Student Catholic Action to launch 80th Year Program

All roads of the members and alumni of the Student Catholic Action of the Philippines (SCAP) lead to De La Salle University as it hosts its 80th Anniversary Opening Program this coming April 16, 2016. More than 300 members and alumni of SCAP are expected to fill the Verdure Hall of DLSU in Taft Avenue.

Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma will preside the Holy Mass at the Most Blessed Sacrament Chapel. The program’s main event is the Talk Show to be hosted by Ms. Sonia Malasarte Roco. A year-long 80th Anniversary Program and Activities will be launched by the National Secretariat which will include the new vision and mission of the organization, the First Mobile Cine Short Film Festival and the anniversary theme song.

The 80th foundation anniversary of SCAP bears the theme, “Bunga ng Otsenta: SCA at 80, Our Story to Sustainability.” This reflects the organization’s thanksgiving for the fruits it produced for the past 80 years while working on the challenges to sustain its program for social and spiritual transformation. SCAP has been a seedbed of leaders who are now working in the church, education, environment, government and in other public service sectors. To name a few, some notable alumni are the late senator Raul Roco and his wife, Sonia Roco, former Chief Justices Artemio Panganiban and Hilario Davide, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, Jose Concepcion, and Atty. Loida Nicolas-Lewis.

SCAP started as a scholastic philosophy club on April 12, 1936 in UP Manila by Columban priest, Fr. Edward McCarthy. It spread quickly in 1950s to merely all provinces in the Philippines through the guidance of the Society of St. Columban (now Mission Society of St. Columban) Chaplains. The national coordination however suffered the effects of Martial Law because of its strong involvement in human rights advocacy and active leadership against corruption. It silenced for years until it was revived in 1997 through the efforts of the late Teresita E. Nitorreda, former Dean of the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) and Bishop, now Archbishop Rolando J. Tria Tirona who was then the Commission on Youth Chair of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)

SCAP is currently existing in over 20 arch/dioceses clustered in NCR, Northern Luzon, Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. It established its National Secretariat in 2007 to continue the coordination among its member-schools around the country. SCAP is known for its leadership formation program, Inquiry Method of Reflection and Cell Technique.

To know more of SCAP’s activities, interested participants may visit its website at www.scaphilippines.org or contact its hotline at 0918-967-0331.