Bookdrive

My my, this is turning out to be quite a healthy and colorful discussion, no? This post is a compilation of all that's been happening in our yahoo groups. Everything started when Jim wrote this to the groups:

hey! what this? a non-forwarded message??? what is the world coming to???

Remember the days when posting a yahoo groups message was the norm? I might have had beeper 150 too, but I don't remember as much

Anyway anyway anyway, what brings me here is to announce our plans to have a bookdrive.

I know.
I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking "who are you?"

well, i'm jim, your high school batchmate!

Now you're thinking "what the hell do you want, mr someone who hasnt kept in touch with me"

Well, because it has been brought to my attention that jubilee's library has no books (well they have, just not enough to be actually called a library), we decided to have a bookdrive in order to raise books so that our younger brothers can have something to read aside from the old crappy encyclopedias we used to read before.

But before we suggest this fantabulous idea to the jubilee admin office, we felt that its important to get support from you guys first because we want to make it a batch thing.

That's right, we're all batchmates... ahhhh i can see you're all starting to remember now, a minute from now we'll all be singing "thank you, friend"

well, reply one and all and let me knw if this cause is important enough for you guys so i can decide if i want to go home or not (yes, im actually not in the philippines right now).

Or talk to Glenn and Wilson or go to the 13 blog, where laughter and
happiness abound.

if you want to get in touch with me... my email and ym is true_love5484@yahoo.com .... say hello, flirt with me a little if you want..

anyway, thats it for me...

y'all take care... i miss you all

except for you stevenson, i dont miss you at all hee

Chika responded positively, so did Jirbie, although we suspect that her affirmation was about the flirting thing.

Erwin then retorted with this profound statement:

No offense to anyone... but i came to realize the evils of Jubilee...

And posted another one which went:

I realized that what I said a while ago is not Ok... so here is an alternate and in my point of view better and a more helpful and beneficial suggestion to your idea, Jim. :D.

I think that Jubilee has more than enough and they can support themselves IF they WANT to. I think the more worthy to give help to are the public schools. Try going to any public school, look at the poor kids. I think it would be more helpful if we help these people. They are the ones who really need our help. I'm sure they will
appreciate whatever we can give, even old text books and encyclopedia will definitely and surely help them.

What do you think? :D

Mariane also voiced her opinion:

Hey peeps. Bigla ako napareply....

Anyways, as much as I think the earlier suggestion was really cool,
I would have to agree with Erwin that if Jubilee really wanted to upgrade
the library, it could, and that if we would really want to help,
that public schools might have a greater need. Hehehe, just a thought.
Anyways, it's a fabulous idea to do this to help other people :D

And as expected, Jim responded with:

Oh no! my evil plan to corrupt young minds with the gift of better literature has been foiled!

Everyone got surprised when Eug posted his sound arguments (kudos!):

might as well reply hehe...

As much as i like erwin's alternative suggestion..i would want to stick with the
idea of further enhacing JCA's library..for the following reasons:

1.) If we are to start this bookdrive..let's not be too ambitious in trying to start it off on a school that we totally have no influence on..at least sa Jubilee..kahit konti naman cguro meron tayo d b?

2.) It's true that JCA may have the capability to support itself..but having been there we should know that they lack the initiative to do something about the problems of the library..maybe our actions would be something that would appeal to the senses of the admin to do something about its problems

3.) Lastly, a lot of us will be very busy after some time..some because of work..others because of something else..(by the way congrats to those who just graduated last march) so why don't we just spare ourselves a little less time in looking for other school's problems when we have one right in front of us.

That's all for now, take care everyone and God bless

Now comes Necisto's reply. Classy. It went:

better give to unfortunate people. Most of the jubilee people are well of anyways. Come to think of it, how many Jubilee students go there to do research? I'll
just support the poor kids cramping into a small classroom.

Sab followed with an obscure reply:

The Center for Peace Education in Miriam College just posted a message that Students from Patikur, Sulu are in need of reference materials. Well, from my view point, it would really be "better" if we could help public schools instead.
I believe that raising funds for the library of Jubilee is the responsibility of the School and the JCAPA.

