Sesqui & centi

On June 14, true-blue Ateneans assembled in Intramuros early in the morning to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the educational institution that would become one of the finest in our country.

By 3 p.m. that Sunday, university students who formed the Blue Babble Battalion of musicians and cheerleaders positioned themselves before the Church of the Gesu in Loyola Heights, rendering music and cheers while awaiting and finally welcoming the arrival of the grand motorcade all the way from the heart of Manila.

I was glad to note that the late Raul Manglapus’ Fly High was part of the repertoire. I had always wondered how and why the inspiring victory anthem seemed to have been retired, and is consequently missed by the older generations during basketball games when there is need to fire up or salute the Blue Eagles. 

The kick-off ceremonies for the sesquicentennial celebration marking a century and a half of existence soon unfolded in the church on the hill, with university president Rev. Bienvenido F. Nebres, S.J. blessing a collection of artifacts from the Escuela’s original site, together with a set of commemorative stamps originally designed by premier graphic artist and Atenean Pandy Aviado, as well as the commemorative coffeetable book, 150: The Ateneo Way, authored by Fr. Jose S. Arcilla, S.J., and published by Media Wise Communications Inc. / Muse Books headed by Atenean Ramoncito Ocampo Cruz, in partnership with the university.

Yes, quite a milestone it is this month of June, celebrating the 150th year of Atenean excellence. And no more fitting way there is for alumni to share in the glory of historic observance than to acquire a copy of this handsome volume which details their alma mater’s history in text and over a hundred vintage photographs.

The remarkable collection of black-and-white and sepia images alone serves as a scintillating reminder of how a distinctive timeline is etched in our memory, from the very beginning, when 10 Jesuit missionaries — six priests and four coadjutor brothers — arrived in Manila aboard the frigate Luisita on June 13, 1859, after close to a century of the religious order’s expulsion from the Philippines in 1768.

As Fr. Arcilla recounts, the Jesuits had been called back “to evangelize the mountain tribes in Mindanao and its adjacent islands. But the Manila burghers, frantic for a good primary school for their sons, saw their chance, grabbed it, and prevailed upon the government to detain the new arrivals, hoping they might inject new life into the moribund primary school in the city, the Escuela Pia.

“No one could have foreseen how the new teachers would more than satisfy their fondest wishes. Just a week after the Jesuits opened the new school, renamed Escuela Municipal, as the city government was subsidizing it as a public school, a newspaper editorial praised the Jesuits teaching methods that ‘cannot be better... combined clarity with depth... and enjoyable explanations.’ Over the years, the Jesuits succeeded in transforming the Escuela into the now famous Ateneo de Manila University.”

Indeed, as Rev. Nebres writes in his foreword, “Ateneans were not just witnesses, they were deeply engaged in the transforming events of the late 19th century, the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War.

“... In these beautiful pages we can imagine the journey of the Ateneo — a physical journey from Intramuros to Padre Faura to Loyola Heights and Makati and Ortigas, with a brief stop in Plaza Guipit, Sampaloc. It is also a cultural journey from Spanish to American to Filipino, a journey of the nation through war and peace. So much has changed and yet so much also has remained constant. We see excellence celebrated in these pages, spirituality lived and deepened, and generation after generation striving to help build this nation: in the classrooms, in the playing fields, in the theater, and in the great arena of the nation.

“We cannot thank Fr. Jose Arcilla, S.J. enough for this beautiful obra maestra and for making our history of 150 years live again for all of us.”  

Fabilioh! Kudos to everyone who lives by the undying motto: “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!”

The following morning, at the Science Hall of the Philippine General Hospital or PGH, another commemorative coffee-table book was launched, in time to mark the close of the Centennial Year of the University of the Philippines, which began with what is now UP Manila.

UPM chancellor Dr. Ramon L. Arcadio, who served as the project director, and Dr. Serafin C. Hilvano, chair of the Department of Surgery and project administrator for the book UP Manila: 100 Years of Heritage, Culture and Art, presented copies to the guests that included Sonny Yabao, the book’s principal photographer, Paulo Alcazaren who contributed an essay, and yours truly as writer and executive editor.

