12 scholars make it in FAAE’s 2024-25 program

“Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar.”

—Nnamdi Azikiwe

TWELVE scholars from the Philippines have been chosen by the Filipino-American Association of Engineers Incorporated (FAAE Inc.), an association of Filipino-American Engineers residing in the Tri-state (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) area.

Engr. Gerry Gamaro revealed that the 12 scholars for the first semester of this school year have been confirmed in a report released by FAAE Scholarship Chairman, Engr. Gene B. Salle on February 22, 2025.

They are:

1. Christine Lorilee Miranda from Tanza, Cavite with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Gene Salle, who is now 4th year B.S. Civil Engineering at Rizal Technological University. She started in August 2022 and is expected to graduate on May 2025. Two (2) semesters in 4 years;

2. Orlando Medrano Jr. from San Pascual, Batangas with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Roel Medrano, who is now in 4th year B.S. Mechanical Engineering at Batangas State University. He started in August 2021 and is Expected to graduate on May 2025. Two (2) semesters in 4 years;

3. Johnver S. Urcia from Binan, Laguna with FAAE Coordinator Pete Bonus, who is now 4th year B.S. Electronics and Communication Engineering at Technological University of the Philippines. He started September 2021 and is expected to graduate on April 2026. Two (2) semesters in 4 years;

4. Wenjan Reysel B. Bauzon from Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Armando Caguete, who is now in 3rd year B.S. Civil Engineering at the University of Cebu. She started in September 2022 and is expected to graduate in April 2026. Two (2) semesters in 4 years;

5. Cyrill Dale Beredo from Batangas City, Batangas with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Arlyn Agasino, who is in 3rd year B.S. Communications Technology Management at Ateneo de Manila University. He started in September 2022 and is expected to graduate in April 2026. Two (2) semesters in 4 years;

6. Kate T. Brunidor from Tagbilaran, Bohol with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Bernalyn Barcelona and BAWHI June Faith Balquin. She is now in 2nd year B.S. Mechanical Engineering at Bohol Island State University (BISU). Started September 2023 and is expected to graduate on March 2027. Two (2) semesters in 4 years;

7. Thereza Mae M. Laylo from Pedro Garcia, Batangas with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Ismael Agasino, who is now in 2nd year B.S. Petroleum Engineering at Batangas State University (BSU). Started September 2023. She is expected to graduate in March 2027. Two (2) semesters in 4 years.

8. Jhemuel R. Togle from Tanza, Cavite with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Gene Salle. He is now in 1st year B.S. Civil Engineering at Polytechnic University of the Philippines. He started in August 2024 and is expected to graduate in March 2028. Two semesters in 4 years

with one inter-semester;

9. Julienne M. Devanadera from San Pablo City, Laguna with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Gerry Gamaro. She is now in 1st year B.S. Civil Engineering at Laguna College. She started in August 2024 and is expected to graduate on March 2028. Two (2) semesters in 4 years with one inter-semester;

10. Ella Mae L. Guevara from Tuguegarao City, Cagayan with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Nick Arugay, who is now in 1st year B.S, Electrical Engineering at Cagayan State University. Started August 2024. Expected to graduate on March 2028. Two (2) semesters in 4 years with one inter-semester;

11. John Emmanuel Ditay from Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Jojo Corpuz, who is now in 1st year B.S. Civil Engineering at Jose Memorial State University. Started August 2024. Expected to graduate in March 2028. Two (2) semesters in 4 years with one inter-semester; and

12. Maricar D. Enriquez from San Pablo City, Laguna with FAAE Coordinator Engr. Gerry Gamaro. She is now in 1st year B.S. Computer Engineering at Laguna State Polytechnic University. She started in August 2024 and is expected to graduate in March 2028. Two (2) semesters in 4 years with one inter-semester.

The school year 2024-25 was decided by the Board of Directors with the consent of the current President Aga Agasino and President-elect Gerry Gamaro to increase the number of scholars from existing ten (10) scholars to twelve (12) scholars.

They encouraged their  general membership to scout for potential scholars for the coming SY 2025-26 and be ascertain to select the qualified candidates to be financially and academically deserving.

They had produced 14 scholars who graduated since 2009 during the inception of the scholarship program and are now gainfully employed except for  the newly graduates.

