INCAT Batch 90 and The ARCH: Amity in The ARCH – Part 1 “Friendship vs. Righteousness”

Perhaps the most challenging duty in the planning and execution of all the B90 activities is making decisions. It requires firmness and readiness in mitigating disappointment of others. Believe me; I even had difficulties in choosing the right words and composing my phrases in this write up. Decision making involves weighing of pros & cons by choosing between easy and difficult; cheap and expensive; fact and opinion; unique and common; and many other parameters. And most of the time, decision is based on the views of majority. But would it be acceptable to make a choice without gathering mass opinions. Others may disagree, but sometimes, implementing minority’s decision or even individual’s choice is a way of getting things done.

And the hardest part is choosing between friendship and righteousness. Maybe it is easy for most of us to say “righteousness”. But for those who have experienced to be in the line of fire; resiliency, strong conviction and willingness to sacrifice are most needed to yield to a rational choice. One once told me (si Kuya Jhun yun), “if your friend accepts whatever decision you make, then that person is a real friend”. So true, it is a true test if amity resides among us.

It wasn’t easy for us to facilitate the countless online discussions. A lot of opinions, various points of views, and numerous suggestions came out that we needed to put together. There were different phrases; but so funny, sometimes when you read between the lines, those phrases have the same meaning. We all came from the same province and school, graduated high school in the same year, maybe. But diversity of viewpoints existed because we now have different professions, interest; and since we are now in various locations, we are exposed to different cultures, ways of life and work environments. These conflicts of suggestions sometimes lead us to misunderstanding. But we needed to come up with our decision and we have a guiding principle that we can not really please everyone.

When Ericson Valencia introduced the call for pledges method, others misunderstood the concept. The method was online posting of donors’ names with their pledge amount and putting remark if the pledge has been paid. It wasn’t the popular decision but it’s our manner to get things going. Some thought it was just a way of showing the riches of donors by announcing the size of their contributions. But the real objective was to transparently monitor where we were in reaching the target and to acknowledge and verify if we well understood the donors’ intentions.

Another person that was misunderstood was Roque Quinto who actively participated during our call for pledges. He used loud and bold words that others thought he was boastful. But if we just open our minds and look at his manner of calling out in a positive point of view; it was his own means of challenging us to come out and bring what we’ve got for us to meet our target.

3rd Planning Meeting, October 16, 2010.
We came up with the needed budget. Call for pledge was immediately implemented

There were also instances that we needed to close the discussion and not to entertain further suggestions; this caused others to get upset. But putting conclusion to a topic will give us the chance to move forward and focus on other aspects of the activities. There are a lot of venues to apply those unaccounted late suggestions anyway.

Who gave the most meaningful contributions? Are those the cash and material donors, raffle tickets buyers or those who exerted labor efforts? It was another popular topic among others. My personal outlook: all contributors served the same purpose; that is to work together to reach the group’s goals and to turn plans to reality. And whatever decisions all of us made to show our support to every endeavor we had are most precious and appreciated.

4th Planning Meeting, November 20, 2010
Discussion was burning hell, but we came up with the initial strategy
for the project (The ARCH) execution.

Now that we learned from what we encountered, it will be easier for us next time to make our decisions and conclusions whenever we come across these situations again. What else will be complicated? It was earlier mentioned that perhaps the most difficult decision is to choose between friendship and righteousness. What if you trust someone and believe that this person (one who is being considered as family) will be with you from struggle all the way to success? And to find out that conflict of interest dwelt. Would you choose to preserve amity with that person? Or are you ready to sacrifice a long friendship. Well, for me, it will be less complicated this time. We have gained trust and supports. We succeeded in our endeavor no matter how difficult we went through. And we were able to prove what real amity is all about. It is about being together no matter what the situation we were into; about accepting judgments, not seeking for sympathy; about trying to look for positive edges, not to look for flaws. Personally, it was difficult to realize, but I once received a message saying, “True friends accept you at your worst, once they have seen you at your best”. And for Batch 90; together, we have seen and experienced the worst, which brought out our bests.

Launching of the "Let Us Build The ARCH" Raffle Draw, March 05, 2011.
Meeting after the launching. The group decided that Marcelle Martillano
be the overall construction supervisor.

Our reunion may not have been as remarkable as big university reunions. Our project may not have been as huge and costly as city buildings or land development or manufacturing facilities. But, personally, I have learned a lot more than combining all the lessons I learned in my entire career. It, indeed, takes a lot of guts to set aside emotions to be able to think rationally; and a load of courage to make a choice. And, yes, it wasn't easy to consider mitigating conflicts and alleviating others to get dismayed. And the most important lesson: I was able to learn by heart that “The amity in the middle of adversity is the best reward that makes us wealthy”. I believe all of us agree in that point of view.

Initial T-shirt design discussions:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=406955924503&set=a.105892294503.88452.735429503&type=1&theater

Call for pledge for the reunion budget:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=126428044079816&set=a.126262970762990.34231.100001378638166&type=1&theater

INCAT Batch 90 and The ARCH

Lunes, Setyembre 26, 2011

Amity in The ARCH – Part 1 “Friendship vs. Righteousness”

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