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To all donors! Thank you for your support in 2007. We have mailed your year-end statement. If you don't receive it by January 31, please contact us, and we'll be happy to send you another copy.
Board of Directors
Metro Infanta Foundation
I came across your site while running a search for a very dear friend of mine, Sister Maria Gabrielle (Amanda Custombrado). I saw her message posted on your website. If possible, please send me her e-mail address and contact information and/or give her mine. I am really glad to find a website like yours that is designed to bring people together and do a lot of good work. More power to you.
Tahseen M. Qureshi
General Manager
Alternate Environmental Solutiuons Inc.
31 W. Downer Place, Suite 101
Aurora, Illinois 60506
Phone: (630) 264-1122
Fax: (630) 264-1133
Cell: (630) 301-8176
To Tata Tinoy and family:
May it comfort you to know that so many people care and are thinking of you and your family at this time. While there is nothing we can say that will ease your loss, we wanted you to know that our thoughts are with you and your family during this difficult time.
With love and sympathy,
Joe / Malou Marquez and family
St. Louis, MO
Our batch would be celebrating our25th year anniversary in July 2008 and we are trying to get in touch with our old classmates
Please contact any classmate below:
Mil Villaflor; Myla Venida ;"Leynes, Joseph G; myla escario
analy; arnold; babam ; efren ; epen; glecy
INFANTA NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL BATCH '88 WILL HOLD ITS 20th ANNIVERSARY ON MARCH 22, 2008 (BLACK SATURDAY)@ INHS FUNCTION ROOM. ALL BATCHMATES ARE INVITED. REGISTRATION WILL BE ON FEB. 02, 2008 AT INHS CAMPUS. THANKS FOR THE SPACE MADAM MILA. MABUHAY PO KAYO!
We would like to greet Mr. Rigoberto Juntereal of Philadelphia, PA, USA on his 104th birthday on January 4, 2008.
Mabuhay si TATA IGO! Sana'y lumawig pa po ang inyong buhay.
from: Conching, Celso, Mira, Jeannette, Omar and Family
MARILES A. ESCOLANO, 56, DIED JANUARY 5, 2008, OF KIDNEY FAILURE AND COMPLICATIONS OF THE HEART. SHE IS SURVIVED BY BROTHERS CARLOS, JR., CARMELITO (ITO), BENJAMIN (BENJIE), NILO, AND SISTER ROSE, IN-LAWS AND OVER A DOZEN NEPHEWS AND NIECES.
From the Board of Directors
Metro Infanta Foundation
Since 1996, we have raised nearly $450,000 and have distributed more than $300,000 in grants to various causes in our hometown. In addition, the Foundation has facilitated nearly $250,000 in direct funding from various funding agencies such as St. Thomas More Parish, Holy Cross Parish, Weckbaugh Foundation, Knights of Columbus, St. Vincent de Paul, and the Archdiocese of Denver and many more.
Through God's grace and your support, we have achieved the following milestones and works-in-progress:
* Published a newsletter until 2000 to connect our community in Diaspora
* Publish the Metro Infanta Foundation website to offer more timely communications, information and inspiration for our community in Diaspora.
* Organized and funded, in part, the 50th Anniversary celebration of the opening of the Infanta Mission and bringing six of our beloved Carmelite priests "home."
* Built the Prayer Garden, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Shrine, to remember the Carmelite missionaries
* Helped rebuild the St. John the Baptist Church in Panukulan with St. Thomas More children's "Pennies from Heaven"
* Provided financial support to medical missions in Metro Infanta
* Built water tanks for school children in Sibulan Elementary School and National High School in Polillo
* Distiributed dictionaries and other school supplies for every classroom in Infanta Central
* Helped build a tool shed in Mt. Carmel High School in Polillo.
* Provided funds to purchase a television and karaoke (sound system) for Infanta Central.
* Provided funds to finish the flooring of the Adoration Chapel in Infanta
* Provided funds to refurbish the pews of the St. Mark's Cathedral for the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Carmelite mission
* Provided funds for Bishop Labayen's 75th birthday celebration, including the publication of a book, "Julio, Itayo mo ang aking simbahan" in his honor.
* Assisted "Hardin ng Kalikasan," a self-help women's group in securing funds to build their headquarters in Kiloloron, Real.
* Provided funds for the Mother of Life and Notre Dame de Vie construction project and programs.
* Provided funds for the welcome and farewell celebrations of Bishop Rolando Tria Tirona and Bishop Julio X. Labayen respectively.
* Published "Labong ng Kawayan," a compilation of stories about Metro Infanta and distributed copies to public and private schools in the Metro Infanta area.
* Provided emergency assistance after the Deluge of 2004
* Provided funds to help rebuild the Mt. Carmel High School of Infanta
* Currently spearheading the Gabaldon Reconstruction Project for Infanta Central
* Provided general financial support and tuition assistance to seminarians at St. Joseph House of Formation
* Continues to provide funds for the Prelature of Infanta and its programs.
* Serves as conduit for Mission Appeals and other funding opportunities for the Prelature of Infanta, Socio Pastoral Institute and the Philippine Carmelite Province.
* Offers scholarship grants to 27 high school, 11 college and two post-gradute students throughout the Prelature of Infanta in the provinces of Quezon and Aurora and beyond.