Following is the list of 14 scholars who have graduated from the Scholarship Program:

1. Ramil Moses from Batangas- graduated on 2014

2. Vanessa Malonzo from Capiz graduated on 2016

3. Von Array Nifas from Pangasinan graduated on 2017

4. Gracel Chloe Padrones from Bacolod graduated on 2018

5. Neil Christian Dela Cruz from Rizal graduated on 2018

6. Christian Ros from Catanduanes graduated on 2019

7. Ivy Gamiton from Cagayan de Oro graduated on 2019

8. Rochelle Datuin from Cavite graduated on 2020

9. Aldrick Lance G. Hernandez from Batangas graduated on 2022

10. Jaime Joaquin S. Moulic from Dagupan City, Pangasinan graduated on 2023

11. Jessa Mae Jolampong from CSJDM, Bulacan graduated on 2023

12. Isabel A, Marcelino from Tanay, Rizal graduated on 2024

13. Jhean Arianne M. De Chavez from Oriental Mindoro graduated on 2024

14. Sydny V. Cortez from San Pedro, Laguna graduated on 2024

As you will notice, we expect two (2) scholars to graduate by this coming June 2025. So the Chairman of the Scholarship will publish in our FAAE website for the search of two (2) scholars for the school year 2025-2026. This search is open to all active and paid

members. Deadline of submission of the completed application forms and accompanying documents was February 28, 2025. The FAAE member who endorsed an applicant with his/her letter of recommendation became the Scholarship Coordinator of

that applicant. The chairman forwarded all received documents of the applicants to the Scholarship Committee, which would decide and choose the qualified recipient within the first two weeks of March 2025.

With the approved concept from the Board of Directors that we will increase the number

of scholars depending on those FAAE members who will form in form in group of 5s, 4s, 2s or 1s and will be willing to sponsor scholars. In this way, we will be able to help more Filipino youth who are financially underprivileged but have the great academic records.

The Scholarship Committee will determine the additional numbers of scholars depending on the number of sponsors.

They have requested our scholars to be in close communication with us thru emails. They also requested their  FAAE Scholarship Coordinators to regularly email their respective scholars to find out their status.

FAAE is a professional, non-profit organization whose members comprise of engineering professionals of different trades.

Gamaro said, “PEFAP is designed to support particular engineering projects in the Philippines; such as Communities, Churches, Day care centers, and other publicly owned facilities by sponsoring minor engineering improvement projects.”

 

The election is ‘over’

“Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?”

—Robert Orben

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

INTUITIVE Filipinos will agree that election results in the Philippines are more or less already “known” the moment prominent survey firms start to reveal their respective survey results even if, in the case this year, the May 12 general election is still about two months away.

Big survey outfits have always “predetermined” the outcome of any Philippine election especially in the senatorial race this year, where 12 seats will be contested.

To compound the matter, most of these survey outfits have already reported that media and entertainment celebrities are expected to dominate the senatorial contest.

The same names of possible “winners” kept on showing up again and again as if the survey networks have hired Nostradamus in their operations.

Thus, we are saying that the 2025 election, at least in the senatorial race, is almost over—except for the actual voting that will be done on May 12, and only the Commission on Elections (Comelec) can officially declare the winners.

This could also be the reason why Filipinos were split on their opinions whether allowing these survey companies to constantly release survey results months and weeks before the actual voting day will help guide the voters to pick the right occupants in congress’ upper chamber.

 

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We are zeroing in on the senators because those who will be elected in this election will serve until 2031, and will join the winners of the 2022 election to form the Senate's delegation to the 20th Congress of the Philippines, with the senators elected in 2022 serving until 2028.

If survey firms play monkey business (we pray they won’t) and favor candidates who aren’t worthy to sit in the senate but “know how” to worm their way into the winning column (you know what we mean), the so-called taong bayan will again end up the real losers for having these cretins instead of the real statesmen and really brilliant senators.

This could be the gist of Comelec’s recent move calling to amend its latest resolution regulating survey firms conducting election polls so it can be fully enforceable in time for the 2028 presidential elections.

According to Comelec Chair George Garcia, “the Comelec is very much willing to amend our guidelines, to modify and change (provisions of the resolution), depending on the outcome of our discussion with the survey firms.”

Pollsters and research groups met with the Comelec earlier ‘February 27to iron out provisions of Comelec Resolution (CR) No. 11117, which mandates that only pre-registered entities are authorized to conduct and publicly disseminate election surveys.

They reportedly questioned, among others, Section 2, which mandates them to register with Comelec’s Political Finance and Affairs Department before they can conduct any election survey. They said the provision could be used for censorship.

