20 Things you need to have a Great Reunion

Written by Tina Soliman-Zamora

Photos by Tina Zamora Photography

1. A great core group of organizers!

We are the most blessed batch in MCHS because of our batch leaders who gave us all their time, prayers and resources just to have a wonderful reunion. Maite Defensor, our batch head, led the pack composed of Donna Pangilinan-Simpao, Diana Antonio, Cherry Andres, Rhea Rosales, Nana Abello-Estrera, Jane Ramos, Rina Vera Cruz… Just from this list, you know you’re going to have a great reunion.

2. An intimate place

The Lounge of The Malayan Plaza was the perfect venue for the reunion because it was big enough to hold everyone and yet intimate enough for everyone to catch up on old times. This was the skyline from the venue’s balcony..

3. A blog and an Event in Facebook

This blog was set up before the reunion to post articles written by batchmates. The event in Facebook was created by Karo Abilla-Asistio.

4. Games

Almost all the classes made trivia games to remind all of us..that we need memory enhancers! Hahaha! Trying to remember the most popular brand of sneakers (Tretorn), the name of our CAT Commandant (Oscar Lucero) and the most athletic student (Christine Duque..where is she?!) was so much fun!

5. Singers

Having Opera Singer Karla Gutierrez and Miss Saigon’s Meliza Reyes is such a blessing to the batch! Sali na rin natin si singer/dentist/video editor Rhea Rosales

6. Great food

La Comida served a delicious menu which became more delicious with Wholly Cow beef from Diana and Cherry.

7. Alcohol

I think this is why we laughed harder than usual..

8. Sponsors

We’d like to thank Pond’s for sponsoring the event. They set up the Photo Wall, a Pond’s counter selling discounted products.. In our 25th reunion, Pond’s needs to check if they really defied our aging! Thanks to Citibank for those tempting card applications. Thanks to Erika Ludan for her Fibersweet products.. everyone went home with a yellow goodie bag of her stuff!

9. Photo Wall and an official photographer

I think this was the greatest idea for the girls to work it, work it! Can’t believe it was just planned a few days before the event, right Donna? Shout out to Dennis Zamora, my hubby, for listening to the girls whine that they were too fat in the pictures (girls will aways be girls) but turned out to be truly gorgeous. Just check out the Facebook comments from all over the world!! No Photoshop.. just real beauty from the girls!

10. Conversations about old times

Nana, the host, always had to tell everyone to keep quiet when a number was up. You just can’t stop everyone from catching up with everyone else.

11. Memorabilia

Susan Rola-Javier brought her 4-4 jacket and Arlizza Pabalan-de Leos brought her yearbook and scrapbook. Waaaaah! Rhea even brought her “mirror ball” and laser lights from the ’80s…it actually worked..

12. Brad Pitt

As Rhea Rosales promised, Brad was there to brighten up our night!

13. Michelle, talking about her prom dress and prom date

This was so impromptu! Mitch, according to the Facebook comments, you should takes this up as a career. Sorry girls, there was no video!

14. Prayer

A miraculous thing happened with my Macbook charger! It was the only charger running my Mac and Donna’s Mac that night. I knew it already was kinda broken but I was too cheap to replace it ASAP. Anyway, in the middle of the program, it stopped working! Since our batteries were low, both Macs shut down. Videos were stored in Donna’s Mac. We prayed over that charger and of course, by the Lord’s faithfulness, it worked and everyone got to see the videos Donna prepared! Amen!

15. Videos

And now for the tear jerker of the evening! The great Rhea and the class 4-6 asked their classmates from around the Philippines and around the world to send in videos of themselves, singing “Somewhere out There” privately. When the 4-6 Manila girls started singing that night, they played a video of “An American Tale” where the song was the soundtrack so everyone would think that was the only video. Then after 2 stanzas, the images of the LA girls appeared singing with the 4-6 Manila girls! Then came the Davao video and the New Zealand video, etc… Talk about a crying festival for everyone in Manila!

We also showed the different videos Rhea made and The Journey performance during the homecoming.

16. Laughter

Aside from laughing at Michelle Petines, everyone laughed about…anything! We were just laughing and laughing and laughing. It’s the kind of laughter that you have with people you share special memories with.

17. Souvenirs

Thanks to Cherry, we had great tea cup souvenirs!

18. 80′s music

Gone are our mixed tapes and walkman, ladies! Rhea and Donna had their iPods out with the very best of ’80′s music. The class of 4-5 even had a Name that Tune game Nana, “Miss Me Blind” yun, hindi “I Know You Miss Me”!

19. Tears

See number 15!

20. A Plan for the Next Reunion

As our batch head Maite pointed out, we have plans for MORE reunions! There’s Caroling, there are special seminars the batchmates can give (can’t wait for the yoga sessions, Sonya) and more.

After posting some of the pictures in Facebook, the comments that came in from everywhere made me realize that we did not just touch each other’s lives but other people’s lives as well. We received comments from our favorite History teacher, Gilbert Braganza (can’t believe this was his first job!..terrorized na siguro yun), from the husbands of our batchmates telling us how pretty we all are (syempre kasama ang mga wives nila dun), from our batchmates from Grade 7 batch ’84 (Thanks for coming Ge Z. and Joy R.!), from the family of batchmates and co-Maryknollers from other batches, distinctly remembering how fun our batch was. WOW! Our high school life (o tama na, wag kumanta ng Sharon Cuneta song) is really imprinted in our hearts forever. Until the next reunion. Keep in touch through this blog!