By Candy Lagmay-Bandong, 250 Duck Ct. Foster City, CA 94404 March 2012 Candy lives in SF, CA and is a mother of four. She still has roots on campus.
Cogon Grass, Moss and Rarefied Remains
It is where my happy thoughts are, Area 14 and 17. I took a sentimental journey back to UP Campus when my mother Leticia Amante Lagmay passed away last June 2011. My brother Sulayman Lagmay took me on a bicycle ride around campus and I had a chance to visit the old site of T-1450 where we used to live in the early 60's up to the 70's. I was surprised to see the big new unfinished Engineering buildings that have taken over the old Area 17 and Area 14 homes that used to be our playground.
The only things that remain are the memories we shared with the children who played in those fields and streets where we lived. We spent countless days among those trees, among the rocks and among the sawali houses that were the residences of the university faculty at that time.
OUR FAMILY LIVING ON CAMPUS FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS
My parents, Alfredo V. Lagmay and Leticia moved to Area 17 in 1956 and taught on campus continuously until their retirement in the late eighties. They occupied their home in 6 Purok Aguinaldo until they passed away in 2005 and 2011 respectively. When most of their friends moved out of campus housing to adjacent UP Village, my parents stayed put inside campus, like cogon grass and moss in a vast field, growing deep roots and leaving rarefied remains. My mother left a treasure trove of albums, memorabilia and pictures that comprised her 56 years of living within a 1 mile radius from her first home in T-1461 Aunario St. now CP Garcia Ave. in Area 17. She lived and loved UP, she raised all of us there, 7 siblings and 11 grandchildren. I grew up knowing most of our neighbors and playing along P. de Tavera Street in Area 14. Our house was close to the UP small Coop and the UP Executive House.
In front of our Area 14 house was a large expanse of land that became a huge playground with National Artist Abueva's sculpture as kiddie slides and climbing equipment. We ran amidst bamboo groves, acacia trees, santol, sampaloc, guava and aratiles trees. I remember my father washing our legs with guava leaves in hot water to disinfect the "galis aso" (scabies) we had on our legs from constantly being in the grassy knolls. We were prone to tics and mites that bit our extremities. We played until it was time to go home amidst rosal, calachuchi, santan, flowers that were literally from paradise. Our gardens were well maintained and trimmed regularly by menfolk my mother hired to mow the big lawns in our backyard. We had an abundance of fruits, particularly santol and sampaloc during the summer season.
Our neighbors were scholars and were avante garde. We had artists in our neighborhood. Sculptor Napoleon Abueva who lived in Area 17 had a pair of horses, Diwata and Urduja. Abueva drove the chariot around the neighborhood like Ben Hur did in Rome. He designed the pointed gate/bus stop as you enter the main university avenue. It would become the checkpoint entrance to the campus grounds and would greet thousands of new students who would come in and out of its tree lined campus. We used to play in the pond adjacent to the bus stop when my father would take us in our Rambler '66 to see the beautiful stone sculptures. There was a statue of a woman bathing her hair and a man in deep thought next to the checkpoint structure. They were my first introduction to nude art. Mrs. Virginia Flor Agbayani from the College of Fine Arts had a blue car that she painted in the style of Jackson Pollack. She was from Area 1 though, the other side of the campus neighborhood where they had the older UP Pioneers. She drove around campus in the car that pre dated the hippie generation. She was one to show us how to be ahead of our time.
Later, we moved to Purok Aguinaldo, the Rockefeller Foundation homes on the south side of campus. They were glamorous homes, rivaling the posh bungalows from fancy neighborhoods in Quezon City like the Philam homes. The grass in the back and front yard was bermuda grass just like the ones in the golf course behind it. Our backyards were spacious and had a lot of beautiful foliage particularly Agoho pine trees that lined our street. We were surrounded by not just beautiful grounds but the finest intellectuals, writers, mathematicians, engineers, lawyers and the brightest minds of the university. Later, some of the faculty members who lived in our midst would become government officials, and movers and shakers of our country. Dr. Corpuz became Secretary of Education and President of the UP at one time, Dr. Majul was a prominent scholar on Islamic Philippines. Dr. Santos Cuyugan would be the Chair for the Philippine Center for Advanced Studies. Other faculty members comprised the think tank of President Marcos during his term. But UP being the bedrock of dissent, many also initiated anti Marcos uprisings as well. In the time of political unrest in the '70's and the FIrst Quarter storm before martial law, we would be the children trapped in the UP Barricades. I remember that the car that burnt at the height of the capture of the Diliman commune was the car of Dr. Campos along F. Maramag Street adjacent to our home in Area 14. Our family of 7 kids and my mother had to flee to my grandmother's house in San Andres Bukid. My father stayed behind on campus.
YOUTH AND CHILDHOOD DURING THE AGE OF T.V.
