LIGHTS FROM THE PAST, GUIDES TO THE FUTURE (Celebrating the PCC Centennial)

LIGHTS FROM THE PAST, GUIDES TO THE FUTURE

(Celebrating the PCC Centennial)

A BRIEF LOOK AT 100 YEARS OF HISTORY

It all started in 1923. A school was established by the Philippine Chinese Educational Foundation (PCEF) through the leadership of Carlos Palanca Sr (1869-1950), a businessman and philanthropist who migrated to the Philippines in 1884. Palanca Sr, whose birth name was Tan Guin Lay (陳迎來) was born in Amoy, Qing China (now Xiamen) in 1869. He came to Manila together with his uncle and godfather, Tan Quien-sien (陳謙善, 1844-1901), who was at the time, the acting Consul General in Amoy. Both of them adopted the name of their benefactor, Carlos Palanca y Gutierrez, a Spanish colonel and the gobernadocillo of gremio de chino de las islas filipinas (Chinese guild of the Philippine Islands).

The younger Carlos Palanca Sr is the same person who founded the La Tondeña Incorporada (which later became Ginebra San Miguel) in 1902, and in whose honor the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature was established in 1950.

The school that Palanca founded was originally named Philippine Chinese High School (PCHS) and consisted only of 47 students. It was the first Chinese-Pilipino secondary school in the Philippines. Two classroom of the Anglo-Chinese School (Later Tiong Se Academy) in Binondo, Manila were used. Classes started on June 27, 1923, thus the date became the foundation day of the school.

In 1937, the first batch of alumni organized the PCHS Alumni Association, with Mr. Go Seng Guan elected as the first president. A year later, the PCEF organized a board of trustees which would take over the management of the school. Mr. Go Chong Beng was the first chairman of the board. In 1940, a new school building was constructed along Jose Abad Santos Street. This was made possible through the efforts of Dr. Teng Chiu Huang who served as the 7th school principal and Mr. Sy Eng, the president of the Educational Association and at the same time the chairman of the Board of Trustees, and funded by donations from various sectors of the Chinese community.

After serving for 20 years as principal, Dr. Huang passed away. A memorial foundation was established in his honor. In 1961, the foundation bought a 10,000 square meter lot in Caloocan City, which later became the campus grounds of the PCHS Annex. Classes started on June 1967 with around 320 students.

In 1976, the Marcos Administration filipinized all Chinese schools in the Philippines, and the school was renamed Philippine Cultural High School, having the same acronym – PCHS.

Additional buildings were constructed in the PCHS (Annex) Caloocan campus in 8th Avenue, Grace Park, during the late 1970s to house classrooms for pre-schoolers and elementary student and, in the 1990s, the extension buildings were added. On the other hand, the new PCHS (Main) building in the Manila campus, along Jose Abad Santos St., was completed in early 1988.

In 1998, during its double diamond 75th foundation anniversary, PCHS was featured in the Philippine postage stamps, coinciding with the Philippine Independence centennial.

In 2008, the school opened its college and changed its name to Philippine Cultural College (PCC). At the same time, the school changed its organizational structure, with the president being the highest in office and a vice president each for the college and the basic education departments. Dr. Lily Go was named president of Philippine Cultural College and Dr. Sining Marcos Kotah as vice president of the secondary, elementary and kinder departments of both the Manila and the Caloocan campuses.

On January 15, 2012, ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a new PCC building in Cuenco St. corner Tuazon St., Quezon City. The lot on which the school building would stand was donated by Mr. Benito Cu and Ms. Elena Cu Uy. The construction of the new college building went into full swing. Alumni responded by giving generous donations. With the opening of the new college building, PCC began its march into the future, tasked with providing trilingual education, with the propagation of Chinese-Filipino culture, and with nurturing the hearts and minds of the youth. Everybody at PCC, students, teachers, and alumni are united as one, in their vigorous pledges to contribute more to society and to the Pilipino nation.

 

MARKING THE 100TH YEAR

It rained early in the day, June 25, 2023, but the weather calmed down as the sun nears the mid-sky. Alumni dressed in red started gathering in the meeting places to wait for the rides that will take us to the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC), the venue of the celebration. After days of talking with each other in the Facebook Messenger, my batch – PCHS Annex Class 1978 – were all excited to join in the celebration of our high school alma mater’s centennial foundation anniversary.

It was a grand, though modest, ceremony! Class 1978 will also be having its sapphire anniversary as we again meet after 45 years. Sapphire, so why do we dress in red and not crystal deep blue?

Well, for one, red is the color of the times. It’s the color of volunteerism, solidarity, grandeur, passion, joy, triumph, celebration, and all good things there are. One more trivial note: Since it’s a Pilipino-Chinese school, the predominant common color in both the flags of the Philippines and China is red.

As it turned out, only Class 1978 wore predominantly red. But we stood out among the rest. We probably had the biggest contingent of attendees. Hurrah!

As I have mentioned in my July 8, 2018 post – CONNECTED @40: The PhilippineCultural High School Class 1978 Reunion – we are the crème de la crème, the batch to reckon with. (And if you want to laugh your hearts out, revisit our 40th Class Reunion in 2018  picture "comics" page.)

To update that blog post: We’ve survived 12 Olympics, watched about 40 Marvel superhero films, and the entire eight seasons of Game of Thrones. We’ve gone through coup d’etats, recessions, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, supertyphoons, sinkholes, draughts, nationwide floods, landslides, pandemics, fake news, historical distortions and historical restorations, and whatever-else. We’ve seen Darna’s mystical pebble passed on to ten generations. Ah yes, we’ve managed to remained together after eight presidents, from Ferdinand E. Marcos to Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. Whoa, from father to son! Is that also a coincidence? No, it's Iginuhit ng Tadhana (drawn by destiny) – a Marcos returning Malacañang. Indeed, we’ve lasted through eight administrations, with all the political intrigues that came with them. While we may allied ourselves with different groups, parties, affiliations, and browsed through all the political gobbledygooks that made us rants against one another, at the conclusion of it, we remained friends. Indeed, friendship that lasted for half a century. That's incredible! GOD must really love this group.

Oh, by the way, going back to the color red: It was the color of activism during the 1970s when we were in high school, and it is today’s political and presidential color symbolizing solidarity, change and a bright future. The color that flooded the Internet and the streets during the presidential election campaign, and dumped the yellows and pinks in the septic tanks! Cheers and peace be with you! And yes, magenta red is also the color of the year 2023.

Enough verbals, let the pictures do the talking:

 

LETTER FROM PRESIDENT FERDINAND "BONGBONG" R. MARCOS JR

Thank you very much, Manong President! I thought of this and my thought came to reality! Just as I have predicted you becoming president, against all odds, so shall we all join together to have a progressive Philippines! Mabuhay!