Dear Michael

Good morning! I am your avid Facebook follower (now wordpress follower), co-alumnus at ADMU and co-Cumagun. I hope you remember the time we got the chance to be introduced at Ateneo by a mutual friend, Michelle Rodriquez I think her name was. I felt proud to be associated (by blood and by looks) with a college heart-throb.

Kidding aside, I am reaching out to you because I wish to improve upon our acquaintance significantly more notches higher. I have long wanted to initiate this but our separatedness seemed too distant. I am compelled now, however, to try harder because of my current teaching appointment at the University of Santo Tomas, College of Fine Arts and Design.

I am given the chance to teach part time Advertising Practice and Natural Science for starters. You, your brother and your dad’s experience in these fields are now a potential source of learning which I will need to pursue in order for me to be more effective in my work. My work, too, I hope you will find mutually useful for your professional and entrepreneurial goals.

I come in handy with public relations tasks which by default I am currently doing: every time I meet a colleague in advertising I usually get the ice-breaker question “how are you related to Tony?” My usual reply, mustering all the confidence I have — He is my uncle; his son Michael and I studied at the Ateneo together. I feel flattered if my acquaintance proceeds to say, “yes, now I can see the resemblance.”

On Advertising Practice: I approached your dad many years ago as a job applicant in his advertising agency. I wasn’t too keen on what I wanted to do then, professionally, and so half-hearted was my application. I took the employment tests though but I did not follow-up on it anymore. The highlight of that experience was in fact, meeting your dad up close and personal. The next encounter was with your brother in an advertising conference in Baguio. I was a member of Miriam College delegation as faculty of the Communication Arts Dept. I listened with diligence but I was too timid to approach him.

On Natural Science. Technology and Livelihood Resource Center is where I have worked as TV producer for a long time and this is where I got really interested with agribusiness and the science of agriculture. I know that you are into agribusiness in Negros and much I have to learn from you which I can integrate in my Natural Science course (soon Business courses). To be a genuine Master of Business Administration is another goal I wish to achieve.

As a Cumagun, if I am not mistaken, your dad and my dad Romeo Paggao Cumagun May 16, 1935 – Aug 3, 1989 (Ilagan, Isabela), married to Estrella Bano Baldillo (Bulan, Sorsogon) are second cousins. I wish to know our twigs in the Cumagun family tree and with that knowledge, strengthen the branches and the sap veins that connect us.

I would like to request for an appointment with you, your brother and your dad, hoping that your time spent with me will also be satisfying to all of you as I anticipate that your time with me will. I can also be contacted at home in Marikina City +6329414060 (will change sometime soon), GLOBE +6339272211966, SMART +639995064928

Sincerely,

Rom Cumagun