* Established the Arizala Diplomacy Scholarship at Lyceum University in honor of Ambassador Rodolfo Arizala
* Facilitated donation to St. Bernard, Leyte after the devastating typhoon in February 2006
* Donated computer units for Panukulan National High School
* Purchased World Atlas for Mt. Carmel High School-Burdeos library
* Purchased a bell for Real's St. Rapahel Parish
* Scholarship grant to Northern Quezon Cooperative College
* Connects long-lost friends and relatives through the website.
* Secure donations to Infanta and other parts of the Philippines from other agencies
* Helped fund three friars rooms in the Carmelite Seminary in the Philippines
* Donated air condition for St. Joseph House of Formation
We can do more! Join us, and together, let's make a difference..
Jan. 4 - Alex Elizalde
Jan. 4 - Marilyn Resplandor
Jan. 7 - Marie Kathleen Gunio
Jan. 11 - Marissa Espiritu Monte
Jan. 15 - Michelle Aumentado
Jan. 18 - Pedy Cuento
Jan. 19 - Joey Coralde
Jan. 22 - Yolly Resplandor
Jan. 25 - Mardon Combalicer
Wedding Anniversaries
Jan. 29 - Mark and Mila Glodava (36 years)
By Rudy A. Arizala
01 January 2008
At the stroke of 12:00 midnight between 31 December 2007 and 01 January 2008, we say we welcome the New Year. So we welcome it joyously with parties, dances, sumptuous foods, drinks, exploding firecrackers or fireworks. And of course, many people attend the midnight mass in Thanksgiving and pray that the coming year be a blessed and bountiful one. We also make what we call "New Year´s Resolution" of what we are going to do or make plans for the coming year. There is nothing wrong with that. We have to make amends or reform ourselves, make plans and hope for a better tomorrow.
But is it really new?
To answer this question, I looked back some forty years ago. And hereunder is what I found among my entries in my diary in 1968.
01 January 1968.
I think it is but proper to begin this diary for 1968, by quoting one of the editorials in The New York Times, dated December 31, 1967, entitled: "Old Year, New Year." It says:
"The old year ends and the new year begins, we say trying to make time our servant and, in a sense, succeeding. By rounding out the year, bounding and naming it, we persuade ourselves that we are summing up the past and making a new start. In our part of the world the calendar´s turn even brings winter´s white, clean blanket that masks the world´s scars and, symbolically at least, invites man to write a brand new chapter in human affairs.
"But in the natural world there are no such boundaries. There are cycles and eternal rhythms not only all about us but throbbing through us. This is a world not only of bud and blossom and seed but of breath and pulse and sentient nerves. It is a world of growth and ripening and rest and growth again, a world of rain and snowflake and ice crystal, of wind and sun and starlight. Who ever tried to sum up sunlight, or rain or the breath of a newborn child?
"A new year, another chance, we say. And it is if we make it so. But a summary or a pause, no. Time waits for no totals to be drawn. Our attempts to grasp it, halt it even briefly, are fumbling at best. We call it the years´s turn, and yet today´s daylight already is three minutes longer that it was a week ago. Spring was patterned in the buds before October´s bright leaves fell. Tomorrow is not a beginning; it is a going on, a part of the unending continuity that gives meaning to all the tomorrows."
(End of the Editorial).
The following are my other entries for the day.
This morning, it stopped snowing. The branches of trees near our window are covered with snow. It is a sunny day. The New York Times headline for today is "Mediators Hope to Avert Transit Walkout Today; Some Progress Reported." The international scene is preoccupied on Vietnam War. There is imperceptible move for peace negotiation.
The priest at the Blessed Sacrament Church where my wife and I attended mass preached to start peace within ourselves through love, understanding and goodwill.
Thus, there is really nothing new. Yesterday, as it is today and even tomorrow, we are still in the constant pursuit of peace, understanding, love and goodwill. As correctly observed by The York Times Editorial quoted above, "tomorrow is not a beginning; it is a going on, a part of the unending continuity that gives meaning to all the tomorrows."
Indeed, to borrow again the words of the editorial:
"This is a world not only of bud and blossom and seed but of breath and pulse and sentient nerves. It is a world of growth and ripening and rest and growth again, a world of rain and snowflake and ice crystal, of wind and sun and starlight. Who ever tried to sum up sunlight, or rain or the breath of a newborn child?"
In the Philippines, especially in Infanta, Quezon when we were kids, amidst exploding firecrackers, we welcome the New Year by going from house-to-house banging or making noise with empty kerosene cans shouting "Mabuhay!" and the respective owners of the house would give us token gift of bread (tinapay na sibakIn) wrapped in newspaper. We do this at the stroke of 12 midnight and lasts up to 3:00 o'clock at dawn.
"Mabuhay" signifies wishing you "long life" and the bread symbolizes to go on living and sharing with proper body and spiritual nourishments. . . "unending continuity that gives meaning to all the tomorrows."
"MABUHAY AT MASAGANANG BAGONG TAON SA INYONG LAHAT!"
As stated in my piece "Bagong Taon"; Is it Really New?", I quoted from The New York Times editorial of 31 December 1967, the following which I would like to share with you in welcoming year 2008:
"But in the natural world there are no such boundaries. There are cycles and eternal rhythms not only all about us but throbbing through us. This is a world not only of bud and blossom and seed but of breath and pulse and sentient nerves. It is a world of growth and ripening and rest and growth again, a world of rain and snowflake and ice crystal, of wind and sun and starlight. Who ever tried to sum up sunlight, or rain or the breath of a newborn child?"
Rudy Arizala