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It’s always better to write down one’s thoughts while traveling or basking in the sights, sounds and flavor of a particular Philippine destination, which is the whole point of this blog. This is difficult at this stage because all the posts, except two or three, are written looking back. This post is not one of those few exceptions.

The four-year stay at UP Cebu makes it easier to write about the school, even after more than 10
years of being completely away from it. It greatly helps that reminiscing about the place is punctuated with memories of
Lucy Torres — yes, Richard Gomez is one lucky guy — gracefully walking around the campus. It was more of admiration, how a beautiful goddess could behave down-to-earth. Speaking of down-to-earth, there are those who spend both their waking and drunken time really down the earth, below earth level — the Fine Arts majors, hibernating at the basement of the main building. If Business Management has its Lucy, Fine Arts has its Budoy, the once-housemate of Pinoy Big Brother. Of course, Political Science has me, but that’s only because I’m the one writing this post. I don’t think either Lucy or Budoy will remember me, but I must say I’m glad to have walked the campus at the same time with them.

UP Cebu (if you want the longer version, it’s the University of the Philippines College Cebu or UPCC) is really a small campus, with the UP-High School at other side of the road. With the low student population, we filled up only a platoon and so our two-year Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) had to be merged with that of other state universities. When I spent the next four years in UP Diliman, I found out they have a regiment. You could see the discrepancy if you imagine that a company is composed of platoons, a battalion is composed of companies, and a regiment is composed of more than one battalion.

I’m not sure if they still refer to single lady teachers as “Miss,” and the married ones as “Madame.” I thought it’s a system-wide thing, something I found out to be false when I entered UP Diliman (”Where did you get that? Stop calling me Miss.”). Maybe the other campuses made the right decision, as the “Miss” in UP Cebu is said to be “cursed” with being single — for life. Ms. C, Ms. K and Ms. G, with the last two belonging to the Psychology department. Or maybe it was just the Psychology department (Peace =).

Then there’s the annual Cook-Out, which refers to the attitude rather than to what it traditionally refers to, food. Cook-Out is that time of the year when the students could chill out and just be their crazy selves. During our time, we took over teaching chores (discussing Math 12 with a PolSci — read, polsai — twist…the square root means getting to the root of the problem, just like in dealing with the root of our society’s ails) and took a swipe at our teachers during the final night (without dearly paying for it, in life or in grades). I still smile everytime I recall that for the Crazy Day, which is before the final Cook-Out night, I wore a blanket and a mosquito net, without underwear, and went with the group walking around the campus and in the nearby Ayala mall. That’s probably why Ayala Malls are closer to my heart than other malls — its airconditioned atmosphere has touched my life in, ahem, intimate places. Just like UP Cebu. (Photos courtesy of Mike Mende)

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