President's Message to the Alumni. Valedictory speech of SPMAFI President Ricki Arches at the 2025 Homecoming

Valedictory Speech of Patricia “Ricki” Arches

Posted on February 01, 2025

As I mulled over this valedictory speech, I was struck by the realization that
everything we did during my tenure as SPMAFI President was a reflection of the
theme that we have chosen for the 2025 Homecoming, “ Reboot, Refresh,
Rekindle,,,, a Paulinian Homecoming v.2025”. For indeed, this theme defines for us
not only what a Paulinian Homecoming should mean to our Paulinian community,
but also what we endeavored to achieve in the SPMAFI Board when we took over the
governance of our foundation 3 years ago. Allow me now to draw the parallelism as I
take you through the journey we took and recap the legacy we leave behind.

REBOOT:

When I took over as SPMAFI President in 2022, the world was just emerging from2 years of COVID isolation and SPMAFI’s finances were running on empty having been drained after not being able to hold a homecoming event, collect membership fees or raise funds for 2 years. We literally had to reboot SPMAFI and revitalize our alumni foundation to remain operational and relevant in the face of challenging times.

To recover from SPMAFI’s dire financial condition, the Board immediately embarked on a campaign to boost attendance for the 2023 homecoming and launched fundraising efforts that included raising membership fees by 50% and encouraging alumni to pay lifetime membership dues prior to replenish SPMAFI coffers. These efforts were quite successful and provided the impetus to create the Paulinian Legacy Fund in 2024 to serve as the receptacle for funds raised to support SPMAFI’s outreach and legacy programs.

Since most of us elected to serve on the SPMAFI Board in 2022 were new, it was probably providential that we could look at our foundation with fresh eyes and steer SPMAFI into new directions, introduce innovations and governance best practices to adapt it to the needs of the times.

So among the first actions I took was to conduct a planning session with the incumbent Board, where we formulated SPMAFI’s Mission and Vision statements, defined our core values, reviewed our Foundation’s By-Laws, and amended it to give us a road map to follow and be guided by for SPMAFI to function effectively and fulfill the aspirations of our Paulinian constituency.

REFRESH:

SPMAFI’s Mission is “To build lifelong connections among St. Paul Manila alumni worldwide by providing opportunities for meaningful engagement with one another, the school, and the larger community “. Our end goal is “To increase awareness, pride, participation, philanthropic support, and investment in the future of our Alma Mater.”

To accomplish this mission, it was imperative to create a means of reaching out and regularly communicating with Paulinian alumni who are now geographically dispersed and maintain a lifelong connection beyond the premises of our alma mater, bridging distance over time.

To refresh the way we communicate with one another, SPMAFI invested in the establishment of several digital social media platforms like our website, Facebook Page, and Email domain. These digital tools facilitate online, real-time, and interactive communication among Paulinians all over the world.

Aside from informing and updating our alumni on SPMAFI activities, projects, and policies, these digital platforms promote alumni involvement, broader participation, in deciding on the future of SPMAFI and the legacy-building programs that SPMAFI is undertaking today and in the years to come. The SPMAFI website also offers digital payment platforms that enable our alumni members to transact business with SPMAFI online via bank deposit, online transfers, and credit card payments at their convenience.

This year marks a milestone in SPMAFI history as for the first time we conducted a hybrid election system to elect a new Board of Trustees.  Alumni members in good standing are now given the option to vote in absentia or via remote communication versus the traditional manual voting system available only to homecoming attendees as provided in the old SPMAFI Bylaws. Implementing this new hybrid election system required amending the SPMAFI bylaws accordingly and developing an online voting platform integrated into the spmafi.org website  to allow voting online or in absentia via proxy for alumni who cannot attend or personally cast their vote during the alumni homecoming. This technological innovation enables wider participation among alumni members, especially those who are based abroad or outside NCR, not only to choose the leadership of SPMAFI and influence future policies and strategic directions. The online voting facility will also allow SPMAFI to survey the sentiment of our alumni community in resolving certain issues or choosing our foundation’s advocacies.

SPMAFI will continue to “refresh”, evolve and adapt to our fast-changing environment, utilizing technology to serve our alumni members better and remain relevant to the needs of living in today’s increasingly digitally driven world

REKINDLE:

At the heart of everything that we do at SPMAFI is our vision “ To serve as the principal catalyst for service, involvement, and connection of St. Paul Manila alumni with our alma mater, and become a pro-active and dynamic community committed to live true to the Paulinian spirit of Caritas Christi Urget Nos while ensuring that the legacy of our Paulinian education remains vibrant and relevant in the years to come.”

It is this Paulinian spirit and lifelong connection with St. Paul that SPMAFI wishes to rekindle and celebrate each year during our homecoming. Beyond reconnecting with our classmates and reminiscing about shared memories of our youth, we hope that the homecoming experience would instill a desire and commitment among Paulinian alumni  to pay forward the blessings made possible by our Paulinian education. The best legacy that we as Paulinians can leave behind is to live our lives remaining true to the values inherent in Caritas Christi Urget Nos. SPMAFI is committed to help our alma mater St. Paul continue to succeed as an educational institution in mentoring future generations of Paulinians to become a positive
influence in their community and in the world.

