Christmas Party / General Assembly / National Elections / Welcome Party for Returning Scholars

This event was held at the Diamond Hotel, Manila on December 7, 2013. There were about forty-three (43) participants to this event. To start the activity, the members were asked to introduce themselves to everyone since not everybody know each other due to diversity of memberships.

After the introductions, a mini-forum on Disaster Resiliency was conducted, in order in view of the recent happening, which is the supertyphoon Yolanda, the strongest typhoon recorded in the planet Earth, which hit the Visayas region of the Philippines. The speaker who gave the talk was Dr. Marqueza Reyes, ASEAN Advisor on Disaster Risk and Reduction Management.

This activity was held at the NISMED Auditorium at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. Due to the recent super typhoon Yolanda that devastated a large part of Visayas, primarily Samar and Leyte (Nov. 8, 2013), only forty (40) of the expected 100 participants were able to attend.

The theme of the conference was on the “Multicultural Approaches to Basic Education. There were four speakers invited to tackle issues namely: Dr. Amelia Fajardo, Dr. Ferdinand Pitagan (both of the College of Education, UP-Diliman); Dr. Richard DLC Gonzales, President and CEO (DSI-Consulting); and Dr. Eleanor Diaz (UP Diliman College of Education). All speakers gave interesting presentations on their respective topics regarding multicultural approaches in teaching.

Mr. Kiyoshi Takeuchi, Mr. Shinichiro Kato and Ms. Jenny de Jesus were the only guests from JICC.

The program started at 9:30 AM, with a prayer and the singing of national anthems of the Philippines and Japan. Welcome remarks was given by the PHILAJAMES President, Ms. Grace P. Sapuay. Dr. Maria Lourdes Munarriz, PHILAJAMES Secretary, emceed the event. Mr. Kiyoshi Takeuchi, JICC Director, gave the opening remarks to the delighted audience.

It was only a half day event, but as the conference started a bit late, the presentations and discussions were extended until 2:00 pm.