Iloilo Central Commercial High School
Encyclopedia
Iloilo Central Commercial High School is an educational institution located on Iznart Street, Iloilo City
, Philippines
. It was founded by the Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Iloilo, Inc.
Today, amidst the storms over life she’s able to bring herself to an existence for 98 years – an existence that is a reality beyond her dreams.
Conceived and installed by Iloilo Chinese Chamber of Commerce, she bore an original name “Iloilo Chinese Vocational School” formerly located at Yu Tiak Ha Building at Aldeguer Street. In a short span of time, she obtained a piece of land opposite the street and erected hereon a building which was called Tian Po Hall. A year later, the school was renamed “Iloilo Chinese Primary Commercial School” with only an approximate number of 60 enrollees.
Only it was in year 1918 when the Chamber of Commerce and the school itself finally acquired a piece of land along Iznart Street, which is now a remnant of her laurels and glories. With the help of these two institutions, the school was established permanently with a stronghold of optimism that “this school” would find her place at the summit of excellence.
In 1927, alterations of her name went into different waves. She was called “Primary Commercial School”, and later became “Iloilo Chinese Commercial High School”.
In the succeeding years (more specifically in 1932), more rooms were opened, more instructional materials and equipment were provided, new curricula in the Elementary and High School were offered, and Kindergarten Course was finally introduced.
Before and during the Second World War, the so-called “Ultimate Dot” in the Philippine Map conquered the “Sleeping Giant”. It successively ignited the “September 18 Senyang Incident”, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the “December 8 Resistance Campaign of the Chinese People near Shanghai.” Bloody against the heartless invaders. Among those who stood proudly and bravely the forefront were the highly spirited and courageous school teachers and students with their valiant action, resorted to form themselves into anti-Japanese Patriotic Groups.
This group was responsible for stirring the valor of the local Chinese through various drama performances. Being the nucleus of the Anti-Japanese Forum, constituted principally by the local Chinese, school teachers frequently organized discussions on current events. When the Pacific War “Prevailers of Justice” broke out, governmental agencies as well as civil publishing agencies moved out from their grounds, except the school teachers who valiantly persisted on receiving, covering, mimeographing and distributing the latest war-time issues for the people to know and be informed of what was really happening. True to their courage, they were hailed as the – truly a glorious honor to live up in the cords of eternity.
Finally, when Japanese aggressors took advancements to the South and reached Iloilo, some of the Anti-Japanese organizers, including some of the inflicted members of the Board of Trustees ended up to jail-languishing and suffering upon only at the end to be vanquished, amidst devastation. Their remains were buried in the Chinese Cemetery. Their heroic prowess in the past served as the dangling virtues to be followed by their successors.
The war left the school in ruins. The Board of Trustees which was labeled as liberated and compassionate to move this institution to the “peak”, had lost no tears over the destructions. They bravely and passionately prepared themselves to continue the operations. Through the funds from friends, residing in Gigante Island, they were able to finance the new set-up.
Meanwhile, notwithstanding the uncomfortable premises build from small number of rugged nipa huts, classes reopened on November, 1949. Years later, a new school building was inaugurated which bore the name “Yu Guang Lou” (Fisherman Hall), after the Gigante fishermen and friends whose magnanimous help in building the school is valued and honored.
In 1950, “Yi Bin Lou” (Iloilo Shore Hall) was established and the following year, “Min Jiang Lou” (Manila River Hall) was inaugurated. The halls were named after the places to commemorate the enthusiastic contributors from the respected regions.
In December 1952, many innocent Chinese teachers were detained without reasons and even deported to nowhere. Because of this, normal affairs of the school battered all these hindrances and emerged with more vigor and strength. In fact, by 1955, after courses in Chinese Senior High School reintroduced, ICCHS became full-fledged high school in 1958 where the first Senior High School and second Batch of English Secondary students graduated simultaneously.
But on the 7th of February 1966, a terrible fire struck Iloilo City – the biggest fire Iloilo had ever experienced. Almost one-third of the commercial districts of the city were burned to the ground. ICCHS was then experienced conflagration and suffered from the spoils of holocaust. In order not to distort the normal study of some 900 students, the Board of Trustees, facing gigantic hardships, decided on the resumption of classes few days after the fire. The humiliating situation was gravely mourned by the mentors and the students.
