Miting de Avance Transcripts: Batch 2018 Council
Batch 2018 held its Miting de Avance last Friday, September 2 at the fourth floor auditorium. The program was hosted by Rome dela Cruz and Maded Batara III.
In case you missed anything, here are the transcripts from the Batch Council presentations.
Platform presentations
Ergo
David Malabanan (President):
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m David Malabanan, and I’m running for President.
Joshua Kim (Treasurer):
Hi, I’m Joshua Kim. I’m running for Batch Treasurer.
Markus Cruel (Auditor):
And I’m Markus Cruel, and I’m running for Auditor. And we are Ergo.
Malabanan:
So you might be wondering why we chose the name Ergo. Well, the funny reason why we chose it was because we wanted to have the tagline “we’re there for you,” because ‘ergo’ means ‘therefore’ in latin. But the real reason why we chose this is because we want to be the real cause for positive action in the batch where we want the school to have the more complete experience for students. And in not just studies, but in also humanities. But what exactly is our vision?
Cruel:
Some of us feel a bit strained by the science-oriented culture of the school, which is why we want to broaden your perspectives and show you that, you know, there’s more to life than just studying, than just science. So for SCALE, we want to have more activities, we want you to participate more, and we want you to feel that SCALE isn’t really a requirement, we want you to think of it as an opportunity to do things you haven’t done yet but you’ve always wanted to do.
Kim:
So our vision is, we want to establish that school is a place for individual growth as a person, and we understand that academics are difficult, but in the Specialization Years, we want to establish some sort of mental or social growth as people. So in light of that, we want to implement this with the new SCALE system implemented by Pisay for Grade 11 students.
Malabanan:
In terms of projects, one really big event I want to have planned or we want to have planned is a sportsfest because honestly, that is something we usually really have a lot of fun doing every year. In terms of organizing this, it’s still not completely fleshed out, and I would really like to have a poll for everyone in terms of what exactly you want to have in the sportsfest. And one other project I really want to have is a form of formal petition for the batch because right now, whenever I look at Twitter, I usually see a lot of people ranting and complaining online about problems with the admin. So what we want to do is gather most of the meaningful and important problems people have and also ask for solutions to them where we can formally file it to the admin so that they can really see it instead of just seeing it online and feeling bad about it.
Kim:
As we said earlier, we wanted to establish growth in different kinds of perspectives, and because of this, we want to implement this thing called SCALE Activities, and this will mostly be focusing on the S, Service. We want to establish outreaches or volunteer works in different aspects. We plan to coordinate with AKSIS, and they’ve done many outreaches in the past so we plan to coordinate with Gawad Kalinga, and A Habitat for Humanity. In terms of fundraisers, we have two major activities planned. A Sports Tournament for anyone to join, including parents or relatives, and the next one is a Bake Sale, and anyone who wants to cook or bake or advertise can join us in this Bake Sale.
Cruel:
For our final activities, we plan on having career talks. These are optional and anyone can join no matter what core you have. The reason for this is we haven’t really chosen the paths we want to take.
Kim:
Thank you for listening. We were Ergo.
Involve
Darren Carandang (President):
Hi guys. So, I just want you to raise your hands for this. Who here were Fair Comm members? Show of hands. Who here volunteered to be part of the Cashier Booth system. The ones that volunteered for more than three to six hours para lang ma-make sure na may magbabantay ng booth. I want you guys to know that because of all those hard work that we did as a batch, we were able to raise almost half a million pesos. Almost five hundred thousand pesos. And the only way we were able to get that money is that we worked as a team. We were actually unified as a batch, and we were all involved in making that success. For the Batch Council, we’re only five people. We can only do so much, and that is why we want you guys to be involved in making future projects, so that we can actually implement successful projects such as the Fair Comm.
Satomi Sugita (Vice President):
So one of our main plans of action is what we plan? the Self-led program. So, as we know, we have the SCALE requirement, which is a requirement for us to graduate at the end of our Pisay life. So the SCALE program involves having activities other the core strands, right? So the thing that we want to promote with the Self-led Program is that we will give you guys an opportunity to form activities, especially when you’re not so sure about how you can organize these things. So we will be opening ways for you guys to say what you guys want to learn, for Creativity and Action, and you will also be provided places and and a platform where you can share what you already know so you can add to your Service and Leadership points. So basically, how this will work is we’re going to be organizing it for you, while you guys can provide your services through it. So we want to make your life easier for SCALE. So one of our main committees that we will have under this is the Outreach one.
Karen Carvajal (Secretary):
Okay, so you heard from Sat that we also intend to have an Outreach Committee that will help students choose organizations aside from Pisay and serve there. Possible organizations are Gentle Hands, Gawad Kalinga, Philippine Animal Welfare and Society, and the like. These can also help in SCALE.