We missed Dr. Ellewellyn G. Pasion, chair of the UP Centennial Committee in Manila, with whom Ramon or “Mon,” Serafin or “Boy H.” and I share the “senti” memories of having been of the same batch of Bedistas who graduated from high school of San Beda College in 1960. This book has been a labor of love among the four of us, together with former UPM Humanities chair and UP in Mindanao Chancellor Ricardo M. de Ungria, who also contributed an essay, and designers Orland and Helen Punzalan. Animo to camaraderie!   

At the launch, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, vice president for Public Affairs of the UP System, offered the following remarks read in her absence by Dr. Lydia Arcellana:

“We all know that memory is a great cheat, so I believe the decision to record the milestone that is the University of the Philippines’ Centennial with the publication of this handsome volume being launched today was a wise one.

“That you have also chosen to focus on UP Manila’s heritage structures and art works is unusual, since your campus is better known as a health sciences center, with the College of Medicine and the Philippine General Hospital at its heart. And, again, I applaud the decision. For the UP heritage has its beginnings here. The treasures that we find within the covers of this book are the evidence. And though they might seem mute, they speak eloquently.

“The book... is itself a work of art, a collaborative effort by some of the country’s most distinguished artists and academics — writers Krip Yuson and Ricky de Ungria, architect Paulo Alcazaren, and photographer Sonny Yabao. And it is a sign of the high standards you take for granted here, that you have chosen to go with the very best.

“Aside from containing a wealth of information about the institution’s past and present, it fulfills the invaluable task of preserving these in a manner more effective than the most exhaustive listing of data or statistics could ever be — in memorable images and beautiful words.

“... This is Ricky’s description of Rizal Hall, which served as ‘home to my intellect and imagination for a quarter of a century,’ and impressed upon him each day that he spent there, its ‘Old World charm of wood and soft light and marble and cool shadows behind the rounded pillars and glass in its façade, as well as its haunted toughness of surviving total destruction during World War II.’ And of PGH he writes that it was his ‘first experience of architecture as an art of light and space.’

“... But I think that this book will not be treasured only by UP’s own. For, as our Centennial Celebrations and our Centennial Fund Drive abundantly proved, UP has a special place in the national imagination. It represents a deeply cherished value, a priceless dream, a dream of something better and nobler than what confronts each one, each single day.

“In Yuson’s words: ‘There may be barbarians at the gate, but this center of enlightenment holds fast as a citadel and an oasis amidst the humdrum tedium of daily life. Unprepossessing it may appear, but through these portals have passed generations of the country’s scholars.’

“In fact, though the University might try to keep the chaos of the urban jungle at bay, the general public has never been barred by any gate from entry into the UP Manila campus. And part of what UP means to the Filipino people is embodied by the indomitable, indestructible PGH, through whose gates stream countless of our most seriously afflicted and least fortunate countrymen, seeking the proverbial grain of hope.

“In her foreword..., UP president Emerlinda R. Roman notes another way in which UP Manila serves the nation. She writes of the knowledge and technology that UP Manila generates and disseminates, which have influenced the priorities and directions of national health care programs, and have been used as bases for national health policies.

“It is no accident that, as Paulo Alcazaren points out, its early buildings ‘reflected the optimism of a country on the brink of modernity and full independence,’ as did the best Filipino architecture of the period. And that its ‘final defining element,’ put in place on National Day in 1935, was Guillermo Tolentino’s creation, the now legendary UP Oblation.’

“Alcazaren regrets the fact that the Padre Faura campus never achieved its full ‘design intent,’ having suffered extensive damage in the war, and subsequently ‘becoming, along with the rest of UP, the victim of our most recent history of political and economic failures.’

“And yet his essay ends on a note of hope — hope that the University will rise to the challenge ‘to accommodate the present needs of a struggling nation without throwing away the past layers of architectural excellence.’

“This could well be a metaphor for the challenge faced by our entire University System — to retain its pre-eminence and relevance in a rapidly changing, globalized environment, while remaining true to its ideals of excellence, leadership and service.

 “... This book is living testimony to the incredible amalgam that is UP Manila — with all its strengths and all its flaws, bastion of both science and art, survivor and pioneer; again, as Krip Yuson says, ‘a hundred-year-old academic institution beset by constricting urban assault, yet still standing heroically as an imposing beacon shining with vintage light, beaming to all and sundry the privilege of a cultural continuum.’ This book is destined to be a collector’s item.”

To the Sesqui and “Centi” celebrators, Hail Memory!