GMN : “Broadening and Deepening the MSUanship in your life"

Happy One Year Anniversary September 2009.

The GMN population is hovering at 10,000. It was only around September 2008 when Ash was contemplating on creating a website to service MSUans all over the world. Matet, Malou, and I were encouraging him to develop this site because we were planning on having our mini tapok tapok in Houston along with Helen Crea of New York and use GMN as our communication tool (discussions and chat). Before, during, and after the mini tapok tapok, we’ve posted the CBL matters. Discussed, brainstormed, and agreed to a lot of things regarding the CBL that we were working on. Ash’s creation was the perfect vehicle for us to piggy back the discussion. The GMN was born.

A year later, the membership of GMN is now close to five figures. MSUans all over the world gravitated towards GMN.

• where basically, everyone can have his/her own circle of friends, post blogs, articles, or forum of their choice
• anyone can have his/her own personal page, post pictures by the thousands, hundreds of same poses
• listen to his/her own choice of songs
• talk to his/her own contemporaries and has the choice NOT to listen/read any other articles; laughed at funny jokes, funny videos
• join the Tampororot family, who hosts the CR addicts 24/7. These AMEWs have created their own language and became a cyber family -coming from all corners of the world. Ash designed the GMN Amew t-shirts and it’s a seller…they are all over the world now too.
• gives freedom of choice to members to have a private page, open to only their choicest friends.
• post memories – favorite sud-an, who broke your heart, favorite place to date, who was your crush, roommates, etc. These are just a few of the popular postings I enjoy to read because they are fun and it makes us remember.
• rehash our own private memories. During its infancy, I used to spend nights looking for old friends, read their brief bio, make contact, and realized that yeah, we all have gotten old. Of course, GMN allowed me to post only select pictures of myself (young, thin, and fully made up, haha). Ok so I am vain.
• learn that any tapok tapok doesn’t need to be big. Anyone can announce and join a tapok tapok (small or big). In fact there have been a lot of tapok tapok from all over the world also.
• From the tapok tapoks, it allows us, especially the oldies to meet the young ones. I met Renato Pacaldo, Violy, Sha, Arlene, Fe, and Rashid Pandi who is still in MSU and I know deep in my heart will soon become one of our very good leaders of the university.

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate our little brother RASHID PANDI, our new elected MSU Marawi student body president! The students from MSU together with Rashid won the 20th Mindanao Parliamentary Debate Championship, and Rashid was declared as the best speaker. Way to go Rashid!

• allowed other university groups to create their own sub-group/s within…The five most active groups are the Eyoners Club, The Markers, The Baden-Powell Guild, MSUans UAE, and the KSA Riyadh
• The top five groups that have the most members are the following: Business Administration Group, SNBD-SNGD, MSUans in CARAGA Region, GMN Self-Help Center, and the MyShutterSpace Group.

GMN to this day has 9,799 members; 106,323 photos; 981 videos; 7,911 songs; 1,778 forum topics; 1,879 blog posts; and 417 groups.

• It is the place where we met and continue to meet other MSUans with different political groups and beliefs. And they are nice too!! (OK so I thought they would just bully me with their political agenda – but they didn’t; many of them are good friends.) During my time, I thought the older MSUans would have not given me the time of day. Of course, I could/would have been the same to the younger MSUans,
• GMN allows non-profit group to introduce its mission and objectives, projects, fund raising activities, and initiatives to help MSU.

On a personal note, I would like to mention the partnership and cooperation forged between GMN and the non-profit group, Mindanao Economic and Environmental Initiatives (MEEI) Inc. MEEI is a non profit corporation focusing on 5 major initiatives: Environmental, Manufacturing Technology, Health Care, Education, and Internet/Digital Media. Other initiatives such as Peace and Arts/Culture will be included when possible. This partnership allows both groups to build on each other’s strengths and help each other where needed. For now, GMN has provided assistance with the creation of MEEI website (this is needed for grant application) and marketing of MEEI as a viable international consulting group for projects where Philippines is a beneficiary. In addition, we will use GMN to make announcements when needed. Through GMN, MEEI will be able to connect to MSU professionals in the thousands, knowing that each of these MSU graduates has special corner of their hearts reserved for MSU. We will obtain the services of MSUans when projects are funded.

In turn, MEEI assisted GMN in its fund raising activities and other areas where MEEI can help. After all, GMN and MEEI have common objective - to help MSU, Mindanao and the rest of the Philippines .

We must thank Ash Tamano, the man behind the GMN. He is the man who receives complaints, compliments, hate mails and others. Ash continues to man the GMN 24/7. To get relief, he created his own Admin Team to help manage the complexities of GMN. This team reads postings to make sure that no laws are broken, and no one maligns anyone. Even if we are all MSUans, we are also diverse. As such, the Admin Team reminds us all - when we veer from socially accepted behavior of good manners.

Good Luck GMN. Happy One Year Anniversary September 2009.
Thank you Ash Tamano, from the bottom of our hearts.


Ate Perl, Ate Pearl, Perl