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By Bal Yujuico


Two seven-foot benches, two blackboards. One with a hole in the middle. Ten lucky girls occupy the benches squezzed side by side while the rest of the class sit on the concrete floor littered with some tetrapaks left over by the previous class. Meanwhile, the literature teacher inside the class had to speak in high decibels to beat the noise of students outside eager to occupy the same room for the next class.

This is just one of the classrooms desperately needing desks to accommodate the swelling number of students reaching the 12,000 mark for Quezon National High School, one of the five oldest high schools in the Philippines over 100 years old.. According to the latest survey released by the Toronto Consulate, QNHS will require 110 classrooms right now to provide complete and decent facilities for learning to satisfy the needs of this much of student populace. The coming years will require more. Get that.

Back at the grandstand some cluster of students (60 students in each) hold their classes in open air while the teacher facing the students have to tackle the noise of tricycles passing by occasionally. Other classes are under the acacia trees devoid of classroom facilities.

The total neglect from all levels of government that has befallen Quezon High has been the raison'd'etre of a fund -raising event being held in Toronto to be organized by the newly incorporated Quezon National High School Alumni Association. "The monthly financial support from the national government allotted to Quezon High is not even enough to pay the monthly maintenance of the school such as electricity and security," said Dr. Victoria Galang, the current school principal.

And what's in store for the school for the coming years with the alarming increase in birthrate in Quezon Province ? This question is a torment.

" The only hope left for the school are the alumni. " expressed by one faculty member present during the monthly Alumni Foundation Meeting in January 2004.

Halfway around the globe, some Toronto alumni are eager to lend their helping hand by holding this fund-raising dinner dance on July 10th at the Humberwood Center, 5 minutes away from the Toronto Pearson International Airport.

'An Evening of Ballroom Dancing', they call it. Alumni and friends who fly with wings while doing the rhumba, fox trot, German waltz, tango, Havana salsa and other whatchamacallits will find this event a night to remember at the same time help the school raise funds for some 300 desks, a miniscule of the whole gargantuan problem. But this is just the start.

Dr. Nacianceno Largoza, 1948 grad and wife Isabel from Pennsylvania will deliver the welcome address. Queen of the World- Canada 2004, Anychka Pizyo, a ballroom instructress who will represent Canada at the Queen of the World Contest in Munich, Germany in April will do the honor of introducing our various guests in an abbreviated mini-program during the dinner.

Back in Lucena, the alumni foundation and other batches are helping out to recoup the lost sheen, the grandeur and the glory that used to be the Quezon High by way of fundraisers during reunions. Please click on our website www.quezonhigh.ca or phone (416) 223-3145 for more information on the dinner- dance event and other concerns. Alumni are encouraged to sign the website guestbook for feedback to be addressed to the foundation.

All aboard QNHSers ! Let our helping hands bring back the good ol' days of our school.