The Senior Year (1972-73)
Fourth year! At last, we were the Seniors! Finally, kami na ang hari ng high school! No more upperclassmen to terrorize us or tell us what to do. In fact, now we would be the ones to intimidate the lowers (if we wanted to) and we could throw our weight around with no fear of antagonizing any ‘oldies’. What a rush! This is not to say though that we were a bunch of bullies whose sole reason for being was to terrorize the young ones. Rather, mindful of the times and conscious of the wealth of talents that were in the batch, we set out to prove that we were the best batch that UPHigh has ever produced. And so we started off with a certain sense of pride for what we were -- the last ‘pure’ UPHigh batch. This was the source of quite a bit of trouble as well. In our Senior year, the students of UP Preparatory School in Padre Faura were uprooted and transferred to new premises adjacent to UPHigh (just off the basketball court). And so, just like lions whose territory has been invaded, some of the UPHigh boys (lalo na yung mga siga) reacted with ferocity. Not a few incidents ended with blows being exchanged, and I guess the UP Prep boys never really forgave us for being such arrogant bastards. We absolutely refused to have anything to do with them and there were no mixed classes or activities. This further alienated us from one another. The lower years were more broad-minded and in the year following, UP High and UP Prep were integrated into the UP Comprehensive High School. There were areas though in which we Seniors really excelled. One of these was in field trips. Right from the start, meaning in first year, our batch had already shone a propensity for going out on field trips. Talagang mahilig mag-lakwatsa. During our Senior year, we went on a lot of exposure trips: to the Meralco building to get Jaworski’s autograph, este to learn about power distribution, to Sapang Palay to expose us to the realities of poverty, to Golden Acres to teach us about the loneliness of old age, to the Manila Times printing press to observe how newspapers are made, and other un-official trips which broadened our horizons and made us more worldly-wise (kuno!). In addition, this gave us a lot of time to be with our ‘syota’ without the bothersome company of chaperones. We participated in a number of inter-school competitions and won most of them. One of the memorable ones was the competition among the cadets of various public schools. This was supposed to be participated in by the officers of the PMT. And since we had quit the training in the Summer of ‘71, we were just ordinary cadets and had absolutely nothing to do with this contest ... supposedly. The Corps Commander at that time, however (Chuck Dizon), approached us with a proposition for our group to re-join the officers to improve their chances of a good showing. Since we knew he was desperate, we gave him a counter-offer: we would join IF this would mean our exemption from attending PMT for the rest of the year. We were confident this was too much to ask and so were taken aback when he came back shortly and told us that our offer was being accepted -- IF we won. Since we were quite convinced we were good, we agreed. Joining the competition meant that we had to sacrifice our carefully cultivated hairdos, as well as conduct intensive drilling for a number of weeks. Since we were looking forward to being exempted, we felt that the sacrifice was worth it. Come the big day, however, as we approached the Sunken Garden (behind the Main Lib), we were shocked to see who we were going to go up against. Ranged before us were the cadets of Ramon Magsaysay, Quezon City Science, John Forward (actually Juan Sumulong), etc. and we could see that they had obviously trained very hard for this event: their skins were all colored a uniform chocolate brown -- pati anit maitim! How did we know? Their hair was so short they were almost bald! As they performed snappy and complicated maneuvers while practicing, we felt a mounting sense of panic. Patay! We had sacrificed all for nothing! I remember little of the actual drill we performed, but I can distinctly remember that we fumbled it. One of us turned left when he should have turned right (I think it may have even been one of the officers!) and our hearts sank. Most of the other platoons executed flawless drills. As we went back to our designated place to await the results, we all felt shattered. What a disaster! What saved the day for us were the written exams. Apparently, the drill was only one of several factors to determine the winner. We did so well in the written exam that we overhauled our low score in the drill and won first place! We were absolutely stunned and couldn’t quite believe our ears when the announcement was made. But then dapat naman mataas kami sa written kasi mas matalino kami sa kanila ano? I would like to believe that Chuck Dizon saw this weakness in the other schools’ contingents and so he shrewdly beefed up the UPHigh platoon with intellectual heavyweights like us (ahem!). And that is why for the rest of the year we didn’t have to join the regular Saturday morning formations anymore. For a time, we savored the joy of being exempted and showed up as well, only to stay in the shade drinking cold softdrinks and lazing around. After a while Chuck approached us and requested that we not be too obvious about the exemption because it was creating a lot of demoralization and disgruntlement among the other cadets. We saw his point and stopped bothering them. At saka baka bawiin pa pag nainis sa amin sufficiently si Sgt. Meniano. Sgt. Meniano was the Commandant assigned to the UPHigh PMT. He was quite a character. His most memorable trait was his stiff Visayan accent. During the practice for the competition, we were in formation, standing at attention, and he was explaining what the dress requirements were for D-Day. Among other things, he emphasized that we should wear shoes of the "leader" type. Afterwards, we were debating among ourselves exactly which among the brands of shoes in the market was the market leader so that we could right away buy them and ensure that we had the right equipment. Since