To accommodate the resumption of classes, ICCHS was temporarily transferred to a rented building situated along Guanco Street. Four months after the holocaust, the difficult things started to emerge, the crude facilities and physical conditions added up to the hardships of both fronts – the teachers and the students alike. These two factors had been sacrificing, striving and even more struggling so as not to lose no hope; teachers taught harder and students learned well. Even after the tragedy, enrollment was indelibly increasing, showing a concrete proof of the support and faith of the people to the school.
The Board of Trustees, the Iloilo Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the school per se joined hands to form a “School Fund Drive Committee”. The Overseas Chinese Daily Publications Corporation quartered in Manila also offered to help in the Fund Drive Campaign. There generous donors both materially and spiritually upheld the program as a great success.
Because of the unsurpassed reputation of the school, vast populace donated great sum of money. The construction of the first school building started in July 1967 and was completed in May 1968 and utilized on June of the same year.
It was now in 1975 when ICCHS was recognized under the name of Iloilo Central Commercial High School. During this time, enrollees increased to one thousand eight hundred. Educational objectives were even more strengthened and its emphasis on the teaching of three languages, Chinese, Filipino and English was reinforced.
Because of the rapid increase of population, two more buildings were subsequently built. The Cho Tiak Hall and the Po Kim Bi Hall were renovated in 1984.
In 1986, ICCHS began its glorious time. Honors started to pour. Laurels grew rapidly. Achievements began to flourish. The peak of excellence was attainable. ICCHS had been victorious in bagging the most coveted plum of being the Grand Slam Champion in the basketball field, and won praises and top prize in several contests both in academic and sports activities. Gliding with the success of her children, she waved a gratified salute over her product.
In order to meet the contingent needs of the school, the Alumni Association sponsored a “Light for Progress” movement- rallying alumni, parents and friends from all walks of life throughout the country raise funds for the procurement of an adjacent lot (with an area of one thousand two hundred and twenty five square meters) upon which a beautiful Alumni Park and a modernized Kindergarten Department were successfully constructed. These facilities were turned over to the school during her 75th Foundation Day. It is significant to note that with this accomplishment, ICCHS’ Kindergarten pupils produced a pleasant place for learning. This simply manifested the school’s effort to upgrade her educational quality.
In 1992 the Board of Trustees initiated the construction of a school building adjoining the Antonio Uy Si Kai stage. The new five storey building houses, the school canteen in the ground floor, which did not only sell books and other school materials but affordable snacks which catered to a well-balanced meals for the faculty as well as the students. The ten classrooms at each level had answered the perennial problem of the lack of classrooms.
One can now find a well-equipped T.H.E. Room on the second floor, an air-conditioned and Speech Laboratory and Computer Rooms at the third and fourth level of the same building. At the fifth floor is the air-conditioned Alumni Hall with a Conference and Audio-Visual rooms.
As of 1996, the student population had increased to a roughly 2,000. Both the members of the faculty and the student body had integrated themselves into the mainstream of the Filipino society.
Each year ICCHS has actively successfully participated in all activities undertaken by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports, by the private sector and organizations in events like sports, cultural and academic competitions. The school has always comes out with high flying colors. Students come home with medals, certificates of merits, and honors. Graduates for the past years have made the mark by passing 100% the National Secondary Assessment Test (NSAT).
The later years saw the zooming up of different renovations in the school library and the school dormitory, which now can comfortably house more than two hundred fifty students. It now has the fully air-conditioned library with widened and well-stocked open-shelves room and equipped with computers and audio-visual equipment, well-lighted and spacious reading and study area. The dining and kitchen areas of the dormitory were renovated and the living area with built-in cabinets for each students. The purchase of three school vans to service the school, alumni and visitors have been also materialized.
The Ledesco Branch, which opened its doors to the student living the outskirts of the city, in 1992, has a complete pre-Elementary and Elementary courses, (Grades 1 to 6) and First Year to Fourth Year High School classes. THE ICCHS extension has a wide children’s playground a mini-forest around which make the Ledesco school conducive for learning.
Inaugurated in February 2002, the new three-storey building, the library, the auditorium and the gymnasium are now fully developed, and stand as the great legacy to ICCHS’ rapid development. The modernized gymnasium is now a venue of the ICCHS’ major convocations and sponsored activities and even Iloilo City’s academic and sport activities such as the PRISAA, Integrated and Regional Meet.
