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THE
University of the Philippines (UP) kicked off its
Centennial Year with a huge yo-heave-ho on
Tuesday—starting at 9 o’clock with a Misa Cantata at UP
Manila where the national university was born, followed
by a commemorative motorcade from Manila to Diliman at
noon.
The
motorcade reenacted the actual transfer of UP from its
birthplace in Manila on June 18, 1908 to the “uncharted
forests and marshes“ of Diliman between December 16,
1948 to January 11, 1949—complete with Oblation statue
in tow. An early photo taken during the period shows
coat-and-tie clad students of those days traveling on
foot along a dusty, unpaved road. The Oblation, propped
up and protected against the elements, stood on the bed
of an Army truck. Behind, coeds took up the rear, also
on foot. The visual image is that of Moses’s people
entering Canaan, the promised land.
On
Tuesday, the same action was duplicated amid a more
colorful, noisier, traffic-filled backdrop. Jeepneys,
cars and SUVs from UP Manila embarked on a long
motorcade to the Diliman campus, meeting up with
contingents from UP Baguio, Pampanga, Los Baños and
Diliman at the
Quezon Circle—reenacting the ’40s transfer almost to the letter. The
Oblation—in paper maché this time—still stood as the
powerful symbol of what the University stands for:
freedom and the selfless offering of one’s self to
country. The roads this time were paved and gleaming.
It’s been a hundred years hence, after all.
AT
Diliman, thousands and thousands of alumni, students,
faculty, staff, family and friends milled for the
historic, once-in-a-lifetime occasion. “It’s like an El
Shaddai rally,” my sidekick-cum-apprentice David Sta.
Maria said. And it was.
From the
thrilling descent of sky divers from the blue—to the
torch relay led by a 100-year-old alumnus—to the
lighting of the perpetual flame by UP president
Emerlinda Roman—to the free concert and captivating
performances by world-renowned UP talents—to the
spectacular fireworks display, the crowd stayed on.
It was
the successful climax of initiatives begun by the UP
administration and the UP Alumni Association (UPAA) led
by its president Chitong Rivera—which also refurbished
the other UP icon, the fabled Carillon, just before
Christmas. Having shepherded this gargantuan project
through, UPAA assistant treasurer Ching Evangelista
said: “Let’s move on to the next project: sports.”
AH, but
UP is not known to have a strong sports tradition
compared to the other schools in the University Athletic
Association of the Philippines (UAAP). In fact UP
athletes of yore invariably recall that they received no
special privileges from their professors for being
athletes. In fact, they were deliberately tried and
tested, expected to perform as well as if not better
than the nonstudent athletes.
Some
athletes, among them past UP president Emil Javier and
former Agriculture Secretary Ding Panganiban (the first
Purefoods team manager) recalled that as former UP
Fighting Maroons, they would take the bus from UP Los
Baños to the Rizal Memorial and find out just there that
they were playing for the same team. So much for
practice and preparation.
Yet
despite UP’s seeming downplaying of sports it is the UP
alumni who have instigated bold moves in the sporting
scene. The NCAA was the initiative of Dr. Regino Y.
Ylanan, a UP PE professor. When UP, UST, NU and FEU
formally broke away from the NCAA in 1938, the moving
force behind it was another UP professor—Dr. Candido C.
Bartolome. (Don’t look now, but the idea to join the
UAAP and the NCAA together in a unification league at
present is another UP alumnus, current SBP executive
director Patrick “Pato” Gregorio.)
UP’s
sports image has actually been a colorful patchwork of
mix-match fabrics. A perplexing contradiction. To date,
it can boast of only one UAAP basketball championship in
the postwar period: that solitary crown 22 years ago
which Joe Lipa delivered at the foot of the Oblation.
Yet, UP has won championships in every UAAP sport,
except for beach volleyball. It won the overall
championship last in 1999. It has been UST’s chief rival
for that singular distinction.
Some UP
alumni like to joke—or boast—that UP players don’t quite
make the top tier of UAAP, PBL or PBA superstardom. (The
exceptions are Benjie Paras, the PBA’s only Rookie-MVP,
and Ronnie Magsanoc, considered the league’s top guard
during his era.) But look at the UP coaches in the PBA:
Ryan Gregorio for Purefoods, Yeng Guiao for Red Bull,
Eric Altamirano (for Mobiline and Purefoods, once upon a
time), Dolreich Perasol for Air21. Not bad.
BUT
here’s another contradiction. On its centennial year UP
still has to appoint its centennial coach. The fact that
it hasn’t makes it worthy of being called “unexciting”
by another newspaper.
Still,
this time around the alumni are hep on giving the team
its full support. It’s probably the best gift a
100-year-old naked guy could get on his birthday. |
