Memories of UP, Ikot jeep, a kidnapping, and Lean Alejandro

Never mind the 0-14 performance of the UP (University of the Philippines) men’s basketball team during the last UAAP games; my beloved school can stand proud as it celebrates its centennial next year.

I consider UP my almost-alma mater; I left in my senior year and failed to graduate there after I was kidnapped on my way to school one morning in 1981. That was more than 25 years ago. Let me stress that I was kidnapped on the way to school when three men jumped into our car right along P. Tuason Ave. while we were waiting for the traffic light to turn green. I was not kidnapped on school premises.

I was a senior at the UP School of Economics when it happened, and that day I missed the midterms exams of former NEDA Secretary Dante Canlas, who at that time was teaching labor economics. As an exam is something I would not dare miss, people wondered where I had gone to. I never showed up for the exams, and in fact had to leave UP and go out of the country immediately after the incident. Neverthless, Prof. Canlas gave me a final grade of 1 (the highest grade; 5 means you failed the class), which showed up in my transcript of records. I still have the class card as souvenir. The rest of my courses had a grade of “Dropped” for that semester. How could I forget Prof. Canlas?

How could I forget Prof. Vito Inoferio, too? He gave me a 1.25 in Introduction to Quantitative Economics, a course that I could hardly understand. But my group submitted a final report that was most interesting to Prof. Inoferio, a basketball fan. It was all about the players’ statistics in the past seasons of the PBA and what conclusions could be derived from the ratios. For example, whether the number of rebounds a player made was directly proportional to his height. My family had a basketball team at the time, Great Taste, and I was able to get hold of a lot of information.

It was because of fond memories like these that I could not refuse the invitation of the organizing committee of the UP School of Economics Batch 1982 to participate in the 25th Jubilee Homecoming event. It was held last month at the college auditorium where the sexy Prof. Solita Monsod taught microeconomics to all incoming economics majors. Prof. Monsod eventually also became NEDA secretary. Our trade economics professor, Emmanuel de Dios, was appointed dean this year, taking over Prof. Raul Fabella who had been dean for eight years. I also could not refuse an invitation to be part of a dance number, although the dance instructor assigned me to the end of the back row because I kept missing the steps.

It was also good to see Prof. Amado Castro, our economics history teacher, who even recalled one of my articles in the Economics Society Newsletter, and Prof. Manny Esguerra, who had the best looking legs in the school. The homecoming was, needless to say, a smashing success. My batchmates and I danced to ’80s music up to midnight.

By the way, Prof. Inoferio was one of the most good-looking and popular teachers in the college. Personally, though, I found also College Secretary Cayetano Paderanga, who later on became — yes — NEDA secretary (three in a row!), similarly good-looking. Anyway, someone had posted a love letter on Prof. Inoferio’s door with my name on it! No matter what I did, no one believed me when I said that it wasn’t me who tacked that letter. During the homecoming, some of my batchmates even remembered and reminded me of the letter. Fortunately, one of them had finally revealed to me who had written that letter and I was able to vindicate myself.

It was during my first two years in UP when I learned the realities of society. I had lived in an exclusive village in Makati all my life, and had gone to ICA, an all-girls’ Catholic exclusive school from kindergarten all the way to high school. Both ways, I was surrounded by four thick walls and high gates protecting its occupants, most of whom were driven around in air-conditioned cars with personal drivers. I learned to take the bus and Ikot jeep, so called because to get from one college building to another, you had to take the jeep that went around and around the oval sunken garden. The first time I took the jeep, I hit my head on the roof while jumping out, not realizing that a jeep’s roof was so low. I literally saw stars.

I was also forced to learn how to take the bus because I didn’t know the exact time I was going home. The driver took me to school every morning, but I could never tell when I would need the car to get home. Sometimes there was library work, sometimes there were club activities. I was just too lazy to line up at the big red PLDT public phone, drop three 25-centavo coins to get a dial tone, and wait for the driver to pick me up. It was easier to hop on the bus, anyway; I had to take only one ride from UP to my home. From UP, I would get down at EDSA corner Buendia, cross EDSA, and walk through the gates of North Forbes Park and into the safe conclaves of my home. Way back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it took me only 25 minutes to get home by bus.

It was ironic that I didn’t get kidnapped all those years I took the bus. It was only when I took the car going to school one morning that I got kidnapped. I don’t think the kidnappers ever thought I would be taking the bus. There were only two major private bus lines at that time, the red JD Transit and the white DM Transit, the latter being called “rolling coffin” for ramming into pedestrians a few times in the past. Both are no longer on the road, I think, or maybe have assumed other names or maybe got bought out. But I have to tell you that bus drivers can be crazy on the road. If given the chance, I’m sure they would start a race with the MRT trains.

I joined the UP school paper, The Philippine Collegian, in my sophomore year. I knew it had a radical bent but I just wanted to find out if I could write. I decided to try out for the sports page because sports was not so much a hassle for me as the rest of the sections. For the qualifying exams, if you wanted to do news, you had to cover an anti-tuition hike rally. If you wanted features, you had to write about how the multinational oil companies were milking the country dry. I had no intention of being hosed with water in a rally, and I honestly didn’t have any problem with paying tuition fees. Neither did I know anything about oil companies and didn’t want to know, so I decided to cover a basketball game.

That’s when I first found out, at least at that time, that hardly anyone from UP was interested in attending the school games, unlike the intensity and passion being shown by students from private universities, especially Ateneo and La Salle. Prime example is my husband who went to both Ateneo and La Salle, calls himself a diehard Atellite or Lasanean, and cheers for whoever wins the game.

It was in the Collegian that I met former activist and Bayan official Lean Alejandro, who was then a features writer. Lean was killed 20 years ago by still unidentified men. Last Sept. 10, on the occasion of his 20th death anniversary, a photo exhibit, “Being Lean Alejandro,” on the life of Lean was displayed at the Palma Hall of UP. I was asked to speak on my memories of Lean at the exhibit by a former Collegian colleague, Becky Lozada.

It was the first time I had gone back to Palma Hall, which was then the College of Arts and Sciences, but is now the College of Arts and Letters, ever since I left UP in 1981. The place is still as rundown as ever but has retained its character. I wanted to check whether the restrooms still stank, but then it was already my turn to speak. I was described as a “former Philippine Collegian writer.”

In my speech I said, “Lean and I argued a lot as I was the capitalist and he was the socialist, but I enjoyed our arguments tremendously. I felt very different in that rundown Collegian office swarming with Maoists, but I was welcomed despite my despicable social background.”

Bobby Coloma, who was our Collegian editor in chief and is now connected with Agence France Presse (AFP) and based in Singapore, had this to say about Lean. Bobby was not around at the event but I added his comments in my speech:

 “More than a quarter of a century after our Collegian days, much has changed. Leftists have become capitalists or bureaucrat capitalists, some wearing barongs and suits in Congress or Malacañang. Military generals have become democrat reformists. Communists have turned against fellow communists. But capitalists like me (according to Bobby) have remained faithful to their calling. Someone has to be consistent! And the memory of Lean brings us all together today. He was a bright light snuffed out by the forces of darkness, but his example has not dimmed. Whatever it is we do, let us do it with the same passion that Lean displayed in his short but eventful life.”

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Next year will be UP’s centennial, and the UP Centennial Commission has lined up a lot of activities, the fund-raising activity being, of course, the most important! For more information, log on to www.up.edu.ph, or contact Benjie Sandoval or Pauline Tusi at 928-4571 at Rm. 271, College of Business Administration. Calling all UP alumni, let us all support our school!