SYP Elections: Batch 2018 Miting de Avance Transcript

The Science Scholar
Aug 26, 2017 · 11 min read
LIT Party presenting their General Plan of Action. Photo taken by Thomas Balete.

Batch 2018 held its Miting de Avance last Friday, August 25, 2017 at the back lobby of the Science and Humanities building. The program was hosted by Javo Pacheco and Maegan Rodriguez from The Science Scholar.

Below are the transcripts of the Miting de Avance in case you missed it:

Candidate Q&A

Auditor:

Updating your batch on the state of your funds is important. How do you plan to be more transparent with how you spend the batch funds?

Jaime Ferrer (LIT):

So, actually, in previous cases, in previous school years, I have not seen an instance of our batch funds being displayed publicly. I think, for one, it’s important to lay a budget for whatever we plan on doing. But the thing is that, with our party, we’ve acknowledged the fact that we’re not going to spend as much. So we will lay a budget down, and of course we should also keep you up to date with it, with exactly how we’re spending it. And the way that we’re gonna do that is probably post it on Facebook. Not in the sense that, like, look at all our funds in all its externity but probably, what’s sensitive is probably going to be emitted, and siguro naman we’ll keep track of what the important funds are — oh my god, I didn’t think of this beforehand.

Maded Batara (UNLAD):

Since transparency is a critical part of the platform of UNLAD, we want you all to know how much your funds are, and where do they go. So that’s why we want to take a spreadsheet so you can keep track of the inflows and the outflows of our funds — where exactly does it go, so that you know that our funds are being spent on the activities that you want to do. Thank you.

Treasurer

How do you plan to manage your funds after graduation?

Dale Diaz (UNLAD):

Thank you for that wonderful question. The easy answer to this question is that it’s in our platform, the laying down for the foundations of the alumni council. Passing all our funds to the future councils is the key part of what we need to do. So, I think the best answer here is how I plan to manage it is to set up a good foundation for the alumni council, set up a good foundation on how they should operate, especially with regards to funds. That’s basically it. Thank you.

Secretary

Secretaries would perhaps bear the brunt of administrative duties. What qualities do you have that would make you an excellent secretary?

JV Macaspac (UNLAD):

So, we all know that a secretary basically takes minutes, takes notes of all the updates that’s happening in the batch, but we should also know that the secretary has his/her own voice. A secretary can also give suggestions, help with planning, and the like. So, with those duties for the administration, I think that I can take down all the notes, all the updates, and also provide good feedback, good insight on our plans so that our plans, as a batch, will be fun and appreciated. Thank you.

Patrick Alipor (LIT):

Pardon me for speaking in Taglish. I think it’s a given na importante sa lahat ng secretary na maging magaling siyang listener, okay? Pero dapat, pinahahalagahan natin yung saan ba tayo nakikinig? Because yung secretary focuses on the council; nakikinig siya sa council, nakikinig siya sa meetings, nakikinig siya sa kung anumang pinapag-usapan during the meetings ng mga council and administrative thing. Pero kailangan din natin as secretaries na makinig sa mga people kasi ang nawawala satin ngayon, as a student council, ay detached yung council at yung mga students, yung batch natin mismo. So yun yung kailangan as secretaries, na magkaroon pa tayong isang tenga para sa ating mga batchmates. Because kailangan natin, as secretaries, na marepresent yung voices nila doon sa meeting as council. Thank you very much.

Vice President

What do you think your batch has to offer to the school community? How will you help make the batch relevant?

Aaron Dela Cruz (UNLAD):

Alright. So, being the pioneer batch in the K-12 curriculum, we have gone through a lot of things. We’ve gone through a lot of changes. We’ve seen lot of things come and go. And I think this experience, this unique experience gives us something that the other batches might not have. As the eldest batch, we have to be the seniors. We have to be the kuyas and ates of the school. From simple things like picking up litter, we have to tell them to do this and do that, to giving tips like STR, academics, and even more deeper into life. We, as a batch, we have to open up more for the lower years. We have to give more of us to them and as a batch, I think through the SYP system especially, we can do this hand in hand with other batches. Thank you.

