ABOUT US

The website, www.guidondownunder.com, is not necessarily an official website of the Ateneo Alumni Australia, otherwise referred to as EaglesBlue, although it is the first and only one about and for its members.

The site also has a broader coverage, if you will, because it takes in the lives of former Filipino students from Jesuit schools ~ in the Philippines or from anywhere in the world ~ who now live in Australia.

Moreover, it takes in the activities of Filipino expatriates in Australia who may be visiting or living temporarily in Australia and who have attended a Jesuit school.

The birth of EaglesBlue

The idea of organsing alumni from the Ateneo de Manila was conceived in 1995 by a small group led by Cesar Bigornia, a law school graduate-turned-businessman in Sydney.

In that same year, Mr Bigornia got things moving. With some assistance from another alumnus and then Philippine Consul-General in Sydney, Ariel Abadilla, the first batch of alumni formally established the Ateneo Alumni Association of Australia at the Consulate General's residence in Elizabeth Bay, in the presence of then Loyola Heights-based Ateneo Alumni Association president who was on a Sydney visit at the time.

The association was first presided over by Mr Bigornia as its first president. Jaime K Pimentel took over the helm in 2000. Heading the group today as president is practising corporate lawyer Kate Andres.

Early in its establishment, the Ateneo Alumni Association of Australia was an organisation for graduates of the Ateneo de Manila, to the unstated exclusion of alumni from other Jesuit schools in the Philippines and elsewhere. It was also determined then, unofficially, that membership be limited to former graduates of the Ateneo de Manila University.

But it wasn't long before membership expanded. Any perception that only graduates from the Ateneo de Manila had exclusive claim to Jesuit education gradually gave way to inviting Filipinos from any Jesuit school to the fold. Members now count among them former Jesuit school students who did not complete their studies at the institution but who continue to carry with them the spirit of Jesuit education.

Today, the Ateneo Alumni Australia boasts a membership that includes former students from Ateneo de Naga, Ateneo de Zamboanga, Ateneo de Manila and Xavier University in the Philippines, and the University of San Francisco in the USA.

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This website, www.guidondownunder.com, is published and edited by Jaime K Pimentel. Submissions and queries may be sent by email to sandigan@optusnet.com.au