The SISC Student Council glues the Southville community together by making Monarchs' opinions and ideas heard. Yearly, they spearhead schoolwide activities and events, and encapsulate citizenship and leadership to the student body. As the school year commences, Monarchs need to elect the next set of leaders to shoulder this heavy responsibility.
On October 3, the candidates of this year's Student Council Elections revealed themselves to the student body. After a five-day campaign season that concluded with a Miting de Avance, simultaneous elections took place on October 10. Official results were released hours later.
Before and after election day, we interviewed six Student Council candidates to understand their prospects of reforming the school for the better. Get to know their motivations, aspirations, and plans both prior to and following their campaign.
Before Election
Karyssa "Kary" Alamon
The first candidate we interviewed is Kary Alamon, a 9-Compassion student who ran for Grade 9 Level Representative.
A member of the Avengers Party, Kary remained firm under her party's main goal — closing the felt space between VOLT and HyVOLT students.
"I too have experienced the three modes of learning dividing some students from others…. I felt regrettable because the full face-to-face students looked very happy in class and as a result, I switched to full face-to-face."
Afterward, Kary shared that she started to engage with the VOLT students more by calling them separately or messaging them during fun and special times.
When asked about the possible results of the elections, she stated that it would be difficult to predict as her “competitors are formidable opponents.”
“The Avengers Party is working our hardest so that our goals; in this situation, winning the election would be accomplished,” she continued.
In the chance that she does win the position of Grade 9 Representative, she noted that she would be thrilled and proud that her party’s efforts were worth the struggle.
“I would also promise to put even more effort to be the voice of our batch and be a reliable friend to all my batchmates,” Kary added.
Being a person of big dreams, she strongly urged the students, as voters, to help her and the Avengers Party by voting for them.
River Barriga
River Barriga is a student of 9-Diligence, one of the candidates who ran independently for Grade 9 Level Representative.
"I am the good alternative to the party candidates, but I think it’s really a battle of the two parties: Avengers and Novel. And the ballot is saturated with candidates that have the same interests so I think the results will spread thin," he said.
River also believed that being an independent candidate puts him at a disadvantage.
"If I lose I will congratulate the winner and give my full support to them because Grade 9 [picked] them and when losing you don’t lose everything but you gain experience," he remarked
When it came to uniting the students separated by the three modes of learning, he would take action by advocating for better technological equipment. He would also make sure that more communication channels will be utilized to widen the batch’s network; reaching students from sections other than their own.
River planned on creating a bridge between the modes of learning through Discord, a widely-known communication platform. Through Discord, he will establish a stop shop for reminders by SISC employees, the Student Council, etc.
“[E]ven students can give help or tips to someone who needs it.” he shared.
Sihyun "Sisi" Park
Lastly, we interviewed Sisi Park, an 11-Efficiency (HUMSS) student who ran as the Avengers Party Secretary.
Predicting her reaction to the possibility of winning the elections, she would be very glad as the Avengers Party gave a lot of effort this month. In addition, regardless of the results, Sisi thought she’ll feel a sense of relief as she felt stressed since it took a lot of preparation and dedication to get where her party is now.
Although she has won a couple of times for positions such as the level representative in the past without one season lost, she — once again — did not set any expectations whatsoever.
“To be honest, I’m not really sure [about] my election results. I’ve been told a lot that people are looking forward to my election but as a nominee it is really important for me to not set any big expectations so that I don’t get disappointed in the case that something goes wrong,” Sisi answered.
“But I do trust in my ability to cater to the student body and I do trust that students around the campus also have trust in me," she added.
After Election
Kim "Caroline" Taehyeong
Following October 10, the first candidate we reached out to was Caroline Kim from 12-Rigor. She ran for President under the Novel Party, advocating for the Student Council to become a novelty — inspired by her running mates who were also new students.
"The meaning of our party 'Novel' is to create a new journey for Southville and our party mostly consisted of new students in Southville, and we had more diverse ideas because we were all from different schools," she emphasized
The diverse backgrounds of the Novel Party's candidates were also why Caroline believed that her party's proposals were fresh and diverse.
"I thought their plans were really nice," she said when asked about their rival party Avengers' plans.
"However, most of the candidates tried to bring back the past events back before COVID-19 while, our party tried to really make new events that students in Southville couldn't have thought of and never experienced," she went on to say.
Albeit bested in the Presidential race, Caroline believed that there is a small chance her party's proposals can still be instigated if raised to the new Council. The decision will be in other people's hands.
Marcus Javier Rosal
In 7-Resilience is Marcus Rossal, the winner of the Grade 7 Level Representative race. Last year, Marcus served his batchmates as the Grade 6 Level Representative. This year, his independent run, added another win to the list.
Regarding the events that occurred in the Miting De Avance and campaign season, he said that he didn’t disagree with any proposals by his fellow candidates. While his peers presented events and activities for the school (eg. karaoke days, prom, TEDx, cell phone charging stations), his plans centered more on about better communication, efficiency of information sharing, and opening up about personal feelings.
“As part of the Student Council, I will do my best to support the plans of the council and will pursue mine as well with the support of our adviser and other officers,” Marcus remarked.
“My [reactions about the] results on the poll are surprised and ‘shaken’ as me and most of my friends would put it. In my opinion, Hua Fei and Samantha Gomez are also qualified candidates for this position for they also wanted a better school experience for us students. I really thought one of them would out-vote me since I already won last year, but oh well, this was a pleasant surprise,” he told us.
Marcus would like to give a big thank you to those who voted for him. Most importantly, he swears that he will do his best to fulfill the vision of this academic year.
“I owe you heaps!” he enthusiastically added.
Sofia Leigh Sindac
To cap off the candidate interviews is Leigh Sindac from Grade 12-Initiative. Leigh, the newly-elected Treasurer, hails from the Avengers Party.
"Deliberation and meeting halfway are key principles in running for office. Although my fellow candidates and I shared the idea of most proposals, I disagreed with some." Leigh said with candour when asked if she agreed or disagreed with her party rival's plans.
"I did so because proposals are proposals, and it is important to assess whether they are even possible in the first place. Because some propositions seemed too idealistic, I did not encourage their introduction to the student body..."
However, Leigh clarified that she, alongside the elected officers will be open to suggestions from the student body in order to have an auspicious school year.
The SISC Student Council is a testament of hope not just for Monarchs but for the executive founders of Southville — that the school built out of a mother's love for her children grew to become a producer of leaders and movers in the academe. As we end the campaign season, the entire SISC community must unite together and continue to strive for change.
About the authors
Martha Pinca is a 9th grader who's always been into creative hobbies ever since she can remember. She really loves writing screenplays, short stories, and sometimes poems. Besides this, she enjoys watching and overanalyzing films.
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