President

Batch 2018 has had their ups and downs over the past six years. Although you are now graduating this year, many have just grown exhausted. What concrete plans do you have to boost the batch morale and maintain a high level of enthusiasm at least until the graduation?

Agnes Robang (LIT):

I think for most of us, what’s been keeping us together and what’s been keeping us pushing forward is the people around us. So, my concrete plans to boost the batch morale are to enhance the unity and make sure that we also help each other in this last stretch, in this last push and we make sure that each of us is doing our best. So, my concrete plans are reminding each other of what we’ve been through this past six years so we’re gonna have times that we’re gonna look back at, specifically the grade 7 year. And then we’re gonna think about, we’re gonna remind ourselves about our friends and we’re gonna get together and we’re gonna boost each other’s morale. So, these unifying activities include our LITrams, they include our Human LIbrary where you can talk to each other again, they include our SCALE Matcher where you can be randomly matched with people and be reminded of how good friends you are with them again. So, to summarize, my concrete plan is to boost morale through boosting each other up and by turning our batch together again, stronger.

UNLAD Party discussing for the open forum. Photo taken by Thomas Balete.

Open Forum

Question:

For the treasurer, diba magkakaroon tayo ng grad ball nga since graduating na tayo… I didn’t hear any fundraisers ata for ano other than one. So, I don’t think that will be enough, ano pa yung pwedeng maging activities pa para makapagraise ng fund for the batch?

Dale Diaz (UNLAD Treasurer):

Usually for the grad ball naman and the yearbook, we collect from the parents and the students ’cause to create fundraisers that can make that much money, we have to do another activity on the scale of fair. So far, we have a large amount of batch funds pa naman, above 400k, so that’s a good pondo na. Pero of course, we’re not going to tap into that for paying for expenses on grad ball and yearbook. As stated, yun nga, we collect from you, so there’s not much need to get more fundraisers. However, if you have ideas, and if you want the batch to be in a more financially stable state, since right now we have a lot of concerns. Mas malaking concern nga yung SCALE, sinabay ko na lang siya with our SCALE and fundraising together. If you want more, just tell us, and we’ll find a way to address your concerns, kaso right now we are very financially stable.

Question:

This is actually for both parties because both of them have nicely planned activities but I wanted to ask you if there were anything like concrete timelines for when each activity will be implemented, for each party.

Jaime Ferrer (LIT Auditor):

We did not make a concrete timeline but the way that we’ve planned things is that maybe we could relate it to our SPoA, I wish we could present it right now but we don’t have it on us. We’d like to start with the SCALE Matcher ’cause it’s the start of the year, so the people who are behind in SCALE can catch up. And then throughout the year, we would like to hold our mini fundraisers. The funds that will come from those fundraisers will be used evenly through little proportions to fund our projects like the LITrams. I guess our culminating activity for this school year will be the time capsule, seeing as how it would be a nice send off for our batch and at the end of the year we put the time capsule together. So if I were to put it in sequential order para mas concrete, SCALE Matcher followed by the Human Library, LITrams, fundraisers, and then throughout the year we’ll be working on the legacy project, and finally, the time capsule.

Aaron Dela Cruz (UNLAD Vice President):

Based on our platform, we’ll focus on SCALE progress and as our platform does focus on creating a better environment for students, I think that most of our activities go towards the end of the year, except those that go on throughout the year like the SCALE Tinder so we need to finish that by third quarter. For the sports fest, campfire, I think they lean towards the end of the year. By the end of third quarter, we will mostly have a schedule or timeline for the activities.

Question:

To both parties, how do you feel right now about the lack of attendance in the Miting De Avance? Related to the participation you’ll have in your projects, where are you gonna get them? If people won’t come to the Miting De Avance, how will they appreciate your projects?

Maded Batara (UNLAD Auditor):

So as we mentioned a while ago, most of our activities are small-scale and also oriented towards SCALE. So, since a lot of our batchmates do want to finish their SCALE, I think that our activities cater to the people who need to finish SCALE. I don’t think the attendance right now in the Miting De Avance is respresentative of participation. And since in our platform, most of our plans are voluntary to the people who want to join, I actually applaud the people who came here because I know that they do want to see a good batch council this year so good job, guys. But, as we mentioned, our activities are catered toward the people who want to finish their SCALE or who want a good cap off ng school year, stuff like that.

