by Vicki Bello-Jardiolin

UP people think they’re superior, special, the best. Of course, I agree. But what was in the UP experience, the triumphs and mainly trials that became heartfelt memories, that helped create that unique animal, the UP alumnus?

“Surviving that gauntlet called registration,” says Gerry Gabriel, AB Philo ‘85. “Camping out with my barkada to be first in line for classcards.” My “balae’s” convent-bred (“Assumptionista”) daughter got stressed out from queuing for PE classcards for her first sem, developed a fever, and bawled like a baby. Alas, the infamous registration is now computerized and current freshmen will no longer experience this first lesson in survival. Suffering builds character, they say. The “Assumptionista,” Maricris Bitong, went on to graduate BSBAA, cum laude and regularly sends US$ checks to the College of Business Administration (CBA).

Surviving “terror” professors, says another UP alumnus, such as professors with reputations for flunking 75% of the class and assigning readings and giving exams from a book with only one copy in the main lib. So what were the 80 history students in her class to do? Get creative, get the situation under control. “Hanapan ng paraan,” “never say die” are some of the things you learn in UP.

But one might also get professors such as Professor Mila Guerrero, who was deeply and eloquently anti-American, and held the class spellbound with her passionate orations. From such teachers at UP, one develops nationalism. Many students who went up to the hills to fight the dictatorship carried UP IDs, echoing Ditto Sarmiento’s “Kung hindi tayo, sino pa? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?” UP has produced many heroes but this “by hook or by crook” mentality has also given UP its own share of heels.

“Absentee” professors would give the class a syllabus and a reading list and disappear for most of the semester, leaving their students to muddle through on their own. One alumnus recalls that much mediocrity and cavalier attitudes towards teaching masqueraded as academic freedom and eccentricity. “Dozens of reflection papers! Nobody ever taught us how to write these, which is just as well because they vanished—never to be seen again. See you at midterms and finals. Nobody gets spoon-fed here. You’re on your own, guys.” That realization energized us. Most of us, for life.

No so called “sexual harassment” in those days. Only professors who liked tall girls and made Ginny Bonoan-Dandan, former College of Fine Arts Dean, and me stay after classes for some imagined reason or another. This famous painter/Fine Arts professor stalked and wanted to paint my sister Ging Bello-Pajaro as the nude “Maganda” to his “Malakas.” Ginny and I managed to pass that course. Ging, who went on to become one of UPAA’s most outstanding alumni in 2007, shifted to Speech & Drama. For us gorgeous girls (ehem) in our teens then, this were a loss of innocence, life’s lessons learned too early.

“Terrors” seemed to inhabit only the UP campuses. Was it our cherished academic freedom? Mostly brilliant with graduate degrees, we loved, hated, worshipped these teachers, and quaked in their presence. They taught us biology or calculus but we were always being acid-tested. The tests were not only the midterms or the finals but the “terrors” themselves, tests, not of knowledge gained, but of our grit and will to graduate.

We came from every corner of the country and from all levels of Philippine society, unashamed of our humble beginnings. We learned empathy. This was the UP education for life. Who has not heard the story of Manny Villar, Jr., the ish vendor’s son who, with his UP degrees (BSBA ’70, MBA ’73), good looks and easy charm, and with his wife and classmate, Cynthia Aguilar-Villar (BSBA ’70) “initiated mass housing projects and whose innovations practically created the country’s mass housing industry…a brown taipan” (from UPAA, awarding him “Most Distinguished Alumnus” in 2004). Manny is now Senate President and Cynthia is Congresswoman of Las Piñas.

We learned to get along with everybody, rich or poor, Ilocano, Ilonggo, or Tausug. For members of the other sororities or fraternities, we had only competitive contempt. For better or for worse, we learned to be fiercely, even blindly, loyal.

In UP’s heterogeneous society, most did not care much about your origins, religion, or what you wore (I did. I was always in 3-inch heels and petticoats even while rushing from swimming to Spanish classes on the 4th floor. Sigma Deltan Ruby Zulueta came to class everyday in a party dress). If you were bright, you stood tall together with classmates whose fathers had big titles. In UP’s meritocracy, you could be the best that you could be. With the diverse characters on campus, we were enriched, and learned to enjoy and accept people in all their outrageous humanity. There was the son of a gambling lord—a brave and early militant in the Gay Movement—who was fully made-up daily, often wore silk pajamas, sometimes a mini-blouse now called a tangga, midriff showing, a faux jewel in his navel. Danny “Purple,” a long time campus fixture, when asked to pay for his ikot rides would declare “My name is Crime and crime does not pay.” The guys of Samahan ng mga Bastos sa Kanteen (SABAKA) who heckled and shouted their guesses as to the color of the panties of their special targets—passing sorority girls—made buying bluebooks at the coop a painful ordeal. Ooh so macho Dr. Zarco, Socio 101, rode a motorcycle and cleaned his gun in class while the girls swooned. Alfonso Santos, the much published poet, tried to persuade everyone that sandwiches with banana peel filling were delicious. As our French teacher said “Vive la difference.”

Then there were the General Education (GE) subjects. I once came to class using a cane (too much chicharon). I asked my 100 students to raise their hands if they knew the Riddle of the Sphinx. All did except one, a cross-registrant from another university. Why is Oedipus Rex so important? Why Chaucer in olde English? Who cares what Confucius said? Or why did Rizal write to the daughters of Malolos? Answers from some alumni: “A UP education allows one to be a broad-gauge thinker in all aspects of life,” says Cat Bello, BF Arts ’68, nine years Tourism Attaché, Frankfurt. “I…could bluff my way through any subject,” jokes Rowena Bernardo, Brussels-based international cosmetics marketing consultant, Mech. Eng. 1988. “Seeds of every discipline were in those courses.”

Many of us will not recognize the new GE subjects. There is now a menu of courses, 15 units within each of the required broad domains of Math, Science and Technology (Ex.: “Everyday EEE, Kuryente, Radyo atbp”), Social Sciences & Philosophy (Ex. “Bodies, Senses, & Humanity”), and Arts & Humanities (Ex. “Art, Man & Society”).

A new subject, Civic Welfare Training Service, an alternative to ROTC, may also influence a new generation of UP students. Its objective is to develop social responsibility; course content is left to the College. At CBA, where I coordinate the course, students form groups, raise funds, and undertake a project for their selected underprivileged beneficiary group. In the process they develop networking, marketing, and project management skills. In the last 6 sems, CBA students and a few from other colleges have, among others, built three Gawad Kalinga houses, rehabilitated five cottages at Boystown, Marikina, and contributed medicines and party fun to the PGH Pediatric Cancer Ward. My message to them “You, probably the brightest students in the land, will one day be rich or famous, or both. Far though you may wander, pay forward, pay back, especially to UP.”

Originally published in The Oblation Issue Vol. 1 No. 2