Happy 60th Philippine Anniversary brothers and sisters!
Today we are again celebrating the Philippine Anniversary of our fraternity. 60 years ago a group of young Filipino men, all with scouting backgrounds, listened to a presentation of a gentleman from Washington State by the name of Sol George Levy about an organization of men extolling the values of a scouter. After his talk, he distributed copies of literatures about his Scout-based fraternal organization. Among those in the audience were a group of students led by Librado I. Ureta and they embraced the noble idea of establishing such a fraternity. True enough on March 2, 1950, at the Rm 214 of Nicanor Reyes Hall, Far Eastern University the first organization of Alpha Phi Omega outside of the United States of America was established.
Alpha Phi Omega rapidly and healthily grew in the Philippines. In its third year, it became a national organization with seven chapters chartered in Manila and Visayan campuses. It was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a non-stock, non-profit, non-dividend corporation with a registered name of Alpha Phi Omega international Collegiate Service Fraternity.
Fast forward to the present…. our beloved organization have more than 300 active collegiate chapters across the nation and 200 plus alumni associations spread all over the globe. The values and principles of our organization are still being preached by our members. Our brotherhood is still growing. We are strong! We are going to remain strong for the next 60 more years! We are still the NUMBER ONE FRATERNITY IN THE WORLD!!!
We are no. 1!….No. 1!….No.1!…music to our ears. It further boosts our already high morale. However, let me caution all of you, we may not stay that way if the persistent problem of low-recruitment in our chapters is not addressed and resolved. Without new blood our organization will die. This is a serious concern and it needs a concerted effort from every APO member. All of us have to go back to our mother chapters and see what we can do to help correct the problem.
Your National Leadership and as well as concerned members knew about this problem. As early as March,2006, during my term as Regional Director of NCAR and during the term of then President, now our incumbent Chairman of the BOD, Jimmy De Castro, we launched a series of seminars across the nation spearheaded by my chaptermate, brod Joe Eco of ETA called “BALIK-CHAPTER-BACK To BASICS”. That seminar aimed to bring back our focus to the very core of our being a true APO. We also conducted separate Collegiate Congresses in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to further help find a solution to this problem. We even have an ongoing contest of the best recruitment video in the hope of generating more interest in the solution.
A group of individual members also saw the problem and wanted to do something about, it organized the first NCAR-Balik-Chapter Motorcade in 2008. My congratulations to the original organizers of this very noble project. Today we are conducting simultaneous Balik-Chapter Motorcades across the nation with one message of “No to Hazing and No to Campus Violence”. This will kick-off our week-long celebration of our National Service Week. Kudos to everyone participating in the various activities slated this week.
On this day also, we are launching the 2010 APO Philippines Collegiate Chapter Recruitment Contest. This contest is sponsored by APO District of Columbia Alumni Association (APODCAA) in coordination with your National Council through the Commission of Membership (COME). Its objectives are 1) to support APO Phils national membership growth and development program. 2) to motivate APO Phils. Collegiate chapters to recruit quality members and 3) to promote quality recruits by strict adherence to the APP. Details of this contest are posted in our various email groups. This early I would like to congratulate APODCAA for stepping up to the plate and joining us in your council to find a solution to our recruitment problem.
On the coming months we will once again hold three separate Collegiate Congresses across the nation. I am enjoining all chapters to send delgates and actively participate in this exercise. We need to help each other if we want to further build our organization.
I would like to talk more about APP and its provisions of “No-Hazing” in our organization which most of our chapters still do not follow but I would not like to “spoil” the spirit of our celebrations with lectures and reprimands so I am reserving that to a talk in the near future.
In the meantime, let me once again greet all of you a very warm Happy Anniversary! Mabuhay ang kapatirang Alpha Phi Omega!
Brod Magleo “Mel” Adriano
National President
DY 2007-2009-2011
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