we couldn’t agree among ourselves, we decided to ask him for more details. He looked at us in puzzlement for a few moments and patiently explained (with a look of utter disdain on his face): "Leader? Don’t you know what shoes of the leader type are? Yung hindi rubber!" Ah. so... There were other competitions which we participated in and where we made creditable showings. I think Mon Sicam and Peewee Forbes joined and won a regional Math & Science Quiz. I remember joining a Science Exhibit with my entry being an analysis of the pollutants present in Pasig River water. The Highlights staff joined a journalism conference and reaped several awards. I wrote a stage adaptation of the short story "Paul’s Case", directed and acted in it, and won second place in a PETA competition at Rajah Soliman Theater in Fort Santiago. Sadly, I don’t have a copy of the script, but I remember it was quite a weird play using masks and contrasting figures in black and white. I was then in my "theater of the absurd" phase and I think the judges allowed me to win in order not to be thought of as being too intellectually dense to understand the symbolisms in the play. What they didn’t know was that I myself couldn’t understand half of what I wrote! To celebrate Linggo ng Wika, we presented Banyuhay ‘72, featuring Pilipino songs, dances and skits. I remember Mon, Oliver and Boyet did a memorable "sandugo" reenactment. We also did an adaptation of the then famous television series "Baltic & Co," with Ditas Magno and James Espanto engaging in arm wrestling in one of the more memorable scenes. I played the janitor, which fit my style of understated humor. Up to now, I am quite adept at crafting loaded side comments which I love to slip in on the unsuspecting. Those who are less intelligent would not know that they are being shafted by these often veiled sarcastic comments. But of course I soften the blow by directing most of these asides on myself most of the time. Our homeroom adviser was Miss Socorro Villalobos, our teacher in math. I was fortunate in that kabarkada ko ang favorite niya (si Mon) and so the GOP led a basically charmed life as friends of the teacher’s pet. Her ‘adoption’ of Mon probably resulted in some of her math genius rubbing off him and he ‘discovered’ a mathematicall theorem called "Sicam’s Formula’ which is too abstruse for me to understand or attempt to elucidate here. Tanungin n’yo na lang si Mon! One area that I really excelled in was writing, particularly the so-called ‘creative’ writing. I wrote plays, poems, prose, whatever. I compiled 4 or 5 notebooks full of these writings which I called "emotions". These I arranged to be ‘stolen’ and read by the girl I was courting. I believe she was suitably impressed. Either that or she absolutely pitied the warped mind which could have written them and was moved to try to save my soul by becoming my girlfriend. Regardless, it served my purpose... In our Senior year, naging mas-matibay ang friendship namin nina Senen, Pone at Mon and we spent long hours arguing and debating at the Gondola and worked on projects together. We thought up impressive and Russian-sounding aliases for each of us (komunista, kuno!) -- Svenenovich, Yvedh, Ramonovski. Pone got the short end of the stick. He was assigned to represent the Chinese communist party under the name ‘Pone Teh’. We thought this was absolutely hilarious and always broke up in fits of laughter every time this came up. I remember the most ambitious project we undertook that year was to formulate our own philosophy as a project under Miss Quirante. In it we tried to define what the meaning of life was all about. This was an offshoot of the endless debates we had at the gondola on the question: "What is nothing?" Actually, it was just a hodge podge of all sorts of plagiarisms from various philosophers. It took us several weeks to draw it up and then type it up. I remember we spent quite a few late nights at our house working on this project. In September one morning, I woke up to an event which was to profoundly affect Filipinos everywhere for many years: martial law was declared by Ferdinand Marcos, ostensibly to prevent the spread of communism, but in reality to perpetuate himself in power. Classes were suspended, newspapers were banned, radio and television programs were off the air. Only the government station was broadcasting -- endlessly replaying the video coverage of Marcos announcing that he had signed Proclamation 1081. In between, his Information Minister (Kit Tatad), read the various implementing guidelines with his irritating English accent and haughty sneer. It was at this point that I began to realize that perhaps the student activists had a point after all. Our lives were never the same after that. Curfew was imposed and staying overnight at parties became the coping mechanism of the party animals. Those caught on the streets after curfew were displayed in public and required to pull weeds the following day. I remember almost being caught one night. I went to a party with Senen thinking that I would be able to hitch a ride home. Unfortunately, we left the party rather late and ended up being dropped off in Crame at around 11:30 in the evening. There were no more jeeps, buses or taxis around at such a late hour, just 30 minutes before the start of curfew. I ran like hell, covering the 4 or so kilometers to Pinaglabanan (where I lived) with only a few minutes to spare! It was the scariest moment of my entire life! With martial law in place, the revolutionaries among us literally saw red. Student activism went underground and there was now a greater element of risk and danger in participationg in these anti-government activities. Richie was the Student Council president at that time, while Oliver headed the Senior Council. Between the two of them and their coterie of ‘aktibistas’ (Guy Estrada, Mo Ordonez, Buboy Marasigan, Kenneth Ilio, and Meldin Roy to name a few), they were able to keep UPHigh involved without attracting undue attention from the military. One of the most memorable experiences of my Senior year was being Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook. Naturally, I wanted