 

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Among those who attended the signing of the pledge of commitment and the launching of Task Force Respect (Regulation and Enforcement of Survey Practices for Election Credibility and Transparency) at the poll body’s headquarters in Intramuros, Manila, were representatives from Social Weather Stations (SWS), Pulse Asia Research Inc., Ibon Foundation, Marketing and Opinion Research Society of the Philippines, Publicus Asia, Tangere, Laylo Research Strategies and WR Numero.

Surveys are supposedly lengthy and require more time to respond as compared to a poll. Many types of data analytics algorithms are reportedly applied on the responses collected and the insights generated are conveyed to various departments of an organization.

If we have a lot of time to generate reports and share it with our team members, surveys make a good choice for us.

Both poll and survey are reportedly used to gather feedback and choices of the target audience. In the same industry, both poll and survey can be used to gain insights that will help to make better decisions.

Online polls are also reportedly created during elections and give insights on the probability of particular candidates and political parties winning the seat.

This will give them an idea of how popular their party candidates are in that region. According to QuestionPro, election polls can help de-code what are the choices of different sections of the society, what concerns them most and what do they wish from the future government.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journey to Ixtlan

“For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while; in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it."

—Don Juan

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

THIS an awesome vision of the world that is both a literary masterpiece and the gateway to a new and more profound way of thinking about ourselves, of living our own lives.

Carlos Castaneda's Journey to Ixtlan pales in comparison to The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge and A Separate Reality, the books he wrote while he was an anthropology student at the University of California, but Journey to Ixtlan and the lesson the Peruvian-American author has given the readers present an awesome vision of the world that is both a literary masterpiece and the gateway to a new and more profound way of thinking about ourselves, of living our own lives.

Castaneda's third book is about an alleged apprenticeship to the Yaqui "shaman," Don Juan.

It is the record of Castaneda's initiation into the mysteries of sorcery--of becoming a "man of knowledge"--at the hands of one of the most remarkable personalities ever to emerge from anthropological investigation: don Juan, the Yaqui brujo (sorcerer).

Don Juan's profound insight into the nature of things and his deep, disturbing knowledge of human nature made The Teachings of Don Juan and A Separate Reality immediate classics.

His brooding, powerful and vivid presence has haunted, perplexed and illuminated the lives of several hundred thousand readers.

 

HALLUCINOGENS

 

The two earlier books were concerned with the use of hallucinogens in don Juan's sorcery and recorded Castaneda's experiences, sometimes searing and terrifying, as he underwent the long and arduous apprenticeship of becoming a "man of knowledge."

Journey to Ixtlan transcends these experiences to show the reader the means by which a "man of power" sees, as opposed to merely looking, and how by his concentrated "seeing" he can, indeed must, "stop the world."

Castaneda reaches for power in a series of startling encounters with the unknown--a confrontation with death and the past in the form of an albino falcon; with the twilight wind that is really power; with a flesh-and-blood mountain lion that Don Juan attracts by using Castaneda as the bait in a test of courage; with a mountain fog that brings visions and terror in the high mountains and in the bright, arid desert.

These visions and experiences from the lessons of don Juan, the techniques and concentration and compassion of the hunter--the man who is "without routines, free, fluid, unpredictable"--finding in the world around him the power that he has learned see, use and control.

The title of this book is taken from an allegory that is recounted to Castaneda by his "benefactor" who is known to Carlos as Don Genaro (Genaro Flores), a close friend of his teacher don Juan Matus.

"Ixtlan" turns out to be a metaphorical hometown (or place /position of being ) to which the "sorcerer" or warrior or man of knowledge without reason or thoughts is drawn to return.

This is because his elevated perspective leaves him little in common with ordinary people, who now seem no more substantial to him than "phantoms."

The point of the story is that a man of knowledge, or sorcerer, is a changed being, or a Human closer to his true state of Being, and for that reason he can never truly go "home" to his old lifestyle again.

 

TEACHINGS

 

In Journey to Ixtlan Castaneda essentially reevaluates the teachings up to that point. He discusses information that was apparently missing from the first two books regarding stopping the world which previously he had only regarded as a metaphor.

He also finds that psychotropic plants, knowledge of which was a significant part of his apprenticeship to Yaqui shaman don Juan Matus, are not as important in the world view as he had previously thought.

