When I was an ‘Iska’

Once upon a time, my education was subsidized by the Filipino people. I belonged to a middle class family who could afford to send me to a private university. But drawn by the University of the Philippines’ (UP’s) reputation as the premier university in the country (the University of the Philippines is the only Philippine university in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018), I made a go for it, despite UP Diliman’s other reputation: getting in was like running the gauntlet.

My mother, a country girl from Bongabon, Oriental Mindoro who was educated at St. Scholastica’s Manila for high school, made the unlikely leap to UP in the late ‘50s, where she took up Business Administration. She has always been my role model for guts in that sense. From Bongabon, to St. Scho, to UP in just over four years.

With her as role model, I took the big leap myself from San Lorenzo Village in Makati, where I had spent my high school years at the Assumption Convent, to Diliman. My parents put me in a dorm because of Diliman’s distance from our home in Las Piñas.

And so the sheltered convent girl found herself in a co-ed dorm, the Kalayaan Residence Hall. But my dad was appeased by the fact that Kalayaan Residence Hall was something like a Manila Peninsula — there were two wings, connected by a lobby. But of course, the similarity ended there. One wing was for the girls, one for the boys. The accommodations were clean but spartan. Our narrow rooms consisted of two single beds, two-meter-wide closets and a study table. We had to share bathrooms. The menu looked good on the blackboard. For instance when it said we were having pearl soup, that would be chicken broth with sago. One of my batch mates at the Kalayaan is now a Supreme Court justice: Marvic Leonen. When I saw him at a function at Malacañang a couple of years ago, I introduced myself excitedly but he stared at me blankly, albeit respectfully. I suppose when you’re as famous as he is, people you never really hung out with in college suddenly emerge from the woodwork to introduce themselves (like me!).

Lining up for a class in Diliman was usually a nightmare at dawn. The popular teachers (unlike the “terrors”) had a queue of wannabe students signing up for their classes. Once the quota was filled up, you knocked on their doors at the Faculty Center (recently razed to the ground). Registration was a whole-day process.

Then there was the much-vaunted physical exam because my mom warned me that there would be a time when both girls and boys would be in the same room and both would just be in robes! Que horror! Anyway, that was swift.

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I had no batch mate from Assumption in the dorm. But I made new friends, and I had a nice roommate from Ormoc named Geraldine Fiel, who I have not seen since college. Once settled in, I usually would walk from the Kalayaan to the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), or take the “ikot” when I was late. Once, I was walking to CAS in crisp beige pants when an ikot jeep swished past me, hit a puddle of muddy water that turned beige into polka dots.

At the time (early to mid-‘80s), students were usually allowed to eat (”As long as you don’t eat adobo,” said one teacher) and smoke (like some professors) inside the high-ceilinged classrooms.

I’m glad I lived in a dorm nearby because the ladies’ rooms in CAS did not have running water! There were also stalls inside the restrooms that sold everything from bluebooks to peanuts to cigarettes. And yes, the restrooms were also tambayans (hangouts) for “orgs” (school organizations).

It was only when Ed Angara became UP president (God bless his soul) that water flowed again from the taps at the ladies’ room and mercifully, the flushes were put to use again.

UP Diliman then was so territorial — the lobby and parking lot were for the sosyals, the bridge was for one group, the pavilions for another, the basement canteen for a frat, the steps leading to the FC for another frat. Sometimes, my heart would palpitate when walking in unknown territory, while making sidelong glances at the guys who were likely sizing me up, too.

I only joined one org at CAS, the Pre-Medical Society (PMS) for the simple reason that my schoolmates from Assumption were there. Not bad, because in mid-life, I get to bump into my former org mates, now famous doctors.

My PMS batch mates include Philippine General Hospital director Dr. Gap Legaspi and Negros Oriental Gov. Dr. Mark Macias.

In CAS, I usually would have lunch at the “Coop” or the “Greenhouse.” I loved their cheese waffle dogs. On special occasions or dates, we went to Katipunan. Then, the “in” place to be was in McDonald’s in Cubao, which had just opened.

For my junior and senior year, I headed off to Plaridel Hall, the College of Mass Communication (a “3” in Math 100 forced me to re-assess if I was cut out for Business Administration, my first course. Once I took up Journalism, I never looked back). It was there that Isaac Belmonte, now head of The STAR editorial board, became my classmate. Upon the recommendation of a common friend Marlu Villanueva, he hired me for STAR! Monthly magazine in our junior year.

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Memories of those acacia-shaded days on the sprawling UP campus came flooding back when I saw Sen. Loren Legarda, a fellow Assumption girl who also went to UP, on the front pages addressing this year’s UP graduates. Like me, she also is an alumna of the UP College of Mass Communication.

And I remembered those four years, years that gave me a new horizon.

Assumption gave me a moral purpose, a sense of privilege, of noblesse oblige. To whom much is given much is expected. My father burned the midnight oil to send me to Assumption, and to this day I feel I have to prove that I was worthy of the privilege.

In UP, it was the Filipino people who burned the midnight oil so that I may have the best university education available in the Philippines. During those days, we still paid tuition, but it was ridiculously low compared to private universities. (Today, UP is said to be completely tuition-free.)

Once, in the course of my work, I committed a blunder. And my boss, then Press Secretary Teddy Benigno, called me to his office. The first thing he said was, “Saan ka ba nag-aral?”

With my head high, and my gaze unflinching, I told him, “Sa UP po.” Then I knew that he knew that it was just a mistake I made and that I wasn’t some ignorant buffoon plucked from nowhere. I soon became his favorite among his pool of writers.

I owe the intellectual confidence that my four years in UP gave me to the Filipino tax payer. The desire to do good by the country and for the country stems from having been the recipient of the country’s generosity. The Filipino people gave of themselves first — by making me their scholar (“Iskolar ng Bayan” or “Iska” for women), asking for nothing in return. Upon being accepted in UP, I don’t remember being given any contracts or stipulations to keep high grades or work for government after graduation. You were trusted to do well, in UP, after UP. The covenant was between you and your better self — to do good because others had done their best for you.

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Two years ago, the UP Alumni Association conferred on me the “Distinguished Alumna in Communication” award during its general homecoming at the Ang Bahay ng Alumni at the UP Diliman campus. I was chosen one of a select group of alumni,  who “have attained exceptional achievements and made outstanding contributions in their chosen fields of endeavor.”

Thank you to all the nameless faces that helped me receive the privilege of a UP education. I hope your investment in me has not disappointed. This former “Iskolar ng Bayan” hopes that the Philippines may soon be a “Bayan ng Iskolar,” where education is enabled so that the graduates become enabler themselves.