March 2002 Letters

Last updated: March 27, 2002

Monday, March 27, 2002

Garie (are you the same Gabriel Pimentel who was my classmate in elementary?) - Congrats indeed are in order to Rene Edward E. Samonte! i was shocked, though, to learn that Rene Catalan has passed on. When? He and i were both swimmers around 1968-1971, if memory serves.

Ed de Guzman - i purchased my family's plane tickets for our trip to Toronto in August (08/07-08/21). What is the weather like there around that time? Thanks nga pala. Your info about the weather in Chicago was right on, and i was appropriately dressed (and frozen). Hope i get a chance to meet with you, Percival Pena, Jun Dadivas, and other Bosconians while i am there.

Jojie Ranola - Ano ang nagyari sa iyo? i was waiting for your call in February, but none came. Hope you are ok.

Regards na lang to the rest of you guys.

Yours in Don Bosco,

- ernie (peralta)

Monday, March 25, 2002 at 15:57:06

Letter from: Garie Pimentel

Message: Congratulations to Rene Samonte's son, Rene Edward E. Samonte who will graduate Valedictorian of Don Bosco Makati High School Class of 2002 on Sunday.

Also, in the same class, Reneeko Angelo A. Catalan, the son of our late classmate, Rene Catalan, is Outstanding Auxilium.

March 25, 2002

Bago ang lahat, please accept my apologies for the delayed posting of your precious emails. My computer crashed last Wednesday and it wasn't until Saturday that I realized I had a virus. Kaya pala unstable ang aking system. I should have known better. I didn't think it was possible until I realized that my son was using my computer for his homework.

Anyway, I'm still not up to speed. I still have to load my programs and I've got a backlog of work to do. So I just hand-coded these latest entries from Glen, Melvin, Ed and Willy. I'll fix these entries when I get things in order.

I also got a call from Glen last Friday (all the way from Florida). Salamat sa tawag pareng Glen. Para kaming bata at naghabulan ng kwento. One of these days we US-based Bosconians should have a major reunion.

Raoul

March 21

Glen,

How are you? Thanks for the e-mail. I already sent the class picture on the website for posting. Any of you guys are planning of coming to Manila just let me know!

regards to everyone,

melvin

raoul,

have you receive the pictures?

regards,

melvin

Pasensya sa delay. Eto na ang picture. In case hindi mo na sila kilala, from L to R: Tony Mapile, Rey DelaRosa and Glen Santayana --- Raoul

From: santayanadesign
To: Tony Mapile
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 5:04 AM
Subject: Hello from Florida

Hello Tony,

It was great to hear from you on our web. I just sent our pic in '97 to Raoul Pascual for posting. This was when Ray, you and myself met at a Japanese restaurant. Can't wait to see our class photo 4A from Melvin.

Hope all is well with you, Rowena and family. God bless.

Glen

Can you post this message on the website from one of our batch mate (Grade school 1970)?

Genaro (Gene) Ventura did not complete Bosko HS. He went to Philippine Science HS, and graduated in UP (tama ba Gene?). Now he is in Australia.

Thanks.

Ed F. de Guzman
IT Professional
ITS, Kodak Canada, Inc.
KNET/KMX 223-3397
ed.deguzman@kodak.com

Ed,

Apologies for this late reply. It was a long time since I last viewed my personal emails.

I remember when we last bumped in Assumption. Good that you've moved your family to Canada. It'll take an incurable optimist to stay in the Phils if one had the option to go elsewhere. I have recently moved the family too to Australia and just starting to settle in. So I don't really get in touch with any Don Bosco alumnus. However, I seem to be in our batch's mailing list as I recognised some classmates name.

Did you say Nestor was your student? in DB? He is actually also here in Oz, in Sydney. Been here since 1989. (I am in Port Macquarie which is 500km north of Sydney.) Fidel is in the Phils, still a bachelor, and works as commercial attache at the British Consulate.

Ed, good luck to you and your family and I hope you share some of your graces to your folks in the Philippines.

Regards,

Gene A. Ventura (genaro_ventura@bigpond.com)

Alex Fernandez visit to US

His father will undergo a by-pass operation and he will tend to his father for two weeks. You can get in touch with him through his cellphone (with international roaming), no. of which is +639189102624.

Let us all pray for a successful operation for Alex's father.

Best regards and God bless!!!

Boyet

Two Letters

First Letter

From: Tony (Gaudencio) Mapile - MDA@edgeworthcorp.com
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 1:07 PM
Subject: Class Picture

I don't know if you remember Ding alias 'Robot' Mapile. Learned from Ray De La Rosa about this web site and saw a lot of our past. I will try to get in touch with the rest through email. If you have a copy of our class picture, it would be great to see that on the site. Just for added info, I've been married for 19 years to my wonderful wife, Rowena and have two beautiful kids, Monica and Austin, 10 and 6 yrs old.

Please keep me posted with any upcoming events. Thanks!

Second Letter

Sat, 16 Mar 2002

From: Melvin Ananca - mkaj1914@msn.com

Ding,

Of course I know you very well. How are you? Thanks for the e-mail. Yes I am now preparing our class picture and I will be sending them to the circa '74 website. Where are you based now? I and my family are still based here in Manila and I do attend the gatherings here, if I have the time.

