My appreciation to Anna Marie Aguilar Girdner for initiating the brain wave of having a site for Batch ’83 in the expansive world of internet. When I joined Batch of ‘83 at Yahoo Group last year I pondered with another brainchild of creating a faction not necessarily outlined for our own batch alone but for all the MHSians of all peer groups, and at this point I started the MHS Alumni
Batch 80-Present Friendster Group last December of 2006. In my recollection, Jacqueline Dela Cruz Batch ’83 and now lives in
Minatoku, Japan was the very first MHSian to sign up in the group.
To date, after a span of merely 7 months the group has 141 adherents from different batches in different parts of the globe and still growing. Freshly, Henry Angeles(
Vietnam), Carlo Corpuz(USA), Ramon Magbanua(
Middle East) Orly Omaga have also joined. Early bird members from Batch ’83 are Leni Lantin, Dalin Zuasola (Australia), Raymundo Dilag (Hong Kong) & Pol Enriquez. Most of
Batch of ’83 Yahoo group members
were already enlisted here.
What can you take from this? Just like Anna Marie, my earnest aspiration why I created this group is to join up all MHSians and to keep everyone in touch whether for business, scholarly or pure nostalgic reasons. Friendster on my personal point of view, as one of the top line internet social network service will best serve this purpose. Although it was overtaken by Myspace in terms of pageview, the Philippines has the most number of Friendster members worldwide. Our kababayans prefer Friendster more than any other public or community site. As such, Friendster is a fraction of Filipino cyberculture and present-day popular culture. Because of its unique profile setup and features, members also participate more actively compare to other networks. Although it is true what Melanie Mabini (former classmate and she'll be returning here for a vacation this August 3) said that it might take some detective and leg work to find the girls/ladies in the net as their last names would have changed if they are married unlike for the boys/gentleman who have kept their family names, every Friendster members and their list of friends are your leads for those people you wish to find. I would have not found Dalin Zuasola (Ojales) in the net if not by chance I crossed upon on Jay Ojales’ (her pamangkin) name on gallery section where profiles of Friendster users are arranged according to search preferences.He gave me Dalin’s e-mail add. I invited her to join the Alumni then add her up on my Friendster list of friends. Social networking was a big dotcom bubble that blew up in the internet, and Friendster is the bubble engine. Figures from Internet World Stats pegged the number of online Filipinos at 7.82 Million in 2005 (compared to only 2 Million in 2000). That means a little over 3 out of every 5 people who have access to the internet have a Friendster account! Our vision of having the grandest reunification MHS could ever have will be achieved if we all sail with a faster boat towards our destination. Thank you to all the members of Batch of ’83 Yahoo Group and MHS Alumni Batch 80-Present Friendster Group for keeping the spirit of our Alma Mater burning.
God bless you all at mabuhay ang MHSians!
My appreciation to Anna Marie Aguilar Girdner for initiating the brain wave of having a site for Batch ’83 in the expansive world of internet. When I joined Batch of ‘83 at Yahoo Group last year I pondered with another brainchild of creating a faction not necessarily outlined for our own batch alone but for all the MHSians of all peer groups, and at this point I started the MHS Alumni Batch 80-Present Friendster Group last December of 2006. In my recollection, Jacqueline Dela Cruz Batch ’83 and now lives in 
