Editorial

A fisherman’s housewife living at the shoreline of Bgy Osmenia on the outskirts of the poblacion  says her husband’s daily catch from Mambulao Bay is no longer enough to bring enough food for the table. She has to help him by selling banana cue to augment their daily income. – MWBuzz by AP Hernandez

Relevance to the community

THESE days, the name of the game is relevance.

Play it a bit harder and this boils down to one of being relevant to the society.

And if we are to bring this closer to home, it is simply being relevant to Mambulao, our beloved community.

Has the JPHS alumni association been relevant lately?

For more than six decades now since the very first batch of graduates passed under the JPHS gate archway in the late 40s, the JPHS alumni has yet to elevate itself to the league of relevance.

The big news is that it has not graduated from just being a “huruntahan, karainan, irinuman,” and “sarayawan” association of graduates, professionals, non- professionals and the jobless.

Whenever a homecoming was held – and that was every five years – the first agenda was to decide who to elect as the next president, and what to do the night following the day-long “eklayan” and “chikahan” at the school auditorium where the gathering was held.

After that, when everybody had gone home, the one with the better sense would realize that the next five years towards the next homecoming reunion would be another five years of wasted opportunity to do some positive changes, firstly, in the community, and secondly, to our Alma Mater.

This road inside the campus needs paving, cementing at the most, to make it convenient for students to walk through it. Improving this road should be part of the alumni’s future projects.

Another five years of wasted opportunity to help our kababayan who needed it.

These are the urgent issues at hand:

Right now, there are many activities that the JPHS alumni association could get its hands dirty on, assuming that it is willing to sweat it out.

We have many high school graduates who could not get further education or get some skills training to give them the tools for earning a living because their parents could simply not afford it. And because of this, their chances at the job market are very slim.

Every year, our Alma Mater churns out new graduates, many of whom would face a bleak future because they would not be able to pursue further education, or that they have no employable skills.

What can the association do to help?

Our Alma Mater needs a lot fixing as far as its facilities are concerned – leaking roofs, stinking toilets, jammed doors, poor water system, unsightly classroom walls, and so on. It is looking up to its alumni for help.

The community beach in Parang is in an appalling condition; its shoreline is carpeted with household rubbish and a million more. Worse, the beach sand has been taken over by mud and silt from gold-panning operations on the outskirts of Jose Panganiban.

The water of the Mambulao Bay is brown, likewise inundated by silt and mud from the very same cause that has destroyed the beach.

The beach and the community bay are natural resources that have been taken for granted and left to deteriorate.

We, as a community of decent people, can’t let this happen to our environment.

But looking at the water of Mambulao Bay and the dump-site likeness of what used to be pristine Parang beach, we let Mother Nature down.

Can we go out of our comfort zone and deal with these issues?

For a social group like the JPNHS alumni association focused only on annual partying and merry-making, digesting the issues just mentioned could be constipating.

Would it be another “karainan, huruntahan, irinuman, sarayawan” homecoming gig next April? Picture taken just a few days before the appointed homecoming meeting took place last April. – MWBuzz by AP Hernandez

It is not in its culture to get involved and to have a look.

How much more doing something about them?

Would it be capable?

Kagawad Carlos Tabuada said sometime ago that the municipal council would tap the alumni association for help in completing the community road concreting project.

The good councilman knew very well the potential of the association to do something for the good of the community.

But it seemed the entire organization is unaware of what it could do.

It’s time for it to wake up from a slumber of 65 years.

In next year’s general homecoming, the alumni association must resolve whether or not it should make itself capable of helping our community and our Alma Mater.

Let’s not waste another five years of inactivity, of being non-creative, of being a non-functioning group and of simply being irrelevant to our surroundings.

What’s the point anyway of seeing each other again

in 2017?

“Ano…? Para maghuruntahan na naman, magkarainan, mag-irinuman, magsarayawan, tapos mag-uruwian?”

We can do better than that.

- By AP Hernandez