Photos by Mr. Meljohn R. Tatel and Irvine Kenneby Lee

With Group 5 hailed as Overall Champion, the 11^th PISTAYM, a week-long festival of academic, cultural and sports competitions among teachers and students, ended with spectacle and revelry during the Cheer and Dance Competition and Awards Ceremony on February 13, 2010.

The students, divided into eight groups, competed in 38 events and were coached by their respective teacher-mentor group coordinators assigned for each group. Each group, rallying with each own signature team name and color, was composed of students from all year levels.    

The current school year’s PISTAYM, a derivation from “Peace Time”, is the 11^th since it started in the early 80’s. The current PISTAYM is the offshoot of the 80’s annual “Pagmumulat”, a festival of one-act plays participated by students and teachers. “Pagmumulat” evolved into the present PISTAYM with other cultural and sports events added.

The PISTAYM of this school year was launched early in November with students distributed to groups. Groups prepared, trained, and practiced from November to late January.

The Participation Contest was introduced two years ago when groups then competed for the punctuality and participation among the audience or spectators for the events.

Digital Illustration was introduced this year. With the time limit of two hours, the students composed their digital illustration based on a given theme using the available free illustration software.

The academic competitions were: Current Events, Spelling, Academic Quiz, Scrabble, Essay Writing; Sports: Basketball, Volleyball, Kick Baseball, Soccer, Table Tennis, Chess, Dama, Tug-of-War, Dodgeball, Darts, Badminton; Cultural: Cheer and Dance, Modern Dance, Poster Making, Photography, Elocution, Oratory, Instrumental Solo, Instrumental Duet, Vocal Solo, Vocal Duet, T-Shirt Painting, Storyang Suanoy.