Regards to your family and lets keep our communication lines open.

Melvin

March 13, 2002

Raoul,

Okay, I was able to acccess the website. Thanks. Nice work you've made, makes us closer to our batchmates even though we are busy and far away from each other .

You cannot remember me, as i was the shy and quiet type during our high school days. I have still have all my class pictures from first to fourth year hs and I will be sending them to you later. My sections were
1-D, 2-A, 3-A and 4-A.Anyway, I am still based in Manila and I do attend the gatherings here, if i have time.

I saw myself at the website, go to event photo gallery, the picture concerning jubilation registration(first picture-group picture), the guy with eyeglass wearing light blue t-shirt and blue pants(right side), thats me, okay!

Thats all for now and regards to all our batchmates there in the big apple.

Melvin Ananca

March 11, 2002

I have contacted Mon. Bobby Canlas and he agreed to sponsor the induction of the new batch of Circa 74 officers at the Shrine of Jesus Parish Church located at the Reclamation Area, EDSA, Pasay City. No definite date is set yet but he said that such activity will be done on a regular day after office hours (7:00 PM) the week after Holy Week or early April, 2002.

The new set of officers is as follows;

Willy V. Tobias (4E/PC) - President
Alex Fernandez (4A) - Vice
Charlie Fernando (4C) - Secretary
Edgar Ramirez (4B) - Treasurer
Pamboy Macasieb (4C) - PRO
Tony Asis (4C) - Auditor
Milky Evangelista (4A) - GRO
Mon Bobby Canlas (4E/PC) - Spiritual Adviser

The induction will be "built-in" the Holy Mass after which a simple dinner will be served. Mon. Bobby would like to know tentatively how many will be attending for his dinner reservation.

Let us all thank God for giving Mon. Bobby to us and let us all pray that he remains pious and charitable all the days of his priestly life. Let us also pray for our new set of officers that they may be able to keep the flames of brotherhood of Circa 74 burning and "staying alive!!!".

Thank you very much and keep up the good work.

Willy "Boyet" Tobias

Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002
Raoul, Remember the cartoons you published in Spark on our our graduation year? This is the story of the Time machine wherein Mr. Wilson was the lead actor. Do you still have a copy of it? Can you post it on the web site?

Thanks. Ed

First Response
Yeah I think about that often. Especially the first one of "Capitan Power" but I lost all my mementos back in the Phil. I placed them in our bodega where the termites ate them all up. The "Capitan Power" was circulated even outside our classroom and ended up with Parazo who refused to return it. Perhpas someone out there has a copy of the newletter and will be kind enough to send it over. I'll post this in the web so this request will reach the others. --- Raoul

Continued response
This brings up a flood of memories. I remember working on that comic in our living room. I was inspired to make that after reading a comic collection of Li'l Abner. We used to call Pangan "Power" because he never took a bath. The comic book was called "Capitan Power" with Pangan as the hero. He was created from a pile of basura that caused a chemical reaction. I made one page of the comic book showed it to Nani Roxas and somehow I got a very good response. I remember people asking when the next episode was going to come out. Encouraged I whipped up one page each day. Always introducing a new character (one of our classmates as a super hero) and ending with a cliff hanger. It was difficult because I had to create those stories on top of our regular homework. I actually made two versions of that. The first one was stolen by God Knows who. The second was stolen by Parrazo.

"The Time Machine" was the title of the comic strip you're talking about which was published in "Spark." That comic strip was about Mr. Wilson. our Physics teacher, who built a time machine from junk he collected from the shop. He travels to a future age where there are no men. The population is added not by human reproduction but by a machine called the "Stork." Wilson falls in love with (I believe her name is) Mrs. Maristella who is as big as Mr. Vispac. Mr. Wilson builds a weight reducing machine and Mrs. Maristella turns into this sexy chick. However, in the process he ruins the Stork Reproducing machine and the machine explodes. With no hope for procreation as they know it, the all-woman population turns to lone Mr. Wilson to father their children. Wilson escapes back to his time machine but ends up in Pre-Historic times. The End.

Father Evangelista was so much against publishing it but Jorge Hernandez, the editor, was adamant in publishing it or he vowed to resign. To make this long story short, it was published anyway. It was the first comic strip to be published by the Salesians. Again if any one has a copy of any of the comic strips I would greatly appreciate the contribution. Thanks Ed for the reminder.--- Raoul

March 2, 2002

Raoul,

I have just uploaded a zip file named Bomb Farm.zip containing three pictures. Those pictures were taken on the flight deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) during support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I had the chance to dedicate two of those laser guided smart bombs for our batch "Don Bosco Manda HS Batch '74." I hope you can read the writing on it. They were dropped in Afghanistan on the bad guys -Talibans. "Fighting for world peace one bad guy at a time." You might come up with a better caption for it. Thanks and let me know if it uploaded successfully.

Ed

Click here to view the pictures.

March 1, 2002

Do you know this guy? Hey - that's me. Shot taken during our short port call in Bahrain, UAE during a break from Operation Enduring Freedom.

You all take care. OK

Ed Fune

Click here for February 2002 letters