"Aditako bokodan di gawis" = Let us share our blessings

SMSS Alumni and Friends Foundation
Opening Remarks and Report
March 5, 2005 Meeting
St. Luke and All Saints Mission Church
Union New Jersey

By Lambert Sagalla

Fellow SMS Alumni and Friends,

Thank you so much to each and every one of you for taking time to come to attend this St Mary's School, Sagada [SMSS] Alumni and Friends gathering. I know that most, if not all, of you had to forego some activity or activities in order to come and attend this meeting. Salasalamat tay pinateg yo nan invitation manang Inez ken dakayo. Wa-ay mo ammo yo en sak-en nan men in-inbital et egay kayo enmali.

I initiated the holding of this mini-SMSS Alumni and Friends gathering to ask for your help, to solicit your ideas or to seek your advice on what we, US based SMSS alumni and friends, can do to help sustain the current effort to rehabilitate SMSS. 

I reckoned that there was no better group to ask for help, to solicit ideas or to seek advice from, than SMSS alumni and friends. More so if the alumni and friends are fully appraised of what difficulties SMSS is currently experiencing and what efforts have already been implemented or planned to help keep SMSS continue its mission of dispensing quality education to our Sagada and other hinterland community folks .

So, the first part of the program, hopefully the shorter part, will consist of  informative reporting interspersed with a free-wheeling discussion on  recent developments in our alma mater; and some demonstrations of help options.  Hopefully, these will encourage each and every one of us to get involved, in one way or the other, to help avert closure of  SMS. I was particularly encouraged by the statement of my younger brother,  Jerry Abeya,  that Alumni and Friends are pregnant with ideas on how to help SMSS.  That all that is needed for Alumni and Friends to give birth to their pregnant ideas is a meeting such as this.

I will now start the first part of the program with a general overview of what has transpired in SMS during the last 5 years or so, its difficulties and steps taken to try and overcome these difficulties.

As most of you may have already been informed, SMSS had been subjected to extreme financial difficulties due mainly to:

• The proliferation of free public school education not only in the town and barrios of Sagada but also in most towns and barrios throughout the Cordillera Administrative Region or the old Mountain Provinces plus Abra, which constituted the main source of enrollees to St. Mary’s School in the past.
   
• The Autonomy agreement between the Episcopal Church of the United States [ECUSA] with the  Philippine Episcopal Church [PEC] which apparently stipulated a gradual reduction in ECUSA subsidy to PEC operations starting in 1990 and to end in 2007 when PEC will have attained full autonomy status.

Free public schools in Sagada itself and other former feeder communities for SMSS students drew significant would-be students of SMS resulting in a drastic reduction in SMS enrollment and consequently the tuition-fee-income flow to the school has significantly diminished. 

As PECUSA subsidy to PEC declined, so was the amount of subsidy from PEC to the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Philippines [EDNP], the administrator of SMSS.  

With the reduction in enrollment and EDNP subsidy, SMSS was forced to operate under a very lean or stringent  budget resulting in a pay scale for its faculty and other school employees which was inferior to that of  government public schools. This resulted in a deterioration in the quality of education dispensed by SMSS as reflected by the almost consistent mediocre performances of  SMS students in regional and national school examinations. Apparently, SMSS has not been a priority employment prospect for good school teachers and SMSS had to be contented with whoever school teacher was willing to accept the sub-par SMSS pay scale. 

With no viable solution in sight to the financial squeeze brought about by a drastically reduced enrollment and PEC subsidy, EDNP chose to seriously consider closing the school and floated that idea. Strong public resistance and encouraging initiatives undertaken by quite a number of SMS alumni and friends, to try and avert SMS from closing, seemed to have helped to keep SMS afloat during these difficult years.  

However, whether SMSS alumni and friends can sustain support to SMSS at a consistency and magnitude required to ensure continued operation of the School must  have been  an unresolved concern of EDNP. Consequently,  EDNP announced in 2003 that it will no longer be able to sustain operations of SMS beyond 2005.  

Cognizant of the educational, spiritual and socio-economic upliftment that SMS helped foster for our people in the past and still is capable of  fostering in the future, quite a number of spirited alumni and friends led by the late manong Frank Longid adamantly opposed any plans of closing the school.  

These SMS alumni and friends “die-hards” sincerely believe that St. Mary’s School can still be transformed into a source of quality education with strong emphasis on science and technology, tempered with the tenets of Christianity, such that:

• It can be an alternative source of education for students whose parents are primarily concerned about the quality of education that their children will receive and are willing to pay for it as proven in many quality schools in Baguio and Metro Manila such as Brent School, the International School, La Salle High School, UP High School, Montessori Schools, and others.
   
• It can be an institution that can foster the development of indigent but talented  indigenous students in hinterland communities through scholarships or grants incentives.
   
• It can be an institution that can share its resources/expertise with other schools [public or private]  towards providing quality education to Igorots and related people in hinterland communities of the Philippine Cordilleras.
   
