Recalling college days

It is almost 30 years since leaving the University of the Philippines in March 1978 with a bachelors degree. Not many memorable, weird, funny, forgetable and shameful events before that can still be remembered. But let me share with you some of them.

1. Being a freshman in an “activist” and “pseudo nationalist” setting has its downside. Imagine the idiotic thing I did when I tried to express and idea in a freshman english class orally in tagalog?!? The teacher, then, who was an avowed licensed terror of course said, ” I don’t understand you!” Alright, so much for being a newbie in a rather ambiguous setting.

2. As a Philippine Collegian staff, a cat and mouse game seemed the favorite at that time. Pictures, captions and stories were withdrawn from publication whenever any or all were deemed “subversive!” That was the most popular tag anyone can get at that time particularly in the University — it can cost your life! It was not unusual for innocent looking articles to be censored. And they’re not even articles that covered events at that time but only some criticisms of facilities in the campus.

3. I was part of the musicians (playing the percussion) in the play Marat Sade – an adaptation of a play written by a French playwright about characters during the French Revolution. Sade is the count who brought his name notoriously in the enlish language, i.e., sadist – experiencing pleasure when inflicting pain on another person. That was 1973, just about a year after the infamous Martial Law was declared. At every performance, there were constabulary soldiers outside the Abelardo Hall Theatre. They were called the Metropolitan Command or Metrocom for short, the dreaded group whose model could have been the German Gestapo or the Japanese kempetai. Up until this time, I am unaware how the script of that play could have incited a small group of audience to rebellion!?!

4. The adolescent years were not lost, though. There were crushes and return crushes left and right and also time for learning. During one out of town trip by a group of journalism students in a huge house with a private pool in Los Banos owned by the family of one member, one of the crushes tagged along. After everyone had changed into their two pieces and trunks, I was the one left in the bedroom that was turned into a temporary ‘changing room.’ I was then trying to get into wading mode when the crush came in. The first thing she did was to ask me, “do you want to see me change into my bikini?”

5. The Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) was a requirement in college. In UP, during the medical exam, a student was asked whether he is interested to enrol in the 4 semester course or be exempted if found with a flat foot, eyeglass grade of 500 or over, myopic, and other so called disabilities that now may not be classified as such unless it interferes with normal life. Much to my regret, I was recommended for exemption because of myopia. Well my elder brothere was not exempted and he went on to finish the advanced ROTC course as a cadet officer and member of the UP Vanguard fraternity. I didn’t miss the fun though cuz my brother always asks me to document activities of his platoon, company, battalion, etc during parades, bivuoacs, camp outs, range shootings, etc.

From 1979 to 1983, I enrolled and finished a graduate degree in communication research. But let that be discussed in another topic.