Iloilo City
The City of Iloilo is a highly urbanized city in the Philippines and the capital city of Iloilo province. It is the regional center of the Western Visayas, as well as the center of the Iloilo-Guimaras Metropolitan Area...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. It was founded by the Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Iloilo, Inc.
History
Year 1912, marked the birth of Iloilo Central Commercial High School – the premiere and the second oldest Filipino Chinese School in the Philippines.Today, amidst the storms over life she’s able to bring herself to an existence for 98 years – an existence that is a reality beyond her dreams.
Conceived and installed by Iloilo Chinese Chamber of Commerce, she bore an original name “Iloilo Chinese Vocational School” formerly located at Yu Tiak Ha Building at Aldeguer Street. In a short span of time, she obtained a piece of land opposite the street and erected hereon a building which was called Tian Po Hall. A year later, the school was renamed “Iloilo Chinese Primary Commercial School” with only an approximate number of 60 enrollees.
Only it was in year 1918 when the Chamber of Commerce and the school itself finally acquired a piece of land along Iznart Street, which is now a remnant of her laurels and glories. With the help of these two institutions, the school was established permanently with a stronghold of optimism that “this school” would find her place at the summit of excellence.
In 1927, alterations of her name went into different waves. She was called “Primary Commercial School”, and later became “Iloilo Chinese Commercial High School”.
In the succeeding years (more specifically in 1932), more rooms were opened, more instructional materials and equipment were provided, new curricula in the Elementary and High School were offered, and Kindergarten Course was finally introduced.
Before and during the Second World War, the so-called “Ultimate Dot” in the Philippine Map conquered the “Sleeping Giant”. It successively ignited the “September 18 Senyang Incident”, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the “December 8 Resistance Campaign of the Chinese People near Shanghai.” Bloody against the heartless invaders. Among those who stood proudly and bravely the forefront were the highly spirited and courageous school teachers and students with their valiant action, resorted to form themselves into anti-Japanese Patriotic Groups.
This group was responsible for stirring the valor of the local Chinese through various drama performances. Being the nucleus of the Anti-Japanese Forum, constituted principally by the local Chinese, school teachers frequently organized discussions on current events. When the Pacific War “Prevailers of Justice” broke out, governmental agencies as well as civil publishing agencies moved out from their grounds, except the school teachers who valiantly persisted on receiving, covering, mimeographing and distributing the latest war-time issues for the people to know and be informed of what was really happening. True to their courage, they were hailed as the – truly a glorious honor to live up in the cords of eternity.
Finally, when Japanese aggressors took advancements to the South and reached Iloilo, some of the Anti-Japanese organizers, including some of the inflicted members of the Board of Trustees ended up to jail-languishing and suffering upon only at the end to be vanquished, amidst devastation. Their remains were buried in the Chinese Cemetery. Their heroic prowess in the past served as the dangling virtues to be followed by their successors.
The war left the school in ruins. The Board of Trustees which was labeled as liberated and compassionate to move this institution to the “peak”, had lost no tears over the destructions. They bravely and passionately prepared themselves to continue the operations. Through the funds from friends, residing in Gigante Island, they were able to finance the new set-up.
Meanwhile, notwithstanding the uncomfortable premises build from small number of rugged nipa huts, classes reopened on November, 1949. Years later, a new school building was inaugurated which bore the name “Yu Guang Lou” (Fisherman Hall), after the Gigante fishermen and friends whose magnanimous help in building the school is valued and honored.
In 1950, “Yi Bin Lou” (Iloilo Shore Hall) was established and the following year, “Min Jiang Lou” (Manila River Hall) was inaugurated. The halls were named after the places to commemorate the enthusiastic contributors from the respected regions.
In December 1952, many innocent Chinese teachers were detained without reasons and even deported to nowhere. Because of this, normal affairs of the school battered all these hindrances and emerged with more vigor and strength. In fact, by 1955, after courses in Chinese Senior High School reintroduced, ICCHS became full-fledged high school in 1958 where the first Senior High School and second Batch of English Secondary students graduated simultaneously.
But on the 7th of February 1966, a terrible fire struck Iloilo City – the biggest fire Iloilo had ever experienced. Almost one-third of the commercial districts of the city were burned to the ground. ICCHS was then experienced conflagration and suffered from the spoils of holocaust. In order not to distort the normal study of some 900 students, the Board of Trustees, facing gigantic hardships, decided on the resumption of classes few days after the fire. The humiliating situation was gravely mourned by the mentors and the students.