Patrick Alipor (LIT Secretary):

So, yung mga projects naman na gagawin ng LIT dito sa ating batch ay nagrerequire naman yun ng minimal effort. So, I think all the students can participate. Di naman sila uupo or di naman sila mahahassle yung mga gagawin natin throughout the school year. And you can see naman na respresented here na tayong mga students may iba-iba tayong priorities: yung mga nagsports, yung mga nagreresearch. So, I guess hindi naman kailangan na sila yung pumunta sa amin and as batch council, dapat tayo pumunta sa kanila. So, yun yung gusto maging mindset na we want to reach out to them, di vice versa.

Question:

My personal visions for the batch is that we become deep into science so that we become researchers, entrepreneurs, science communicators, or those who serve the country and advocate the importance of science, although I’m very much aware that not everyone is interested to do so. But I’m very sure that we’re indebted to the Philippines that at least we should work for the country. For both parties, how will you convince us to serve the country? And if convincing isn’t the best method, I’ll appreciate another method.

Agnes Robang (LIT President):

If regards to what we’d be doing after Pisay, we believe that it isn’t right to convince people or force people to enter science and stay in the Philippines because it is really difficult. So instead, we’re going to try to strengthen the bond to make sure that after we graduate Pisay, if ever people want to turn to science, if ever they need a collaborator in their work, if they need a job or internship, if they have an idea and they need someone to be a mechanical engineer, or like some IT person, the batch 2018 community is there to help them, there to support them and there to be with them all the way.

Dale Diaz (UNLAD Treasurer):

Since the effects are what she’s really looking at, our return service after we graduate is what she’s getting at, the alumni council will be very in line with this goal of trying to convince us to return our service, to help our Filipino people once again. And even if she mentioned that we are in different fields or we go different paths in this world, we’re still part of one scientific STEM and aside from that, one Pisay community. And I think if we excel in our fields, I think Pisay is still has a culture of service and giving back and us leaders, we try to embody this willingness to serve. So, I hope that our service will inspire you and I hope that with the activities we plan on giving you and the alumni council, it can give you this service to our country.

Question:

I wanted to ask both parties, given the new house system, how do you guys plan to work with the 2019 elected council?

JV Macaspac (UNLAD Secretary):

Well, first, we have been telling you that we are the UNLAD SYP council, so that means that we are under the same party which is UNLAD, and also we have plans that link together like the SCALE Tinder and all those. So, I think being under the same party already implies that we will be working together. So, I think that we have planned well and we’ll keep planning to recap with their batch and meet again.

Agnes Robang (LIT President):

So, LIT is in alliance with LAHI and in meetings with LAHI, we discuss that if ever we will work together in the future, our council will meet with their council on a monthly basis. And we will also have quarterly meetings, it depends on how many projects we have and how frequent, and how many things we have to work on. We’re going to have our open forum so we’re gonna present what we did or our next plan, and these are not required batch congresses, so you can come and go and it is open to both 2018 and 2019. One of our three pillars is link, which is to encourage the operation between grade 11 and 12 batches, and it is our project to make a 2017–2018 SYP group and directory because 2019, they have this large directory wherein everyone has a number and email, and it also has the contact numbers of many admins and teachers. So, if we collaborate with them and make a larger directory, it will be really helpful especially for the classes wherein you have to contact people from the other batch. And we also have other planned project together which is the SCALE Matcher, where you can match with other 2019 as well. If you both are interested in baking or something like that, you can both work together in that SCALE. And our other planned project if we plan to work together is the LITrams. So, our unconventional intrams is divided into two parts, where the first one is we’re combined, we’re mixed 2018 and 2019 so that we can know them better on a conventional level. And the other is where we get to play strange games with each other as a batch to bond.

)
The Science Scholar

Written by

PSHS-MC’s official English publication. Views are representative of the entire paper.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade