(At the end of this message are links to enable you to download this Invitation to Join, Contest Rules, Entry Form, and Authorization Form )

Dear Fellow Pozorrubians,

We are cordially inviting you to join First Pozorrubio Essay/Expository Writing Contest. We particularly call on our Pozorrubian writers, leaders, technocrats, public administrators, economists, intellectuals, pragmatists, government employees, politicians, and students to participate.

Our St. Philomena’s Academy Batch 64 Alumni together with Quesada eTechnologies are jointly sponsoring this project. This writing contest is the first in a series of writing contest that we are sponsoring. For this year, we have decided on a topic that is Pozorrubian-centric.

We feel the patriotism of each and every one of you as evinced in the donations, missions, comments, and monthly remittances you send wherever you are in the country and abroad. The same patriotic feeling motivates residents and global Pozorrubians to join community building. Yes, we see your love of your hometown, and the desire to lift you fellow Pozorrubians.

This time we would like to know your inner thoughts on how you would like to improve the ordinary Pozorrubians quality of life from a holistic context through your entries. We would like to see your ideas and recommendations crystallized online and the print media.

Your ideas could be the advocacies of our leaders (or aspiring leaders) or your suggested approaches could be their guiding methodology. They could be the noble ideas that the untarnished minds of the youth will aspire to implement. Or they can be the criteria in the selection of our officials and evaluation of their performance (which applies not only to highest post, but any post).

The Mayor may pick up ideas from your writings in her goal to make Pozorrubio a city and trickle the blessings down the baranggay levels. She and her advisers, as well as the officials/employees in the Sangguniang Bayan, have a lot of ideas to improve the lot of the residents, but we would like you to share Pozorrubians your ideas, too. We know there are a lot of you our intellectuals, leaders, writers and  brainy Kabaleyans, please come to the fore and unlease the power of your feelings and wisdom.

Please share your fellow Pozorrubians your patriotic thoughts with your entrees in this contest.

For this year’s writing contest, we have decided on the following elements of the contest:

1. Theme: "Improving the resident Pozorrubian’s economic well-being and quality of life".

The entry should answer and elaborate on the question: “If you are given the opportunity to be the Chief Executive Official of Pozorrubio, how will you lead and manage the local government and the citizens to increase per-capita income, reduce gap between privileged and the marginalized, and enhance the quality of life of majority, if not all, resident Pozorrubians?”

2. Eligibility: Any Pozorubian above 16 years old, locally resident or living abroad.

3. Language to use: English

4. Deadline of submission: November 16, 2009, 5:00PM.

5. Announcement of winners: December 20, 2009

6. Awarding of prizes: Pozorrubio Town Fiesta 2010 (Second week of January, 2010, exact date to be announced later)

7. Prizes:

· First Prize: P30,000 plus Certificate of Appreciation

· Second Prize: P20,000 plus Certificate of Appreciation

· Third Prize: P10,000 plus Certificate of Appreciation

· Consolation Prizes: 3 prizes of P2,000 each plus Certificate of Appreciation

8. Criteria for winning entries:

· Substance, factuality, and originality: 60%

· Writing style, composition, and organization: 40%

9. Contest Rules, Entry Forms, Authorization Forms, How to Submit: see attached

· Rules, Entry Forms, Authorization Forms, How to Submit and other details can be downloaded in any of the following websites:

· http://spa64.quesadatech.com (SPA Batch 64 Alumni)

· http://www.quesadatech.com (Quesada eTechnologies)

· http://www.pozorrubio.ph (Pozorrubio Online)

· http://www.pozorrubio.net.ph ('Our Pozorrubio', the LGU website)

· http://www.kapozokonline.com (KaPOZoK Online)

After opening any of the above sites, look for the link ‘Writing Contest’ and click to open. Click on Rules, entry forms, authorization form, and any article on the writing contest.

10. References: Contestants will need data in writing their entries. Information about Pozorrubio profile, LGU, developments, plans, history, articles, etc. may be obtained from www.pozorrubio.net.ph and  www.pozorrubio.ph and from the departments of LGU, such as Municipal Planning and Development Council, engineering, civil registrar office, municipal health center, survey, nutrition, local DILG department, Sangguniang Bayan, etc. in the town’s Executive and Legislative Branches.

Data may also be obtained from the regional National Statistics Office in San Fernando, La Union. Other info can be obtained from the provincial government.

A Backgrounder to the Writing Contest Project:

The idea of a writing contest came about as a result of my desire to provide content for the Pozorrubian-centered websites (now numbering 6) that I started creating since the late 90’s. I started from the articles and information published in the souvenir town fiesta souvenir program and contributions from abroad, but I ran up with continual fresh news. Lately a topnotch writer provided by the incumbent mayor provided the much needed news for our Pozorrubio websites. Additionally, the MPDC of the local government provided also the information Pozorrubians long for.

Our Kabaleyans crave for more, so I tried giving incentives to writers/contributors. Very few responded. Pozorrubian writers have probably lost vitality to write, so I thought. Or maybe there are not much writers from our town to speak of in the first place. Or maybe, most of them still consider writing on the web a mystery. And so I took it my cause to discover our writers who I believe have now spread in the four corners of the earth, or to encourage development of more writers and young writers. Mid-year last year, I published in Pozorrubio Online, a plan to launch a writing contest.

Last January town fiesta of this year, I started organizing my high school classmates batch 64 in preparation for our coming turn to host grand alumni reunion. In a reunions held in my house and Parasiso Resort, my proposal to my batchmates to jointly sponsor with my small business (Quesada eTechnologies) the writing contest project was welcome. Donors for the prizes immediately came up. It will be our first project, which will be a series of annual writing contests. And in my vacation last May of this year, we officially launched our project during our mid-year Batch 64 Reunion, an occasion participated in by some friends in the media. These events are published in the 5 websites mentioned above.

I hope that with your participation in these contests, we can make our town, someday, a source of all categories of literature, not only Pozorrubian-related.

Kabaleyans, in behalf of my SPA Batch 64 and our family’s Quesada eTechnologies, who are sponsoring this project, I reiterate our invitation for you to join the contest. Teach your fellow Pozorrubians, through your entries, your creative skills, and at the same time share Pozorrubio your golden and patriotic ideas.

Kumusta lad sikayo nga am-amin’.

Gin. S. Quesada

President, SPA Batch 64 Alumni Organization

Manager, Quesada eTechnologies

Webmaster, town websites