To accommodate the resumption of classes, ICCHS was temporarily transferred to a rented building situated along Guanco Street. Four months after the holocaust, the difficult things started to emerge, the crude facilities and physical conditions added up to the hardships of both fronts – the teachers and the students alike. These two factors had been sacrificing, striving and even more struggling so as not to lose no hope; teachers taught harder and students learned well. Even after the tragedy, enrollment was indelibly increasing, showing a concrete proof of the support and faith of the people to the school.
The Board of Trustees, the Iloilo Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the school per se joined hands to form a “School Fund Drive Committee”. The Overseas Chinese Daily Publications Corporation quartered in Manila also offered to help in the Fund Drive Campaign. There generous donors both materially and spiritually upheld the program as a great success.
Because of the unsurpassed reputation of the school, vast populace donated great sum of money. The construction of the first school building started in July 1967 and was completed in May 1968 and utilized on June of the same year.
It was now in 1975 when ICCHS was recognized under the name of Iloilo Central Commercial High School. During this time, enrollees increased to one thousand eight hundred. Educational objectives were even more strengthened and its emphasis on the teaching of three languages, Chinese, Filipino and English was reinforced.
Because of the rapid increase of population, two more buildings were subsequently built. The Cho Tiak Hall and the Po Kim Bi Hall were renovated in 1984.
In 1986, ICCHS began its glorious time. Honors started to pour. Laurels grew rapidly. Achievements began to flourish. The peak of excellence was attainable. ICCHS had been victorious in bagging the most coveted plum of being the Grand Slam Champion in the basketball field, and won praises and top prize in several contests both in academic and sports activities. Gliding with the success of her children, she waved a gratified salute over her product.
In order to meet the contingent needs of the school, the Alumni Association sponsored a “Light for Progress” movement- rallying alumni, parents and friends from all walks of life throughout the country raise funds for the procurement of an adjacent lot (with an area of one thousand two hundred and twenty five square meters) upon which a beautiful Alumni Park and a modernized Kindergarten Department were successfully constructed. These facilities were turned over to the school during her 75th Foundation Day. It is significant to note that with this accomplishment, ICCHS’ Kindergarten pupils produced a pleasant place for learning. This simply manifested the school’s effort to upgrade her educational quality.
In 1992 the Board of Trustees initiated the construction of a school building adjoining the Antonio Uy Si Kai stage. The new five storey building houses, the school canteen in the ground floor, which did not only sell books and other school materials but affordable snacks which catered to a well-balanced meals for the faculty as well as the students. The ten classrooms at each level had answered the perennial problem of the lack of classrooms.
One can now find a well-equipped T.H.E. Room on the second floor, an air-conditioned and Speech Laboratory and Computer Rooms at the third and fourth level of the same building. At the fifth floor is the air-conditioned Alumni Hall with a Conference and Audio-Visual rooms.
As of 1996, the student population had increased to a roughly 2,000. Both the members of the faculty and the student body had integrated themselves into the mainstream of the Filipino society.
Each year ICCHS has actively successfully participated in all activities undertaken by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports, by the private sector and organizations in events like sports, cultural and academic competitions. The school has always comes out with high flying colors. Students come home with medals, certificates of merits, and honors. Graduates for the past years have made the mark by passing 100% the National Secondary Assessment Test (NSAT).
The later years saw the zooming up of different renovations in the school library and the school dormitory, which now can comfortably house more than two hundred fifty students. It now has the fully air-conditioned library with widened and well-stocked open-shelves room and equipped with computers and audio-visual equipment, well-lighted and spacious reading and study area. The dining and kitchen areas of the dormitory were renovated and the living area with built-in cabinets for each students. The purchase of three school vans to service the school, alumni and visitors have been also materialized.
The Ledesco Branch, which opened its doors to the student living the outskirts of the city, in 1992, has a complete pre-Elementary and Elementary courses, (Grades 1 to 6) and First Year to Fourth Year High School classes. THE ICCHS extension has a wide children’s playground a mini-forest around which make the Ledesco school conducive for learning.
Inaugurated in February 2002, the new three-storey building, the library, the auditorium and the gymnasium are now fully developed, and stand as the great legacy to ICCHS’ rapid development. The modernized gymnasium is now a venue of the ICCHS’ major convocations and sponsored activities and even Iloilo City’s academic and sport activities such as the PRISAA, Integrated and Regional Meet.