Student Leader Chronicles: Dialogue with Sen Bam Aquino

The Dean of OSS on his Opening Remarks

The Council of Student Organizaions,last October 25, 2016 (Tuesday), invited 100 selected Lasallian student leaders were invited to have a dialogue with Sen. Bam Aquino. It was a short affair but it was engaging and spontaneous. I honestly learned a lot more about the current educational reforms and policies implemented in the country. 

1.) The Education Budget

According to the Senator, who is also the chairman of the Senate Eduction Committee, the budget this year for education was a whopping PHP 566 billion, which is also the largest budget of the year. Most of the budget for education goes to building facilities such as schools and classrooms in rural lands. He noted that apart from classrooms, most rural areas ask for better internet connections as well, showing just how much technology is needed even in education.

2.) K to 12: What is it and How does it work?

In the recent years, the government implemented K to 12 in the hopes to be at par with other nations surrounding the Philippines. This programs, according to Senator Aquino was pattern of that of Singapore and Germanys's educational system. And here's how it works,

Senator Bam Aquino on different education
reforms of government

By Grade 11, students will be required to choose a "track" which are Academics, Technical-Vocation Livelihood, Sports, or Arts and Design. This four tracks are further subdivided into more specifics tracks for students to choose. So if a student is aiming to go to college he will most likely pick the Academics track. I also discovered that Gr 11 and 12 students will also under go a mandatory OJT depending on the chosen field (which I think is awesome)

Why was it implemented? What were the expectations?

The main reason K to 12 was implements was not only to keep up with other nations but, most importantly, to make sure that after Grade 12, a student is already EMPLOYABLE. This means that they already have the necessary skills needed by companies that will allow them to be employed right after graduating. Sen. Aquino also said that because of this, it was expected that most students will pursue the Tech-Voc tracks rather than go to college. Classrooms were being built and teachers were being trained to be able to cater to the new system. Youth entrepreneurship in all levels will also be implemented where they will be teaching about financial literacy and the value of money. This are two things I am most excited about!

Issue:

But here's the thing, the government grossly underestimated the numbers. A lot of the students chose the academics track. They were expecting a big dropout but 92% of students chose to enter grade 11. The underestimation was mainly due to the negativity of the people before the start of the implementation.

3.) Free tuition for State Colleges and Universities Bill

Although this was yet to be passed, this will surely make a positive change in the country. This will allow less fortunate filipinos a chance to go to college and pursue a degree. I'm personally looking forward to this.

Dialogue

After stressing his key points, students were then given a chance to ask him some questions regarding the reforms

A Psychology student asked him about current special education budgets to which the senator said was pretty low. 

Senator Bam Aquino on his Dialogue with student leaders

A political Science student also asked to confirm the budget cut for the National Commission of Culture and the Arts which might ultimately cut budgets for programs such as arts and dance, that which the senator also confirmed. 

A Filipino major student petitioned to give the Filipino language more importance in the K to 12 system 

and lastly, when another Education  student asked him to justify the k to 12 system, Sen. Bam said that ultimately he believes that this is the step to be able to address, unemployment and job mismatch issues and that, over the long run, this is enable Filipinos to get jobs quicker.

Experience:
In the end, I am proud to say that I was part of the organizing committee for this event and though it was quite rushed, the students were able to get better insights about what to government is doing as we speak. Sen. Bam was friendly and engaging and was trying to insert as much laughs as he could while in the dialogue. He also encouraged the students to maximize their use of social media and to stay connected with the government as much as possible. He hopes that we will be sending our suggestions of what we thinks will be a good reform or law and they might possibly bring those suggestions forward -- you'll never know until you try!



That's all for today, see you guys next Tuesday!

Investing in Experiences: 2nd DJSS

Last Saturday, I attended the 2nd DLSU-D JFINEX Students Summit: Money Matters, Changing The Way You Think About Money at the Ugnayang La Salle Gymnasium, DLSU-D. It was one of the biggest events I have gone to so far in this year and I must say they did a really splendid job. The DJSS is a fund raising event held annually in our school. I organized the first DJSS but this year's summit far outshined and outperformed the previous one. 

Four amazing and engaging speakers graced the stage and talk about how money affect our sense of leadership, investing, relationships with others and our spirituality. All of the speakers are in the top of their fields and were so engaging, you couldn't help but get drawn in their talk.

The organizers also didn't disappoint the participants with their generous sponsors and food partner. Food quality was ensured by McDonald's and thousands of pesos worth of raffle draws were given by their sponsors! The most memorable ones were the 5 lucky winners for the 25k accident insurance by Sunlife;the 3 10k discount from Tree Top Adventure and 10 lucky backpack winners  from Hawkbag. 

The weather was especially sunny on that day as well and there were a lot of participants. the whole gymnasium was jam-packed! It's really amazing how one organization is able to spearhead all of this is certainly a feat.

The summit all in all had a wholistic view about money and gave its attendees insights on how money affects a person as a whole. The morning talk focused more on money and how it affects your sense of leadership with Mr. Abante of the Department of Finance, he talk about how as young government officials are constantly facing a lot of challenges. Mr. Marvin Fausto talked about how you can use money to start investing and start to accumulate wealth at a young age by investing in the stock market. Mr. Pangilinan enumarated how important building good relationship with others affect your mindset in money emphasizing that a great relation ship with God and your family can help you better handle your finances. Lastly, Pastor Soriano, inspired us to be better investors while also stressing out that we need not be consumed by money in order to experience a full and satisfying life.

At the end of the day, everything went on smoothly up until the closing remarks to the distribution of certificates. The only thing I could comment on was the lack of ventilation and poor air-conditioning of the venue but other than that I  was super happy with everything else rating this event a 9/10! But seriously, I think it was the freebies  and merchandise that really caught my heart.