• It can be an institution that will raise the bar of academic excellence not only in Sagada community but the entire Cordillera Administrative Region to the overall benefit of Igorots and related people.
   
• It can be an educational institution that will complement, not compete, with the Sagada National High School since it will target as its enrollment base the entire Cordillera Administrative Region of the Philippines and will not be confined to the Sagada Municipality.

At this juncture I am sure many of you are silently asking the question: is such transformation for St. Mary’s School even possible considering its current precarious financial situation as well as the growing stiff competition from public schools?  

They say that “ If there is a WILL there is a WAY “.  There are several meaning of “will” in the dictionary so lest some of us are confused of what is being referred here, we refer to that which indicate a deligent purposefulness or strong determination. Thanks to Kabunyan [the Almighty] there is such a  WILL and clear WAY in the quest to keep St. Mary’s School functioning.  

Perhaps, the late manong Frank Longid  epitomized the unyielding WILL of a legion of  SMS alumni and friends that it behooves us who have benefited much from the sacrifices of missionaries and strangers in building and maintaining St. Mary’s School for almost a century, to likewise do whatever it takes to keep St. Mary’s School functioning for those coming after us.   

We are grateful to the late manong Frank Longid for sharing significant amounts of his financial resources as well as valuable time to keep SMS functioning. But above all we are grateful for his unyielding conviction that SMS must live on, even in the face of a contagious depressing view that St. Mary’s School has outlived its usefulness and painful it maybe, we have to let it go. This depressing view was and still is shared by some respected individuals both in the private and public sectors, including some SMS alumni and PEC think tanks. So one could just imagine the WILL, the fortitude and mental toughness that manong Frank had to muster to counter such adverse assessments while rallying alumni and friends that closing SMS is not an option and never will. 

Kabunyan must have  looked with favor on what manong Frank  was earnestly trying to accomplish for his hinterland folks, for lo and behold another strong-willed individual in the person of  manong Rufino Bomasang came forth to team up with him to help transform SMSS back to its stature as a source of good quality education for Igorots and related people. 

Notwithstanding his responsibilities running a multi-billion corporation, the Philippine National Oil Exploration Company [PNOC-EC] as well as the duties of  a member of the board of directors/trustees for several colleges and corporations in the Metropolitan Manila area, manong Rufino found time for helping St. Mary’s School including registering and taking over the helms of  St. Mary’ School of Sagada, Inc.. Moreover, he assumed his SMSS responsibilities fully aware of the prognostications of  soothsayers that St. Mary’s School, Sagada is already history.  

Through his extensive corporate connections, manong Rufino was able to help generate financial and material support for SMS. The MEROS Book donation to SMS; the cost of renovating the bathrooms and several school rooms; and bringing the best science school teacher in the world to conduct a science workshop at SMS, among other things, were realized  through the efforts of manong Rufino.  The Chairman of the Board Update in the “Alumni Forum” page  of the “Save SMS Sagada Website [www.smssfoundation.com ] can give you a better accounting of the contributions and services that manong Rufino  has and still is doing for SMS. I urge everyone of you to visit our website. 

If a dream is the unconscious product of  a strong “WILL”,   another testament to the strong will of manong Rufino that SMS must continue its mission of dispensing good quality Christian education to our people,  is his “Impossible  Dream” which I had the privilege of reading from a private email.  According to this email which he entitled “Impossible Dream”, manong Rufino dreamed that he will be able to generate substantial financial support to SMS from his rich philanthropists friends in the oil industry and so he wanted to make sure that donations to SMS from U. S. based corporate and philanthropist donors will be tax deductible. Ilowalo tako ta men balin ay POSSIBLE nan impossible dream manong Rufino.  

Another “Intungin di Kabunyan” [another strong-willed individual] is Dr. Dennis Faustino. Indeed, birds of the same feathers flock together. A non-Episcopalian, Dr. Faustino opted to forego the comforts of living afforded by an affluent family and a distinguished position as assistant principal in an internationally recognized school in Metro Manila, to come to hinterland Sagada to help  St. Mary’s School survive its difficulties. Likewise, taking into consideration the fact that Dr. Faustino is fully aware of the quagmire that St. Mary’s School was and still is in, including the not-so-encouraging assessment of  not a few individuals  that SMS has nowhere to go but be relegated to the dustbin of history, I can not help but conclude that he is indeed a “God Send”, and that our alma mater, by divine intervention, will overcome its present difficulties.  

The 5-Year Development Plan that Dr. Dennis Faustino authored in consultation with the  faculty, alumni and key members of the Sagada community  may yet  prove to be his greatest single contribution to St. Mary’s School and the Igorots in general.  The 5-Year Development plan details the “WAY” in what we said earlier that “If there is a WILL, there is a WAY”.  It is a blue print for transforming St. Mary’s School into a source of good quality Christian education as we envisioned it to be. I have, therefore, included said  5-Year Development Plan as Annex A of this report. Thanks to Francis Killip who was kind enough to make copies of the report so that all of you may have a copy. If the copies are not enough, it is accessible in our website at: http://www.smssfoundation.com/5-year_plan1.htm . We will discuss parts of the report in the “Formation of Committees” portion of this business meeting later on.  

