to zap the ultimate cents of their credit lines.  And you are puzzled by a generic variety of blue Christmas?  This is the spastic financial chaos weeks after all the gossamer illusions and marketing hype of the holiday season evaporate.  A sediment of one's intoxicating Christian faith that imprudently strained the tensile strength of credit cards.

What are bankruptcy courts and psychiatrists for?

The other night, Hannah, my six-year-old daughter, asked me what Christmas was like during our time.  Did we also have Santa Claus?  Did we also have a Christmas party in our class and the exchanging of gifts?  Were there also carolers?  And a litany of queries typical of kids her age plus that glow of innocence and simplicity.  Then I remember my very own childhood thirty nine years ago (in 1958 when I was myself six years old) asking more or less the same questions to my papa.

So, what was Christmas like during our time?  Those Christmases of our youth when we were kids back in the city of Iligan in the 50s and 60s...

Looking back to the Christmases past, I can say that the Yuletide season of our time as compared to today's new gen hyperkinetic kids is more or less similar, if not the same, in terms of traditions, frolics, decors, carols, etc.  But ours then was definitely simpler in many ways.

In the Philippines, one knows it's soon gonna be Christmas Season because as early as SeptemBER (or when the calendar month ends with a BER), one already hears Christmas carols being spun in radio station via our battery-operated AM radios.  The stores would start selling Christmas ornaments, cards, and other items relevant to the season.  In fact, it is onli in da pilipins where the longest Christmas is celebrated.  And that's one tradition we have not outgrown no matter how old we have become now.  Listening to Christmas songs as interpreted by Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, the Ray Coniffs, etc., always makes me feel excited, haunting and reminding us of our era when we were that innocent, believing in Santa Claus with all our hearts; when receiving be-ribboned gifts from our ninongs and ninangs made us feel excited no end; when decorating our classrooms with colorful crepe paper gave us a certain kind of high; and all those memories of the Christmases we knew in our time.  But, hey, that's getting ahead of the story.  For now, let us all settle in our chair, keep quiet, and listen intently to the story about Christmas in our time--in the tradition of Lola Basyang, remember?

Once upon a time in 1959, there lived a kid who went to Lanao Chinese High School as a grade one pupil.  He was 7 years old.  It was Christmas time in the city.  Yuletide carols reverberated around the neighborhood stores like Hamilton's, Manila Baratillo, the jukebox of Tan's Refreshment Parlor, and DXIC, spinning "Silver Bells", "O, Holy Night", etc.  There were also children caroling with accompanying tambourines made of soft drink lata or crown as well as adults from different groups singing the traditional "kasayda ning takna-a dapit sa kahimayaan..."  The store owners usually gave candies or coins to the kids, while a sealed envelop with cash inside was given to the adult groups.  Some carolers would bring with them the rondalla, guitar, accordion, harmonica, etc. to add glitter to their caroling visits.

This 7-year-old kid was so full of excitement specially when they would start decorating their classroom on the last Saturday of November. He had real fun coming to school on Saturday afternoon to wrap those green crepe paper, which they've cut and curled, around the Christmas tree which they got from Bayug.  They put cotton and hang decors, cards, and other colorful trimmings on the tree.  They also connected those long crepe paper in different colors from end to end of the classroom walls appearing like a cabaret with a big red bell of the accordion-type hanging from the center of the ceiling.  Other classes would come up with other innovations such as the broom splashed with hardened, white, beaten Perla soap.  After the decorating session, this kid, together with his classmates, would rush to a nearby store for a snack of maruya and Coke.  Others would settle for boiled mais.

By 5:00 p.m. he was home to their grocery to help watch the store either by entertaining customers, or wrapping candies for sale, or stamping those complimentary calendars with the store's name, or simply watching people by the sidewalk.  Apples were sold at 0.25 centavos each, a bar of Cadbury chocolate was pegged at 0.75; Hoc Shiu leg ham was selling at P30 per kilo (as compared to today's P280 per).  There were lots of toys, candies, chocolates, for sale. Peak season was a day or two before the classes held their parties, usually on a Friday afternoon, a week before Christmas.

EDITORS' NOTE: Leonardo "Loloy" Tan is on leave.  His column will resume in January 1998.
 

Does anyone have memories on that shanty student canteen named '5 & 10 Store' or 'Sinko Diyes Store'? This was the little store in front of LCHS owned by my parents, more so by my Ma.

1957 was a year of catastrophes in Iligan.  This was the time of big drought that lasted eight to ten months, drying up crops, denuding coconut trees bald and the agricultural production just ground to a halt. The city had become a virtual oven. And, in May of the same year, a big fire hit the city. Lack of water, early afternoon heat, contributed to the worst fire in the city's history, burning almost the entire city to the ground. These events had affected the entire city population.

Our family became refugees in few minutes' time. The fire started just a stone's throw away from our house, and because the houses then were built of light wooden materials, due to the dry spell, they just crackled as they burned, and some burning pieces got blown by the wind to our four storey house. Our parents' foremost action was to bring all seven of us children to the street, no time to pack, leaving all valuables and savings behind. The banks must not be that popular then for safekeeping. The fire raged whole afternoon till it consumed what it could burn in the city.

The next thing I knew, we were evacuated to a relative, Eyay Jo Cu's family, in Manticao. Quite far in those times with narrow and rough roads, we arrived there by nightfall.  Scantily clothed, most of us children cried, out of shock and fear, hunger mixed with air in the stomach. This would become our shelter for the months to come.

Unknown by many during the fire, with wit and courage, my Ma was able to go up again and recovered her secret savings, bills that she rolled and taped under the dresser, her bed, and other hideouts. It did not take long, finally our house burned to the ground, and everything was gloom and over. What a relief it must have been to my Pa, when my Ma told him her secret. There was hope for the family! Lo, with her savings we were able to construct a new house, fronting the old Lanao Chinese High School at Roosevelt Extension. What a joy! Living in a brand new house in five or six months' time after the fire! And, with the excess construction materials, with the hope of augmenting the earning capacity of the family because of poor coconut harvest, a store was built beside the house, which was named by my parents, plainly-- "Sinko Diyes Store". (Continued next issue)