This Paulinian spirit is what inspired SPMAFI to create the Paulinian Legacy Fund
which is intended to serve as the receptacle for alumni donations, endowment gifts, and proceeds of fundraising efforts conducted to support programs and initiatives that propagate Paulinian values and have long-term impact on our alumni community and our Alma Mater.  With lifetime membership fees providing seed capital, SPMAFI’s goal is to build and sustain the Paulinian Legacy Fund at a minimum P1 million level as a revolving fund to be able to mount legacy building projects on a continuing basis.

I am pleased to announce today that as a flagship project, SPMAFI is earmarking P1 million from the Paulinian Legacy Fund towards the creation of the SPMAFI Scholarship Program to extend financial aid to poor but deserving students of SPUM with outstanding academic performance and the potential to excel n their chosen field of study. The underlying objective of this scholarship program is to help SPUM attract and retain students capable of exemplifying the quality of education that SPUM offers while raising the academic standards of the school and its graduates’ competitiveness in professional licensure exams and in the job market
place.

Rather than providing traditional full tuition scholarships to students who meet the academic performance and financial need criteria, SPMAFI will instead grant financial support or incentives to the student who achieves the highest GPA in a selected course per semester, or who tops the licensure exams after graduation and is willing to serve as SPUM ambassador for promoting school offerings. The scholarship program should help boost the brand reputation of SPUM as an educational institution of choice for the best and the brightest students to address
the school’s declining enrollment figures.

To sustain the Paulinian Legacy Fund and support the SPMAFI scholarship program long-term, we will, of course, need the financial support of our alumni community and donations or sponsorships from individuals and institutions on a continuing basis. We shall be communicating with you through our website and social media platforms on how you can help with fundraising efforts for various SPMAFI legacy-building projects.

SPMAFI has fiduciary systems in place to assure everyone of full accountability and transparency in reporting the results of our efforts and how your donations have been spent.

SPMAFI wishes to rekindle as well, the Paulinian spirit of volunteerism and community service.

Aside from financial support, there are other ways Paulinians can contribute to SPMAFI’s initiatives and legacy-building programs.

Sharing your time, talent, and experience by joining the Alumni Resource Pool, and Speakers Bureau established by SPMAFI’s Education and Christian Formation Committee last year is also a meaningful way for alumni to give back to our beloved alma mater. By volunteering to share your learnings and experiences from your profession and life pursuits, you can help enrich SPUM’s academic programs and contribute to SPMAFI’s continuing learning programs for our alumni constituency.

Active involvement in SPMAFI’s Outreach Projects and serving on the SPMAFI Board and working committees are other meaningful expressions of the Paulinian spirit that we celebrate today.

Conclusion:

As my 3 year term as SPMAFI President ends at today’s homecoming, I believe I have come full circle. My willingness to serve the Paulinian community and our beloved alma mater was rekindled by my attending the 2020 homecoming as a Golden Jubilarian together with my HS 1970 Batchmates. It was the first time I visited our campus since HS graduation 50 years ago and I felt at home, in the company of my Paulinian family.  All the memories, camaraderie, and relationships nurtured in my youth at St. Paul’s were suddenly rekindled and the desire to be of service to our beloved school and my fellow Paulinians  led me to run for the SPMAFI Board and become its President 2 years later. I hope this personal homecoming experience and the desire to serve SPMAFI is replicated and rekindles a flame in your hearts as well so that when the opportunity to do so presents itself, everyone here will respond positively moving forward.

I am honored to have worked with the incumbent Board of Trustees as I gratefully acknowledge their support and contribution to the legacy I leave behind at SPMAFI. Much remains to be done to achieve SPMAFi’s Mission and Vision but I am confident that we have laid out the necessary infrastructure, policies and programs that will enable our successors to fulfill it.

For now, let me acknowledge the people who have made this all possible, and ask everyone to join me in applauding their hard work and dedication as Board Trustees and officers of SPMAFI.

May I call on the following to stand up and be recognized :

Popi Gutay – VP for Internal Affairs – from HS 73,
Heidy Dimapilis Cachuela – VP for External Affairs from BS Accounting 1980
Aida Simborio – Treasurer – from HS’63 and AB’67
Jennifer Olivar – Corporate Secretary – BSN’90
Millie Reyes, PRO HS ‘69
Ruby Abasolo – Auditor – Membership Committee Chair – HS’80
Tess Manimtim – Ways & Means Committee Chair – HS’86
Josie Antonio – Trustee – BM 2008, MA 2018
Sr. Cristina Guytingco – Sister Moderator –HS’63, BSC Accounting “67

Trustees, let the fun begin

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