ours to be the best and I had quite a large staff who were also enthusiastic about what we were doing. We worked at it every spare moment we could find after classes and even during Saturdays. I distinctly remember vehemently hating the name "Sulyap" which the previous batch had chosen as the new name of the yearbook. Three years earlier it had been "Clarion" (which was actually okay as far as I was concerned). Then, the following year there was no title -- they simply ran the line "Itaguyod Ang Pambansang Demokrasya" across the cover. I thought "Sulyap" was so ‘bakya’ -- in fact I considered the previous year’s yearbook as the ultimate in ‘kabaduyan’ -- and I wanted to dissociate our yearbook away from it as much as possible. Fortunately, the design format that we decided to adopt for the layout itself suggested a good title, i.e., a collage or montage. I chose the name "Tagnian" which is Pilipino for collage. It fitted the objective, which was for it to be a compilation or a collage of our high school memories. As ‘consuelo de bobo’ (and for the sake of continuity) "Sulyap" did appear in page 3 -- but the cover bore the ‘Tagnian’ name. I don’t really know whether they reverted to the ‘Sulyap’ name after us, but I don’t really care. We did what was right for us. Joe Luna Castro also edited a literary folio ( "Anino") which was jokingly referred to as "Anino ni Ed" because of my numerous writings which were featured there. Sadly, I think I lost my copy during one of my changes of residence. One of the highlights of Senior life was the decision of what to take up in college and what school to enter. I think that we were the first batch where entry into the University was not automatic for UPHigh graduates. And so we had to take the UPCAT along with thousands of other graduates all over the country. Looking back, I realize only now what a risk I took in taking only the UP entrance exam. The thought of failing to make it never even crossed my mind. Buti na lang I passed, because otherwise I would have died from the shame of not making it to UP! I don’t really remember why I decided to take up mechanical engineering in college. I think part of the reason could have been that my father was an electrical engineer. But probably the biggest reason was the fact that my girlfriend had decided to take up chemical engineering. In fourth year, whatever advantage I had because I took up Grade 7 had vanished and my classmates did better than me academically. In fact, I had slid down from being number 1 in first year to number 4 in fourth year. Si Peewee Forbes ang valedictorian ng batch, at si Mon Sicam ang salutatorian. Third yung girlfriend ko, that’s why some have asked me whether pinagbigyan ko lang daw. I refuse to answer on the grounds that I value my marriage... Strangely enough, despite my obssession to cultivate close relationships with girls, I never really had the opportunity (or the gumption) to actually do ‘IT’. Sex, as far as I was concerned, was purely vicarious, to be indulged in only in my fantasies. I am not sure whether my classmates were more daring or experienced than me, but they certainly kept it very well. By and large, however, I think most of us were classic examples of those who can be classified as "having a bark worse than our bite". Certainly, there were no scandals that I was aware of throughout our high school days. College was completely another matter though... In terms of fashion, fourth year was the height of absurdity. Pants were literally ‘floor sweepers’ because of their extreme widths at the bottom (sometimes up to 24 inches!). Cardin-style shirts hugged the body and had such wide, pointed collars. The preferred hairstyle was basically a mop that was riding on top of one’s head. And the shoes! These were usually 4-6 inch high platforms (sometimes even higher) and came in glorious 2-tone color! It makes me shudder just recalling how I must have looked! And as far as the girls were concerned, well the big thing was hemlines. Skirts were so short that a girl taking a deep enough breath stood the risk of losing her reputation! We were always on the lookout for girls who were bending over to pick up things from the ground or climbing onto a jeep. The resulting scene was enough to give any full-blooded male an electrifying jolt of hormones. On May 21, 1973, the UPHigh Class of 1973 marched down the aisles of Abelardo Hall to receive their high school diplomas. The girls were wearing jusi dresses (daringly short, of course), while the boys were in their barongs. These were the Pierre Cardin type of barongs: bodyfit, outrageously-sized and pointed collars, large cuffs, two slits in front and 2 slits at the back. Most of us were also in blocky, 2-tone platform shoes. To this day, whenever I hear the graduation march, I cannot help but feel nostalgic. It must have been quite a relief for our parents to see us finally finishing high school. We were mostly subdued, I think. It was as if we were all remembering all the memories of those four years that we spent in UPHigh. There are more stories, but it is hard to see them again through the curtain of 25 long years. Trying to recall them, however, has stirred in me feelings which I wasn’t aware existed. Feelings of nostalgia for what we had and at the same time a sense of loss for what can never be again. High school will always be, for me, the happiest times of my life. And fourth year stands out as the best among the lot. Looking back, I can say that these were among the most intensely-lived moments of my life. Somehow, it wasn’t so much the quantity of the experience which makes this time stand out. Rather, it was more the quality of a life well lived, enjoyed to the fullest, savored to the last drop. Never again would I be as happy or carefree as I was in high school. College would prove to be one long hard grind, particularly since I took up engineering! But most of all, what stands out for me about high school are the friends that I made there. The best and longest-lasting relationships I have had were friends in high school. These, and the memories that I have of the times I spent with them, are priceless treasures indeed.