In the natural and Divine scheme of things, however, no matter the greatness of the “Frank Longid – Rufino Bomasang – Dennis Faustino triumvirate”,  they alone can not transform  St. Mary’ School to a cradle of good quality education that we all want it to be. They fully realize this and so they have been clamoring for some commitment from the Sagada Community, SMS alumni and friends and the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Philippines.  

And wonder of wonders, a legion of alumni and friends came out with cash donations, student sponsorships, book donations, computer and related equipment donations, science lab equipment donations, etc. in a collective effort to help sustain SMS operations. It would be a pleasure to mention the names of all of these kind hearted individuals one by one in this report but it will take maybe 30 minutes to do so as well as bore most of you to death. I tried, however, to enshrine their names for posterity by posting them in our website.  Please go to the Donations Update by manang Inez in the Save SMS Sagada website [http://www.smssfoundation.com/inez_saley.htm]  to see who these kind hearted donors are. Each donation/contribution no matter how small, is  essential to the transformation of  SMSS to a source of good quality Christian education. Rest assured also that these are fully documented by manang Inez in the records of SMSSAFF. 

The full impact of these efforts, however, on attaining self-sufficiency for St. Mary’s School has yet to be fully realized. The 5-Year Development Plan has yet to be fully implemented and needs time to prove its worth. In the meantime, we can not waver, we can not tarry in our efforts to help SMSS continue dispensing the same quality education, that have helped us become what we are now. This much we owe to those coming after us. 

Thus, to encourage more tax-deductible contributions, Philippines based SMS alumni and friends led by manong’s Frank and Rufino formed a non-profit corporation – St. Mary’s School of Sagada, Inc. or SMSSI for short – which has taken over the administration of St. Mary’s School. Following their Philippine-based counterparts, US-based alumni and friends likewise organized themselves into a public charity foundation [SMSS Alumni and Friends Foundation] and was able to obtain tax exemption under section 501 (c) of the U. S. Internal Revenue Code effective May 4, 2004.  For a more detailed narrative on how SMSSI and SMSAFF came about please access the following hyperlink: http://www.smssfoundation.com/by_lambert_sagalla.htm . 

I have included the Articles of Association and By-laws of SMSSAFF in this report as Annexes B and C. Again thanks to Francis Killip for making extra copies so that each of you can have copies. May I respectfully suggest that you  take time to read the same, prepare your comments, corrections and/or recommendation which we can discuss in a larger US nationwide SMS alumni and friends forum to be scheduled later. To the younger SMS alumni and friends, these materials can be valuable references should you want to form or get involved in the formation of similar non-profit organizations. I just hope and pray that some of your involvement will be for the benefit of our less fortunate brethren back in the Philippine Cordilleras. 

I took all the trouble of  trying to give as much information as possible on what alumni and friends are doing for  SMS in this report as well as in the “Save St Mary’s  School Sagada website” – www.smssfoundation.com . A primary purpose is  to show that there are SMS alumni and friends who are sacrificing for SMS in the hope that their sacrifices will somehow rub on to heretofore uninvolved alumni and friends.  An equally important second purpose is to show that we are not afraid of public scrutiny. We are for full disclosure and accountability thus, our books are open for anyone to see. A third but not the least important purpose is to convince prospective donors that their tax-deductible contributions/donations are for a people trying to help themselves; for an “honest-to-goodness” humanitarian endeavor.  

I tried to highlight as much as possible the accomplishments of manong Frank, manong Rufino and Dr. Dennis Faustino for SMS. The idea is to encourage alumni and friends to take advantage of  the deep reservoir of good will that manong Frank helped generate for SMS when he was still alive; and to take advantage of whatever lifetime the Good Lord is willing to share  manong Rufino and Dr. Dennis Faustino to the "Save SMSS" initiative. If we had our way, we could have asked the Almighty to allow manong Frank to stay awhile with manong Rufino and Dr. Faustino to continue leading the “Save SMSS crusade”.  But life is short. As I mentioned a number of times in this report, these individuals are “God Sends” for SMSS. Ay into kasin di mang-in-inapan tako es is-ison datona ay ipogao. With our support, albeit in the form of enthusiasm [such as our presence and prayers here this afternoon], we would be encouraging manong Rufino and Dr. Dennis Faustino to continue harnessing their connections, resources and/or expertise for the benefit of SMSS. 

May our meeting this afternoon, small it maybe, help keep the fire burning towards rescuing our distressed alma mater for future generations of our people. Ta adi ma-iyam-amis  wenno ma-oy-oyaw nan Igolot. Again, thank you all for coming. 

Lambert Sagalla