Sabb

From Stip:

is stibog a member of this yahoo group? hehe di ata... baka walang
nakaalala mag invite... buti nga si jim naalala nya eh... hehehehe
naalala lang nya... pero d nya naalala iiinvite... hehe or baka
nainvite den... d ko alam.. hehehe

Jim finally got fed up with all the irrational alternatives:

okay, this is just silly now. If you think that public schools need books, no one's disagreeing. if you prefer giving to public schools, then thats fine too.
however y'all are missing this

we're talking about our alma mater. this isnt just a case of choosing whether to give to a middle class kid or to a really poor kid, because in that line of thought, then jubilee would never get anything.. ever. someone will always need more than jubileans will, but that doesnt mean we cant give back to our school. i hear that's what people who graduated there do.

so if you want to do something charitable, then cool, lets do that too.. but what i was saying was to do something for our school... but then again, im not even in the freakin country, so what the hell do i know

I then started to explain our initiatives. I chose not to be too vocal about it first:

Hello.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted something, seeing as being candidly vocal about telling the truth equates to public persecution. Nevertheless…

My friend, my friend, please explain to us the idea behind the necessity of doing this proposed bookdrive project instead for the poor, because a paragraph of word salad wouldn’t be enough of an argument to justify a batch-wide project. Be reminded that we are talking about making a batch project that will be specific, practical, and sustainable.

Providing those deprived kids the learning resources is such a novel idea, I really do think so. I really do. But it’s too broad of a project for the batch to manage. Why not address a need that we could easily reach? So I agree with Eug and Jim. We never really appreciated our library because we never had good books to begin with.

Now what about the thing on responsibility? It’s as much of a responsibility for the school and to the parents association as for concerned alumni. I’m afraid that sounds utilitarian, devoid of human empathy. I wouldn’t just leave jubilee behind after she cared for me for oh so long.

We are consulting the different sectors of the school community, like the students, the teachers, the head honchos, the parents, and of course, us.

-Glenn

And the mother of all replies, and from a business managment savant no less:

"planning is key babe, planning is key..."

Jeco replied, in three parts, taking the matter to the preparation phase:

kunin na muna natin yung mga required books nila, i'm sure people will back this project up if we give them something more specific i.e. quantities, and categories of books that they need. Can somebody over in Manila do this? si Ms. Singan naman madali lang kausapin e. Then we can offer this up to our batchmates and our contacts and just post the list of requirements para may pang-check tayo.

Anson Tan, the alumni association president (for the past X number of years) is here in Canada, kasama ko sa simbahan (WHAT THE FUCK???!!! SI JECO NAGSISIMBA???!!!!) anyway i'll talk to him on Sunday about this para mas legitimate and mas marami tayong maitutulong.

-----

The thing with jubilee now isn't indigenous to our school alone, it's the lack of money and the lack of teachers because of the low salary, they really have bad teachers ngayon hehehe. The whole CE department left including pastor Sia hehehe. Si Paul lang naiwan, that's a sign of something bad na e no? Christian Education teachers leaving a Christian school and society to look for work in Muslim country hehehehe. Religion doesn't pay unless it's coupled with violence hahahaha.

Anyway I do encourage fresh grads to try teaching there kasi kailangan nila ng decent na teachers (ang dali sabihin e no?) When i get back yun yung una kong balak gawin, although governemnt policy disallows part-time teachers, i heard na the case can be altered when it comes to jubilee with a little negotiation (godfather style sana para mas masaya).

-----

sorry ang daming messages na, as for helping the poor, honestly guys, those acts of benevolence might be better if we really could commit to the project, otherwise masasayang lang. If we really "REALLY" want to help then let's warm-up with something we can plan, execute, monitor, and evaluate with ease before we undertake some other altruistic act. So i think the Jubilee thing works well as a good first step. let's get the list muna ng kailangan na books then let's see how we perform, after such then tingnan natin kung kaya ba natin tong gawing sustainable.

So game? we really need somebody to go to jubilee and get an initial needs analysis muna.

Cha followed with her affirmation:

All of us know that the number of times we entered the Jubilee library can be counted with our fingers and for the diligent ones, their toes included... and we CANNOT deny the fact that there IS a scarcity of books in the library due to well, probably the non-need of the high school students to look into books since well, there was the internet to turn to every time we cram our research papers...

