Zamboanga News - Wednesday, December 17, 2008 21:55 - 0 Comments

ZCSPC celebrates Alumni Homecoming

Zamboanga City - - The Zamboanga City State Polytechnic College (ZCSPC) has over the years grown into one of the city’s prestigious institutions of higher technical and vocational education— more lasting and durable that any of its physical structures.

Thus, Mayor Celso Lobregat said of the ZCSPC on the celebration of its Grand Alumni Homecoming Saturday night, saying the school established in 1905 could not have been what it is today without the efforts of its alumni, school administrator, the faculty and the community it serves as a whole.

“There is no shortage of reasons for you to love the Zamboanga City State Polytechnic College and return to it,” Lobregat told the alumni, adding that the school has been the venue of some of their significant personal memories and lasting friendships.

“The ZCSPC has contributed to forming your character; it has prepared you for your careers, whether you ended up professional technicians or not. And of course, the school today could not have been what it is without any of your efforts and the efforts of the School administrator, its officials and competent faculty,” he said at the reunion of ZCSPC alumni.

He said the ZCSPC is one of the perfect examples of an institution that has endured the test of times, having been established in 1905 as then Zamboanga Trade School; later it became the Zamboanga Regional School of Arts and Trades, then Zamboanga School of Arts and Trades onto its forerunner the Zamboanga City Polytechnic College. It got its present name by virtue of a bill authored by then Congresswoman Maria Clara Lobregat, making it a state college.

“You are keepers of the flame, and it lies in your hands whether the flame continues to burn or is extinguished,” the mayor further challenged the ZCSPC alumni. “The question for the future, however, is not whether the School can endure, but whether it can ultimately extend its work and influence to change,” he added.

The real tragedy would be, he said, if—some generations hence—the faculty, students and alumni would remember the school not in the positive sense, but rather with the melancholy of a vanished past.”
“The ZCSPC is much and has accomplished much. Moving forward, however, you need to find effective ways to amplify, to multiply, and to extend that which you do. The challenge is no longer merely to survive but to surpass, not merely to preserve but to prevail.”-Vic Larato