FILIPINO WEEK: A Week of Unity in Diversity
Last week, the Beacon Academy successfully held its first ever schoolwide celebration – Filipino Week. The administrative and support staff members, the faculty, and the entire student body all took part in this festive event as they had been busy preparing themselves for it in the previous weeks. The 5-day long celebration was loaded with various Pinoy activities, topped with competitiveness and team spirit especially on the last day.
As a kick off for the week, the Beacon Academy Student Council (BASC) prepared a Food Fest last Monday, held in the Gallery in Building B, through which we literally had tasted what it is like to be Filipino. From fried tusok-tusok and sizzling sisig bowls, to cold refreshments and sweet, creamy desserts, all sorts of the good stuff you would find in a traditional Filipino fiesta were sold from recess time until the end of lunch, resulting to a long, unending line of Pinoy food-craving Griffins.
Aside from the Food Fest, a whole lot more activities came our way throughout the week. Last Wednesday, Ligaya Amilbangsa and the Alung-Alung Dance Troupe were invited during Assembly to introduce us to their preserved art, the Pangalay Dance from the Sulu archipelago, through a mesmerizing performance exhibiting extraordinary balance and control in their movements. After which, they demonstrated and taught us the basics of the dance, letting us experience the art to better appreciate its beauty.
On the same day, BASC also spearheaded a Filipiniana costume contest for which they encouraged everyone to come to school in traditional Filipino attire. The contest included awarding batch points to the cohort with the most people in Filipiniana, which most probably was the reason why Griffins here and there sought even the tiniest piece of Aztec-patterned cloth to wrap themselves with just to be deemed qualified for the said contest. This activity sparked the now blazing competition across all four batches, which was also fuelled by the house system they piloted this year based on the school’s colors, in which the 9th and 12th graders made up Bughaw, meaning blue, whilst the 10th and 11th formed Lungti, green.
To turn up the hype one last time, the school ended the week with a day-long of finales. On Friday morning, the batches, together with their respective advisers, mentally clashed against each other one question after the other during the Interdisciplinary Quiz Bowl, which by the way had an interesting spin to it as they had also incorporated timed challenges such as eating balut within a couple of minutes, sipping coconut juice using two straws, and even the recent social media trend that is bottle-flipping, in order for everyone to earn their batch extra points.
After the quiz bowl, students as well as staff members were able to prove not only their distinct and innate competitiveness, but also their own flairs and guts to perform during the Talent Show and the Cheer Dance competition, as they were able to reach out to and move their community through their own unique performances. Hence, because of the Talent Show and the Cheer Dance Competition, the school was able to witness its students freely express themselves by means of their own creative ideas and strengths.
Ultimately, they concluded Filipino Week with the Palarong Pinoy, in which every batch brawled versus one another through skills challenges, relay and tag games, and even mind games like sungka and dama. Indeed, these kinds of games are catalysts for competition, however in the BA community, we have also ignited the sense of family and camaraderie among the students, the faculty, as well as staff members. The community has definitely grown closer, and will continue to as we take on more of life together within the rest of the year.
By Janine Contreras, Batch 2018