Tao Brotherhood and Sisterhood

They say that the best times of our life were spent during high school. Whoever made that up must have been the most popular kid in school, but then there is also much in our college lives that make those years we spent earning a bachelor’s degree a lot of fun.

After shifting from one course from one school to another, I decided to take up Bachelor in Communi-cation Arts with a twist.

The twist was that I had a double major – PE and ROTC hehehe…

Sports was so much a part of my student life that I did not find it hard to find myself writing sports stories for the newspaper.

Taking part in school sports was enjoyed with the few varsity teams that I joined (volleyball and football) and the times we spent playing games during our PE classes. At one point of my student life, being in the varsity team, which we called Corps Squads, was a great opportunity to have a hearty evening mess (we call them meals in the outside world).

There was also one way to enjoy sports, being with a fun-loving group of people who share the same passion. Well, some really don’t enjoy it as much as the others, but end up enjoying the activity because of the company.

It was only later in my college life that I joined a fraternity. Then it was a very new group, but the company was lots of fun and although I never really been the kid who enjoyed playing basketball, I made it to our fraternity’s team more because I was an able bodied member and could help fill up the needed five people inside the court when the others get tired.

We took part in an event organized by another fraternity and after going through what seemed like the eye of the needle, our team won the title of the Latagaw Cup and I was part of it. My best memory of that tournament was scoring 8 points in one game on the cracked cement court of UP Cebu. 

I was never expected to score anything in those games as my brothers like fellow The FREEMAN columnist and my bestfriend Chris Tio; Andrew Cañete, who is now with the Bureau of Immigration and a very good golfer; and Bobet Torreon, now a topnotch lawyer in Davao, formed the core of the team.

Maybe it was the fact that then we had nowhere else to go on weekends but the school campus so we had to make do with the facilities available to us. There were no malls yet and most of all, we didn’t have much money to spend.

Later several of my brothers and some sisters picked up judo as a sport. There were a few of us in the organization, who were already assistant instructors in our PE classes then like Tirso Ramon Roa, Tracy Tradio and this deadline beater.

Later on our organization held an all-whitebelt tournament and took the cudgels of organizing the Roa Cup for a few years.

Our organization, which had spread to schools like the University of San Carlos, Velez College (opinion editor Debbie Duraliza is from this chapter), University of San Jose Recoletos and University of the Visayas, eventually became an organizer of judo events. To date, we still tap some of our members to help out during tournaments in Cebu.

This weekend, the Tao Brotherhood and Sisterhood will be celebrating its 20th anniversary.

It remains to be a very young organization, but it seems that the later generations have continued to live up to the ideals that we started two decades ago.

Today, there will be a legal aid activity at the UP Cebu grounds and in the afternoon, there will be a sportsfest.

Tomorrow, we will have a lunch gathering to look back at the good times and the friends that we shared and passed from one generation to the next.

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MILESTONES: I’d like to wish two of my classmates from high school a very happy birthday as they turn a year older today – Tina Pacis-Ouano and Ermin Paul Cabrera. The same goes to Peemayers Ace Esmeralda and Atty. Ram Villagonzalo.

Also celebrating their birthdays today are RCTV’s Jay Chiongbian Young and Mike Solon and my good friend Lilian Adolfo.

Advanced greetings go to my good old friend Bruce Toliao and to Michelle Lampinez-Oroc, who are turning a year older tomorrow.

More power to all of you! – THE FREEMAN