NAGA CITY -- Unfazed by the brouhaha that saw the changing of the guards at the Universidad de Sta. Isabel Alumni Association, newly-elected Alumni President Myrna Nocos assured USI alumni that the grand alumni homecoming on February 8 and 9, this year, will proceed with vigor and colorful pageantry “as planned and announced.”

Caption: ISABELINAS. The core group of the USI Batch ‘58, led by Directress Amelita P. Zaens, (extreme left) this year’s golden jubilarians, appears ready for the grand alumni homecoming on February 8-9, 2008.


        In a press statement, the USIAA, through Nocos, answered two major concerns that in the past weeks had been the hottest topics in the airwaves and SMS messages: (a) Is the Grand Alumni Homecoming originally scheduled cancelled? and (b) What effect has the December 5, 2007 elections which radically reorganized the Board of officers upon the alumni homecoming?

        Nocos explained that the forthcoming grand alumni gathering is a living tradition of the alumni association that antedates even the alumni association’s legal incorporation, an event looked forward to by jubilarians who are celebrating momentous events in their lives in relation to their having been educated and formed according to the educational charism of St. Vincent de Paul.

        “The jubilarians (emerald, golden, sapphire, ruby, coral, pearl and silver) who are at once the honorees are the ones tasked with responsibility of bringing out a great multitude of attendees, but most importantly, with the challenge of offering a project that will benefit their alma mater in its continuing task of forming students who will serve the community,” Nocos said.

        On the second issue, Nocos said that reorganization of the Board of Officers had the full backing of the entire alumni membership and that the group under the new president is the same group elected during the 2007 alumni homecoming that subsequently withdrew its support to former president Gilda V. Balcueva due to the issue of leadership.

        She clarified that the withdrawal of support to the former president was a collegial act of the majority of the members of the board, with eleven of them on her side and only two members left on Balcueva’s side, the second being presumably Balcueva herself.

        Her having obtained the majority members of the reorganized group clearly establishes the legality and validity of her group as officers of the alumni board, the press statement stressed.

        “It is therefore clear that nothing stands in the way for the Nocos group to cooperate and give its full backing and support to the jubilarians and batches who will initiate the Grand Alumni Homecoming set for February 8 and 9, 2008,” the same press statement said.