Filadelfo Diaz (Treasurer):
For our fundraisers, we’d like to introduce Trade Hub Pisay. In coordination with SCALE, especially the Creativity strand, we’d like to offer a venue for artisans and artisans in the making to showcase their products and sell it to the Pisay community. So basically, para siyang tiangge, pero yung nagbebenta, you guys. So we’re counting on you.
Juan Paulo Ortiz (Auditor):
So we plan to have a Batch Camp where you can have team building activities or learn life skills like cooking. I don’t know how to cook. And if you really want, just relax. We plan to have this in Bakasyunan Resort in Tanay, or Clear Water Philippines in Pampanga, or maybe just in Pisay. We plan to have this at the end of the year as a culminating activity for the entire batch.
Carandang:
Involve.
All:
One’s self, one’s batch, one’s community.
Carandang:
Thank you.
Individual Q&A
Auditor
The position you are running for was made possible by the new constitution. What challenges do you expect and how do you plan on tackling them?
Markus Cruel (Ergo):
So the Auditor is a new position, so I can’t really ask anyone for like help and guidance. But I honestly don’t really see it as a problem ’cause basically the Treasurer’s job was between the two, so I see it more as an opportunity to work with the Treasurer in making sure that the batch’s funds are spent properly and properly allocated.
Juan Paulo Ortiz (Involve):
The position of Auditor is tied to the Treasurer and (inaudible). One of the big problems I can foresee is making my presence felt by the council. So I plan to tackle this by working closely with the Treasurer and through these monthly reports of how the batch money is spent to you guys so you can comment or provide feedback on how we can best spend our budget.
Treasurer
You have an upcoming project and you are pressed for time. Would you look for a way to make a fundraiser or rely on the PTA to back you up?
Joshua Kim (Ergo):
Okay, so I’d like to answer this question with possibly another question. Why can’t we do both necessarily? So my primary goal, obviously, will be to make a fundraiser because I know there’s many different ways to raise money as a batch, especially since we have so many talented people. I’m sure through cooking, through so many different things we can raise money. However, I know that the PTA assistance can sometimes be very necessary in many situations, so my answer to this question would be a fundraiser in the beginning. However, we always have the PTA backbone to rely on.
Filadelfo Diaz (Involve):
My answer to this question would be to do both ’cause in life there are a lot of things we can’t really take into account when we make our plans and no plan survives contact with the enemy so we need to be prepared for every situation. The project is coming up, we need funds, so we need to access every option we have. Of course making a fundraiser is my primary goal since of course it’s what I can initiate with you guys as well, but if need be, we can resort to assistance from the PTA. Pero, as a Treasurer and as a Batch Council, we have to keep in mind that our plans must be executed as we envisioned it and not to allow the parents to interfere too much in what we want to happen.
Secretary
An issue has been brought up in the school community, and the student body is clamoring for an immediate solution to it. However, the time it will take to discuss and settle the issue with the admin is long enough that this is not possible. Many have started to criticize the council for their apparent lack of action. How should the council handle this situation?
Karen Carvajal (Involve):
So based on our platform, Involve, we want every one of you to take part in whatever the council is doing. We want to hear your suggestions, your comments about anything at all so hopefully you guys won’t have any criticism towards us, and if ever you feel like you still have concerns, you’re still free naman to talk to your Batch Council. We’re here to hear you out if ever we get elected.
Vice President
Cases of anxiety and frustration have been prevalent throughout Pisay recently. What will you do to address this issue?
Satomi Sugita (Involve):
So first of all, I’d like to say that this is a very touchy subject that we are facing right now, and that I can’t make any direct promises against it because it’s not fully in our power to do something about it. However, among our plans of actions, among our platform is the fact that we want to help you guys. We want to lessen the load that you guys are carrying because one of the main roots of these things is burnout, is the overworking we are facing. So we want to lessen the load, especially focusing on the SCALE factor. So we want to help you guys in developing your SCALE programs, in planning your events. That’s why we’re here. So, yeah, we just want to support you guys and let you know that you guys are carried.
President
What social issue are you passionate about and how does this play in your role as a student leader?
David Malabanan (Ergo):
The social issue that I’m really passionate about is primarily mental health. Since it’s really difficult to actually see when someone is having trouble with their mental state of mind, I would really just affect how I want people to actually be aware that there is help, that we’re actually willing to give help to the people when they most need it. Not necessarily getting them to change, but primarily making them trust us enough that we can actually provide help for them.
Darren Carandang (Involve):
I am a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights. Lesbians, gays, bisexual, transexuals. It’s already the 21st century, and it’s weird to think that we’re not accepting these members of our community. As a youth leader, I want to spread open-mindedness in the community, and in our plan, we want the batch to be involved in one’s community, and the only way we can achieve that is being open and being able to accept these members of our community. Thank you.