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored. It is simply my review for the 2nd DJSS. Credits to DLSU-D JFINEX for the posters.

Investing in Experiences: Online Stock Trading Seminar

Last Monday, I attended the Online Stock Trading Seminar of the DLSU-D JFINEX. It's their annual stock trading seminar which aims to encourage students to create their on online stock accounts and start investing early. For 2 years, COL Financial has been their partner in spreading financial literacy and letting the community know that investing in stocks are not only for the rich and wealthy but for every Filipino! COL also set up a booth where student are inquire and fill up account forms.

Mr. Jed Velarde, a training consultant from COL Financial, was invited to talk this year. I really enjoyed listening to him and he gave us a lot of tips on how we should perceive the market and look at it from a long term perspective. He gave a lot of stories and analogies that were simple yet effective that both students and professors understood and related upon like comparing the amount of groceries you can buy then and now to explain inflation. He is such an engaging speaker and was able to even make students laugh at some of his jokes. 

I learned 3 important things from Mr. Velarde which are:

Be an Investor - Mr. Jed encouraged us to think of ourselves as investors in the stock market and not traders. Traders are usually does person who closely watch the market and day trade which is to buy and sell a stock on the same and gain profit through  share price appreciation. He told us that it would that, although there is nothing wrong with being a trader, it entails a lot of risks and as students who wish to maximize the growth potential of our portfolio we have yet to afford such risks. He recommend being an investor instead where you can continuously invest in the market.

Invest for the Long Term - We should also invest in the market with a long horizon in mind. The market is constantly changing however, in the end, its trend will always go up especially in a developing country like the Philippines which still has so much potential to grow moving forward. Which is why if you are going to invest now, keep in mind that you will doing so for the next 30 to 40 years into the future.

Do it Regularly - Invest in the market regularly. Mr. Velarde suggests monthly, quarterly or maybe semiannually and make sure to invest in stocks with good fundamental which will certainly continue to grow and be more profitable in the future. The trick to this strategy is to continue investing even if the market if high or low. COL Financial  believes that thru peso cost averaging you will be able to create a sizeable portfolio with low cost stocks especially in the long term and you may do this as well through their EIP.

So if you are a student and you are interested in creating your own stock account you may do so thru COL Financial starting with 5000PHP. Here's what you'll need to open one. I hope you'll find it helpful and see you in the next post! 

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored or anything of that sort. Also credits to the DLSU-D JFINEX for the posters and guidelines on the COL account requirements.

Student Leader Chronicles: Interview with 95.9 Green FM

Being a student leader has brought a lot of challenge but it has showered upon me countless of blessing and opportunities as well! One of those is to be invited as a guest in the Lingkod Lasalyano program of our universities radio station, 95.9 Green FM. 

Lingkod Lasalyano is a radio talk show program in our university which highlights key projects and activites made or are being held by the Lasallian youth. Last Friday, they featured the Council of Student Organizations' upcoming event which is Enviweek 2016: The Lasallian Youth in Action for Environmental Conservation this November 14-19, 2016. This will be a week long event focusing on the environmental advocacies and how the youth can start making a difference in our environment.

Chelsea, my co-projecthead (right) and I (left), were both awestruck and flattered that Green FM chose our activity as their  feature. We were a bit nervous because it was our first time to be interviewed live but Mangie, the Lingkod Lasalyano host and her team guided us all through out. 

Being invited in this kinds of appearances really bring joy to me as a student leader -- that I will be able to reach out to be fellow youth and encourage them to make a difference in their lives and to our community. We really hope that our event will be able to make an impact in the lives of students and the opportunity to talk about Enviweek on air gave us more drive to push even further!

That's all for now. I will be post more about our event in the coming weeks. Cheers!

The Investing Perspective: How I Budget My Allowance?

I apologize for the temporary haitus for this blog. University life has basically eaten up almost all of my free time. But I'm glad to be back! Today, I want to talk about something I've been doing for the past month in order to help me stay on budget. I have tried a lot of methods to keep track on what I spend but I just couldn't commit to any until this one.

As a typical college student, it really vital for me to monitor my allowance because of I don't, I wont be able to eat the next day. And since, I'm a student leader, I'm very active and I usually join events and competitions. These are a few of the reasons why I created a system for my to budget my allowance.Basically, I made this budgeting system using Google Sheets, which I really find convenient. I can easy edit my template on my laptop using my google account; or my phone using the Sheets App. 

The formula I use is very straightforward. It's my take on the concept of Income - Savings = Expenses. My savings are my deposits to my stock account since I still don't have a job and really want to take advantage of investing early in the stock market, I put a portion of my allowance to my investment.  But I also deduct one time expenses that I foresee to happen in that coming month. For example, I know that I will have to pay membership fees last September so I made sure to deduct it on my spendable allowance beforehand. I really love the fact that Conditional Formatting is available in Google Sheets as well and it really help to condition my mind to save even further.

I also included the one-time expenses I failed to budget on (red mark) so that I can have a better view of the things I did not take account for so that I can avoid it in the future.

After getting the Spendable allowance, I would divide it by 4 weeks and further divide it by 6 days which are my normal school days in a week to get my spendable allowance per day. However I also add the Total Variance to that which is equal to the maximum I can spend in a day. The variance may be a surplus of deficit depending on by much I saved out of the allowances on the previous days.




If you want to try using this template I have uploaded a sample here as well, feel free to download it. The Investing POV: Monthly Budget Allowance

How about you? How do you budget your allowance? Comment them down below.

Disclaimer: The formula is something I created for myself, it may vary from one person to another!