November Gentlemen

The November Grand Kapihan celebrants featured a good cross section of the Batch63 group. The celebrants were a couple of TT, one Conyo and one Lan Tai in the persons of Bambi Goco, Gabby Valdes, Doug Marcaida and Steve Hontiveros. The party at Willow Root consisted of a record crowd of 25 people insofar as Grand Kapihan goes. Apart from the celebrants, the others who came were:

• Joey Ingles
• Tony Estonina
• Ed Lim
• Raffy Villareal
• Ben Ang
• Ed Oleta
• George Cunanan
• Boy Palanca
• Joey Estagle
• Francis Horn
• Quito Moras
• Joey Angeles
• Dendi Abdon
• Lito Quiogue
• Jack Arellano
• Polding Arnaiz
• Vic Corpus
• Bert Saenz
• Boy Carlos
• Vince Misa
• Oni Mayo











Celebrants’ Profile
The November celebrants are into interesting activities. Bambi Goco still maintains his Customs Brokerage business. With all his three children settled, he has time for Batch63 affairs (when he is not touring the world with wife Kang). Today, Bambi is the group’s enthusiastic advocate for more reunions – and soon. Gabby Valdes tends to his vacation houses in Tagaytay and Baguio when he is not fiddling around with his vintage cars. Gabby is not vocal about his present businesses, but I heard it from a reliable source that he is into managing the vast resources of his family.

Steve Hontiveros was actually in China as an official of the POC (Philippine Olympic Committee). According to him, he came home just to attend the Grand Kapihan of which he is a celebrant. He will have to go out again soon (Abu Dhabbi?) since he is also a director of the OCA (Olympic Committee for Asia). Work? Steve doesn’t work – he serves God and country! For those who don’t know yet, Steve is a lay minister where he serves two churches daily in QC. Meanwhile, Douglas Marcaida continues to be chief operating officer of the cargo handling division of ISLOFF Lighterage Co. He is busy raising his young son and trying to develop his real estate project in Novaliches.

Herbal Anyone?
The big gathering revealed many noteworthy interests for group members. As it turned out, more and more of Batch63 are into alternative (if not herbal) medicine regimen. The original Batch63 herbal guy is of course Joey Ingles. Dendi Abdon is a believer today in herbal treatment. It was good to see Dendi again and who is looking fine after his recent operation. A new advocate to herbal stuff is now Douglas Marcaida, one of the November celebrants.










Douglas today swears by the Barley pill as a cure-all. Citing testimonies of Barley believers, Douglas convinced the guys who eventually asked where they could get the pills. As chance would have it, Douglas conveniently had the product with him which he could share with the guys. Joey Ingles was so impressed with the successful marketing outcome of Douglas. I understand he is now trying to recruit Douglas to do the same for his own products.











Batch Future Events
Because of the many attendees in the Kapihan, many thought it timely to talk about next projects for Batch63. Since the ‘Stars of Yesteryears’ project some years ago, Batch63 has not really had a major reunion project. Bambi Goco proposed several get-together projects that the group could do leading to the centennial homecoming (2011) and Batch63’s golden homecoming year (2013). Bambi is thinking of reactivating the Class Coordinator set up to plan out the details and promote these projects. The guys visibly supporting Bambi on this are Vince, Bert, Jackie, Oni and two Joey’s (Angeles and Estagle). Batch63 is advised to await the emerging details of the projects. Prior to that, suggestions and recommendations for fun projects are welcome.











Animo La Salle!