Packing Beaches!!!

It's been said that a plenary session was a very long and arduous process, requiring tons of patience and drums of coffee. At first I thought that congressmen just wasted the people's money while participating in plenary sessions. Well, that was until I attended a plenary session as a delegate.

28-30 October 2004 was the date the 8th Civitas Asia Student Conference Series on Civic Education, Citizenship, and Democracy was held at the University of Asia and the Pacific. OSA informed me a few months ago that I would be one of the delegates that would represent UST in the conference. Well, it was a great opportunity, so I agreed to co-represent the school.

28 October came, and thus the conference officially started. At first a series of lectures were delivered by Prof. Mirshariff Tillah (UA&P professor from the Institute of Political Economy; on Civic Education), Ms. Shiela Coronel (PCIJ Director; on Philippine Mass Media), and Rep. Simeon Kintanar (Representative of the 2nd District of Cebu; on Participatory Governance). Like any other conference, it had its highlights, its share of delegates that were making lider-lideran, those who wanted to impress others by their eloquence but ended up making fools of themselves, those who really were very impressive, and those who were content to remain silent, contributing few ideas and thoughts.

I've met and made quite a few good friends, which is a little bit surprising given the fact that I'm not usually the sort of person who makes friends easily, but since we were going to work our butts off together for the next few days, I did. Most noteworthy would be Miggs (actually I already know him from the Leadership Congress in Caleruega), Ramil and Sherie (UST), AC and Tin (St. Paul - Manila), Marian (ADMU), Hans, Dean and Christian (FEU). These were the people whom I hung out with mostly during the conference. I made other friends as well, but I only got to talk to them during the plenary and during the banquet.

29 October - Final Party Night of the SMB Oktoberfest 2004. We were supposed to attend the Oktoberfest after the conference, but things got a little complicated, and the traffic was also very very heavy along EDSA, so we just decided to go to the nearest 7-11 and just buy our own booze, and have our own 'fest at the apartelle. It was around 10 or 11pm when we started, and we finished at around 3am. Miraculously, I was still able to find my way home.

30 October. As expected, I arrived late at the venue. Good thing the plenary session hasn't started yet, or I would've had a minor inconvenience. So begins the arduous plenary session. All in all, a total of 7 hours were spent discussing each group's proposed resolution, owing to the fact that a lot of delegates were raising too many points of inquiry, information, clarification, and too few amendments. My head was already spinning afterwards, since I only had about 3 hours of sleep. Well, eventually, we finished the session, and we came up with the final resolutions, and on to the banquet itself.

So ended the 8th Civitas Asia Student Conference Series, and in this connection I wish to move that discussion of this matter be closed. (damn, I think I still am reeling from the 7-hour long plenary.)