Two years ago, a brilliant idea was conceptualized by one of the great minds of a SIGLIWA member, Girlie Garingo. The idea then snowballed into a very ambitious plan of organizing a BIG celebration, to be held in the southwest U.S.A.- Las Vegas, Nevada. With Dut Gonzalez & Dutchie Desales on the helm, Diggs Ravelo and Anna Lagman’s direct access to the venue, and the availability of the Yahoo group mail constructed by Lynn del Prado, the ball started rollin’.

Planning begun by chats on the Internet. Dutchie & Dut started their relentless search for classmates, calling directory assistance, sometimes armed only with minimal information on individuals. This search included class members who have remained in the Philippines, as well as those residing in other parts of the world. Meanwhile, Diggs & Anna started the research on the most expensive hotel for the event (oh, because we know so well, how generous we SIGLIWA’s are).

SIGLIWA members started joining in (via the Net) to help out in preparing a simple, but memorable program. All were invited to share their ideas, including those abroad. Joy Valenzuela, May Castro, Machu Abille,& Debbie Tulio readily volunteered to help in the pre-reunion decorations. Lynn and Dutchie prepared the program, Lulay Nacional and hubby Chris, volunteered to create the celebration’s highlight. Len Guevara came up with a surprise feature for fun, and Dutchie’s daughter, Joanna prepared a special treat for the group, just to remind everyone on how ‘young’ we are! SIGLIWA husbands, Jimmy Garingo (Terrie Garin’s husband) & Botchoy of Machu volunteered to capture the special moments in film, claiming that, they both have extensive experience as paparazzi, a very valuable skill required for the task.

On August 15, 2003, a pre-reunion dinner was held at Digg’s place--supposedly designated for finalizing the program for the next day. Plans were hardly finalized when ten minutes was used for planning and the rest of the night was spent reminiscing. Every single time a SIGLIWA showed up at Digg’s door, cries of “aayyy” and screams of “ahhhh” were heard throughout the neighborhood, enough to alert the Las Vegas police. (Oh, no! Sr. Mary D., don’t worry, no one was arrested for behavior unbecoming of a Paulinian Nurse!)

Throughout the night, hugs & kisses were shared, life stories told, and most important of all, size comparisons made. It should be noted: The enthusiasm and energy that is characteristic of the SIGLIWA’s has never waned. In fact, years of raising kids and living with our better halves must have enhanced these special qualities.

This event was to become an extension of the main celebration, which would continue into the wee hours of the morning and into . . .

August 16, 2003, Saturday at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Tropicana Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada

The official celebration began. . .

The program was opened by Lynn del Prado, the Master of Ceremonies. A special invocation written by Fr. Erno Diaz (Theology professor) was presented solemnly by Shaft Yberra. This was followed by an emotional greeting from Bing Millado, one of the former class presidents. As dinner was served, Mimes Lasam, another former class president, delivered an inspiring speech. The program continued with a dance presentation by Dutchie’s daughter, Joanna. Boy, don’t we wish we can move and groove like her… like we used to!?!

Then came the highlight of the night: a movie presentation by Chris and Lulay Nacional Thompson. Presented were picture memoirs of those SILVER days, in and off-campus, accompanied by a musical score to complement the mood. WOW! What awesome memories!! We saw how much fun we used to have and how pretty we were! Watch out for those short skirts, guys, Sr. Remy is coming! Are those tears in every SIGLIWA’s eyes I see? No more sexy thing?! Hey, loved those ‘70’s pants - we should have kept them, it’s in again! The hair, the hair, the hair - maybe in curls but nicer in AFRO! Huh, was that Dutchie, again? She’s all over! Luto ang movie - how much did you pay Chris?
. . . And, there was the present, too. I think most of us have had some plastic surgery--just look at those faces-after twenty–five years NO CHANGES! Or maybe, we just saw each other through our hearts . . .
Copies of this movie will be mailed to everyone.

Terrie Garin (our website administrator), who claims she is not used to talking in front of a big audience, gathered all the courage she can and addressed the group regarding the SIGLIWA website. (My, what dedication!) Everyone was urged to update her demographs to facilitate communication and sustain current SIGLIWA information.
To view the website, log onto: http://geocities.com/sigliwa (click on address)

The program continued with the SIGLIWA trivia, developed for everyone’s enjoyment by Len, with the valued inspiration and contribution of May & Dutchie. Trivia questions included the who’s who in “kalokohans”, places we used to love as well as places of memories and, most importantly - our clinical foul-ups.

An example of these foul-ups included “Who injected a man and caused massive bleeding in the injection site?” and,
“ …who sterilized a tracheal cannula and immediately inserted this (while still 100 degrees centigrade) into the patient’s tracheal tube to cause extensive mucous membrane burns?” Man, how did we become the successful nurses that we are? Or, are we utilizing the SIGLIWA strategy (again)? Another trivia!
Prizes were won as trivia questions were answered correctly.
For more trivia samples log onto: http://geocities.com/sigliwa (click on address-will be available soon)

Dancing to the mostly ‘70’s music followed, with music provided by a wonderful Pinoy DJ. It was a re-creation of the famous “Delirium”, a famous disco hang-out in the Philippines frequented by SIGLIWA’s after school hours or, was it during school hours??!

Twelve midnight came, and to everyone’s disappointment, the party had to end. However, do you think it ended here? Of course not! Another re-union occurred at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino for brunch on Sunday morning. We can never get tired of each other. More pictures were taken!

NO, NO, NO. . . We did not want this celebration to end at all - there were (and still are) too many things to catch-up on. Feelings of caring and camaraderie were re-ignited. No one wanted to let go . . . but, we promised one another to keep in touch and keep in touch we will!

Hopefully, in the years to come, we will continue to build the memories, have fun with our lives and each other, keep everyone in awe of our accomplishments, and most of all treasure the sentiments we experience as individuals, as
best friends, and most important of all, as . . . . SIGLIWAS!

Thank you very much to everyone who shared with us these very special moments!!!