But 4 years in college has taught me (all of us, i must assume) that the need to look into books as references for papers and projects just so the professor can take it as legitimate... A book drive for jubilee could actually be beneficial as even if the new building boasts of new facilities like speech labs and science labs (that they actually use) the library oh, the educational resource center pala... remains small and bare. I agree that the people in our school don't read much but this book drive might give the students a push towards the right direction. Going to college before discovering that libraries really exist isn't something that we can be proud of.. so why don't we start helping them now? by providing the students with more books and more options for their readings, we might actually grow a number of readers...

The project within jubilee may seems small and irrelevant after all, as some may say and point out, the JCAPA has the money and the means to expand it. The problem here is that it's not their priority. And we might as well make it ours...

For the alternative suggestion that we should just do the book drive for a public school, its not a bad idea. But I agree with the people who say that this is something quite large and for the meantime unmanageable for us. Let's take a look at it this way, if we donate our books to them, we cannot even make sure if the people actually have the capacity to read and make use of the things that we are going to donate. Not to go against the public school system, but there are a lot of students there who do not know how to read even if they are in high school, the books then we are going to donate will simply go to waste...

Maybe someday, if we have more means we can create a learn-to-read program for them instead of just giving them books in the hope that they might learn to read and get a job at the nearby call center...

-Cha-

Also Karaine:

hey..!! nabuhay si karaine! heheeh;p

anywys. it has come to my senses..i have been out of our batch's circle for a million years now.. haha;p

nice to hear from all of you.. and replying to jim's suggestion..! its a brilliant idea! it really is.. well, i have noticed that problem when i visited jubilee for the past few years na umuuwi ako sa christmas time.. the library is just bare(haha! yes, i went into the library when i visited!).. well, it needed some books.. really.. so i think what you guys are planning is excellent.. as much as i want to help, im overseas.. but maybe i can.. and id be happy to!

kayalang, food for thought, medyo broad nga ung project na to! and i think its not so much the idea of having more books in the library..its actually getting the students used to the fact that research is needed in doing assignments and referencing and stuff.. (unlike how i did it before.. literally print stuff from online encyclopedias..!!) so we hav to not only donate books but kind of hav to work with teachers in the school.. i mean, this may also improve skills of students specially in english and all.. coz i got news.. legit source.. that jubilee had a high
percentage of first year ateneo students not passing the college english level..

thats my thought..hehe;p update me on whats happening.. miss you all!!! looking forward to reunion!heheh

karaine

As of post time, the last thread ended with Wil's summary:

Well said Charissa. When Glenn and I first thought of doing something for the library after visiting Jubilee (the Dona Hemady branch), we never saw it as a charity case. As much as I would like to help the needy, its also about time that put our acts together and do something for our school (This coming from somebody who has a
massive messianic complex). Thats when we talked to the other members of the 13 about it namely Jimson, Jeco and Eugene. We saw it as an opportunity to correct a deficiency in our alma mater's system, not as something to just plainly do while bored and get as many books as we can and dump it to jubilee. Ginawa naman natin basurahan ang jubilee kapag ganon. Also, its so pathetic for us to do nothing to
correct a deficiency, especially now that we have the power and resources to actually do it.

While many of you showed doubts on to why jubilee can't produce a better educational resource center (doubts aren't necessarily a bad thing though), how many of us know the real score about Jubilee's finances? Or better yet, how many of us know how much Jubilee's tuition is this coming school year without asking your shobe/shoti/mommy that are still connected to Jubilee? I'm sure Dr. Coyukiat and Ms. Singian aren't blind to the situation of the library. There must be a reason.

Now many of you also ask, why the library? As said earlier by Glenn, Jeco and Cha, its a feasible idea. Plain and simple. Better than suggestions from other people that we interact with jubilee kids. Also, as all of you may know now, learning doesn't stop in the four corners of our classroom. There's a wealth of knowledge hidden
beyond classrooom discussions and textbook reading. This is what a good library can afford to its visitors. It is also our dream that this be the start of a culture of reading and critical scholarship amongst our young brothers and sisters in jubilee. Only a fool would deny children the opportunity to read a good book. We are inviting
you to be part of this dream.

Isn't it also a great idea that the first thing the batch did after getting their degrees from reputable universities is to create a bookdrive? How many batches can claim they did that for their alma mater? Btw, it would make a perfect gift for Jubilee since it is her 40th birthday. Now that is a good plan, "babe" heeeeheee.