About the Ampoys

History

Sometime in August 29, 1992, a few alumni of the fraternity gathered for a round of beer and barbecue in Connecticut, a state located somewhere in the northeast coast area. The group was led by Dodong'74 who flew from Virginia to attend this small get-together. There were only a few of them at that time , comprising mostly of John Reyes'75, Nicky Torres'75, Kading Mercado'75, Cle Climaco'77 and together with their wives and kids. Before this event, several plans to meet were on the drawing board such as the grand wedding of Wilford'76 on April, 1991 and the luncheon meeting in Chinatown in the fall of 1991. In October of 1992, the group came out with the first Pinoy newsletter in the U.S. called the "Informal Newsletter of the Pinoy Alumni of North America" with John Reyes'75 as the editor and his wife, Gigi as the desktop graphic artist. Thus, the need to formally organize as a chapter was envisioned and planned but did not materialize not until several years later.

In the back alley of Apple City in 1998, Libran Cabactulan'69, who was then the Philippine Consul General in New York City, started to contact a few members he knew living around the area and combed the states of New Jersey, Maryland and Connecticut for more. The fingers kept walking the yellow pages for names and phone numbers in the hope of finding a familiar name. In a span of a few months, members of the fraternity, who left the Philippines in the 70's and 80's for the land of milk and honey, were found and planned a re-union to reminisce the glory days of the past. Thus was born the Pinoy55USA in the summer of 1998 and tagged its members as the AMPOYS. It is an acronym for American Pinoys living in the US, as coined by Buds Rosello'64.

By fate or by design, the first formal gathering was also in August, 6 years later (1998), at the tower residence of Libran'69 overlooking the Hudson River in New Jersey. The occasion was graced by the presence of two original Pinoys; namely, Rei Cedeno'55 and Juli Amado'55. Gil Delos Reyes'62, who is known among the brods as "Tatay Gil" or the "Protector" of some younger brods, drove all the way from Maryland to attend the historic occasion. Story telling and laughter filled the air which made the night seem so short for quenching the thirst for news and whereabouts of the rest of the members. The joyous celebration could had easily peaked at the crack of dawn if not for the repeated intermittent hard knocks on the door by the local police. However, this did not deter the group from continuing to chatter. Although in whisper mode , the joyful echo could still be heard across the river and the fun-filled celebration left its mark in the heart of every Ampoy.

On the same year, Pinoy55egroup.com was formed by Wilford Lim'76A, who was also the first President of the Ampoys. It was the height of the build-up of the information superhighway, where time wrapped and geological boundaries collapsed. At the speed of light, letters called email could be sent to the other side of the world without stamps. It was the beginning of the digital age for the fraternity. As the US economy was rapidly growing and the internet technology continued to expand, Libran'69, who at that time was suffering from severe attack of gout in the big toe , was also busy planning and building the first Pinoy55 web site. Nowhere to go and nowhere to hide, he kept on pounding the keyboard and formulating the digital codes for the web site. Thus, was born the first Pinoy55 web site as a sub site under rinlib@prodigy.net. The PC by then , as a new found toy, became the bridge among fraternity members, visited more often than their love ones. By this time the rudiments of the information technology infrastructure for Pinoy55 were operational reaching every Pinoy with a PC through email. Communication, which took several days and months before the advent of the world wide web, is now being achieved in a blink of an eye.

After 1998, the intermittent annual gatherings of the Ampoys now called "Invasion" continued from New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and to Chicago in 2001, where old bonds continued to be forged and renewed among brothers, both the young and the old. At the turn of the 2nd century, the chapter was able to secure 3 top level domain names in the internet ; namely, the dot org, dot net, and dot com. Due to some US corporate entities, mostly in the internet technology business, buying out and swallowing up small companies, the first Pinoy55 web site suffered the same fate and banished into thin air without a trace. This, however, did not douse out the flame and the desire for a permanent web site using one of its top level domain names. Three years after the unexpected demise of the first Pinoy55 web site, http://Pinoy55.org emerged on the world wide web in the first month of 2004 in an entirely new form with an attitude and unrestrained enthusiasm. The site contains pictures, both old and new, and information on events and activities of its members. After it made its debut , the site accumulated more than 8,000 hits in its first two weeks of existence and has continued since then. By the first quarter of the same year, Pinoy55USA was recognized by the University of the Philippines Alumni Association as a fraternity alumni chapter abroad of the UP Brotherhood of the Filipinos'55. Its home page was also indexed as one of its U.P. Alumni web pages.

The Ampoys have finally secured its rights to Pinoy55 which will be the legacy it will bestow to the future generation of the organization. The Ampoys have persevered in its ideas and tasks inspite of obstacles. It will continue to strive to reach its intended goals and aspirations no matter how long it takes. It will be in the forefront of changes to make it relevant to the present times and lead this organization to the next century.

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