The book shows a progression between different states of learning, from hunter, to warrior, to man of knowledge or sorcerer, the difference said to be one of skill level and the type of thing hunted, "...a warrior is an impeccable hunter that hunts power. If he succeeds in his hunting, he becomes a man of knowledge."

Throughout the book Castaneda portrays himself as skeptical and reserved in his explanations of the phenomena at hand, but by the end of the book Castaneda's rationalist worldview is seen to be breaking down in the face of an onslaught of experiences that he is unable to explain logically.

Our destiny’s revelations

 

“Though the mills of the God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small; though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all."

—Fredrich Von Logan, Retribution

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

MUCH has been written about "Karma," a universal law considered as immutable, a law of cause and effect constantly referred to by Oriental faithful and by both Luke and Matthew in the Bible.

In Dr. Deepak Chopra’s speaking engagement we attended at the St. Elizabeth Theater in Vancouver, Canada 15 years years ago, the author of the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, stressed that “karma is used philosophically to indicate conditions in the present stemming from thoughts and actions in the past.”

Could the past thoughts and actions of the late former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte became indications of the country’s current political, cultural, and economic conditions?

Karma's Sanskrit meaning encompasses both action and reaction --or consequences. Its Hindu meaning encompasses work, or the labor of the soul seeking to attain union with God, according to Sanskrit believers.

If we believe Sanskrit’s explanation of karma, many of us will lend credence to a possibility the present political storms that threaten to tragically dismantle the quarreling President Marcos Jr. and embattled Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio are already the ramifications or by-products of their fathers’ past thoughts and actions.

 

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In the book, Edgar Cayce's Story of Karma, author Mary Ann Woodward arranged and selected the "sleeping prophet's" revelation of man's destiny.

During his lifetime, Cayce--the world-renowned prophet and psychic--gave a series of clairvoyant trance reading devoted to metaphysics and revolving around the central theme of reincarnation. The shock waves from his revelations still reverberate in scientific and religious circles.

Although Cayce was a practicing Christian, his trance readings frequently embraced concepts of Oriental religions, according to Woodward.

From these discourses comes Edgar Cayce's Story of Karma--his explanation of the powerful life forces generated by personal actions which can bless or plague us through many lifetimes.

Woodward wrote that Cayce told many seekers, in their physical readings, that their physical defect or disease was a karmic condition.

These readings emphasized the fact that our physical condition is directly dependent upon our mental and spiritual ideals, with their concomitant emotions, from one life to another.

"We do take it with us," wrote Woodward. "Moreover, our daily stresses and strains, our emotional upsets, affect us physically."

Many were reportedly told they would not be well, nor would their physical condition improve, until both their mental and spiritual attitudes changed.

 

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"They would have to give up such negative things as fears, hates, and resentments and become more in attunement with Creative Forces," she added.

Here’s what we learned more about the subject matter in the book: (4021-1) To be sure the attitudes oft influence the physical conditions of the body. No one can hate his neighbor and not have stomach or liver trouble. One cannot be jealous and allow anger of same and not have upset digestion or heart disorder.

(1523-9) This dependency was explained thus: For their have arisen the acute conditions not only from physical reactions but mental conditions that have been as resentments, which have been built into mental forces of the body. These are indicated in the reacting with the physical effects upon organ centers...now finding reflexes in various portions of the body.

(5283-1) This body is meeting its own self. For it is meeting its own shortcomings, when judged from some moral standards. The body, then, must first in its mental and spiritual attitude make amends, not merely promises to others but to self and the sources of health and of life itself. These should be the beginnings and the body not merely being dependent upon the applications which must be, or may be, made by others; for there are within self the conditions here taken which now bring undesirable results in the ability of the body to function in the manner either physically or mentally as is most desirable. But there would be first a change in mental and spiritual attitude.

 

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"Of course, physical applications help healing and do alleviate the condition, but true healing comes from the mental and spiritual self," added Woodward.

(1593-1) And there must be taken into consideration all phases of this entity's experience in the present if the conditions would be wholly understood. For mind is the builder, and if there will be kept a balance--the physical mind and the spiritual mind should cooperate, coordinate.

There are those forces which the entity, then (not merely the body but the entity--body, mind, soul, is meeting in itself, called--by itself oft--karmic reactions. But karma--Well, these are the conditions as we find them in the body: The body, the mind, the soul are one within the physical forces; for the body is indeed the temple of the living God. In each entity there is that portion which is a part of the Universal Force, and is that which lives on. All must coordinate and cooperate.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)