My earliest recollection of friends on campus was Lanelle Abueva-Fernando and Patty Campos-Domingo from Area 17. Our mothers, Letty Lagmay, Coring Abueva and Marita Campos were friends and we celebrated birthday parties with cake and frilly dresses in each other's homes. I remember poking Patty with a fork and I hope she has forgiven me. That happened 54 years ago. The Socrates family had a big family and I recall the older girls June Jane and Joy who would come to our house to play with us. They delivered eggs to my mother who bought them from their poultry business. Mrs. Amelia Lapena Bonifacio, playwrite, was our next door neighbor to the left of our house. She gave me art lessons and a paper pinwheel when I was a wee 4 years old. To our right side was an aratiles tree where I would climb up to look at the Sisons who had four children, potential playmates. I had a crush on Dojo Sison, the eldest boy next door when I was six years old.
in 1968, I remember my father bringing me a Polariod camera from Boston and I was the first to have a self developing picture in my class at the UP Elementary School and in our neighborhood. I took pictures of my friends Mary Ann Socrates, Sara Sechrest (daughter of a visiting American colleague of my parents) and Melba Solidum (returnee from Arizona) on a Polaroid camera. They were my friends at the UP Elementary School which was walking distance to our house after you made it through the four pavillions of the A.S. connected by the very long A.S. walk. To this day, I have dreams of walking home without shoes from the UP Elementary School to our house in T-1450. My father frequently traveled owing to his affiliation with universities and invitations from abroad. They enjoyed sabbatical leaves and working trips to professionally develop themselves. We also lived with the visiting professors from UNESCO and from the scholars from various universities from the USA, China and India. I remember my folks entertaining their friends at our home and they smoked tobacco in pipes. Tito Bol Santos Cuyugan and Tito Cesar Majul would come to our house for dinner and would stay to drink some fancy Cinzano wine. Their friends, Elmer Ordonez, Alex Hufana and their wives would come to our house too. When foreign scholars came, my mother entertained in the evenings with some classical piano playing. Our parents brought us cosmopolitan culture from other parts of the world but also allowed for us to experience life with our natural playground, UP Campus first.
I owned a transistor radio that allowed me to listen to drama shows or soap dramatizations during the afternoons like "Tiya Dely" and "Dear Kuya Cesar." I was very proficient in Pilipino classes, in both written and spoken Tagalog. I read a lot of Liwayway Magazines and Pilipino song hits. Our lavandera and yayas would let us listen with them, "Lagalag" and Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang" before we retired to go to bed. I remember being able to speak some "Waray" because some of our household help were migrants from Leyte, and as transients, they lived in the Gulod area of Cruz na Ligas and the White House area with their relatives. We had some gardeners from the same family of workers and I remember my father recruiting Mang Isabelo to work for the UP Department of Psychology animal laboratories in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Our helpers flagged photographers who roamed the streets in the afternoons. They would take pictures of our maids with us and would deliver the pictures after a couple of days. Those pictures were sent home to the provinces to relatives who awaited them. Our yaya from Tacloban, Leyte stayed with us for a good 30 years. She married Gonzalo, the gardener from the next door neighbors, the San Juans. I even remember her trips to Muntinglupa because her husband got incarcerated for killing someone in the Gulod area with a table knife. Our helpers taught us how to cook a lot of dishes with coconut in them, we also relished panocha, biko and sweet coconut treats that they made for us from the coconut harvests from our backyard. Our mother would share the household helpers when her friends needed cooks, yayas and laundry women to help with the endless domestic chores of those huge families. I remember Yuning, a cousin of our yaya who moved to the Corpuzes after her having stayed with us for a long time. We learned from the culture that they brought with them from the Visayas islands.
In those sawali houses, and even in Purok Aguinaldo, there was no telephone. For foreign correspondence, the mailman's door knock was much awaited and anticipated. In the mid sixties, The PABX system was installed on campus colleges but not for residential areas. It took forever to acquire a PLDT line.
We acquired a t.v. set when they were first showing "Mang Gorio and his Jeepney" together with "My Three Sons" and "My Favorite Martian". But I remember having to go to the the Corpuzes, to watch t.v. there before we had one. After my father bought our big Zenith console, he locked it up most of the time with a footlong padlock because he did not want us to get addicted to watching and become passive automatons. Our t.v. experience got confined to only 30 minutes of "The Tom Jones Show" if we got lucky. Why watch t.v. if you had the garter snakes, irridescent beetles, huge carabaos, goats, bull frogs, tadpoles and blue green dragonflies that surrounded us in those verdant green gardens of Area 14 and 17? Nothing compared to the scooter rides and bicycle treks we had in our safe streets with our friends, Pardo de Tavera, F. Maramag, J.C. de Jesus, T.M. Kalaw, F. Sotto, and P. Aunario.and Florentino Streets.
The youth who grew up with their big families in the 60's were the generation who lived in the time of the Beatles, the moon landing, the proclamation of the first RP Miss Universe Gloria Diaz. The t.v. was becoming part of UP households. 9 was the average number of children in the families we knew. No one had ever heard of birth control pills and family planning. Most of the knowledge we gained was from our immediate environment and our playmates. With big families came many stories about growing up, pains, travails and successes. We knew the concerns of our neighbors, the births, the accidents, the family break ups, the emerging culture of drug recreation, alcohol consumption, general campus politics, the newest developments in our economy particularly the rising cost of oil and gas. There were a lot of children playing in the neighborhood but they also utilized the recreation centers like the UP Bowling Alley, the Tennis courts, the UP women's pool, the Gym and the basketball courts that dotted the campus. A favorite basketball court was next to our Purok Aguinaldo community and one of the foreign visitors had it built for his friends and his sons who liked to play ball. The mode of transportation around campus was the IKOT jeepney and we paid 5 centavos per ride. There was a lot of mobility by walking to the big buildings on campus, going to the shopping center and even going outside of campus through the famed JD Balara UP route. For us, it was the Corpuzes, the Majuls, the Santos Cuyugans, the Camposes, the Mirandas,the Favilas, the Socrateses, the Lauretas, the Veneracions, the Lavas, the Sisons who were our immediate neighbors.
STATESMEN, ACADEMICS, ARTISTS IN OUR MIDST
Carlos P. Romulo, and Salvador Lopez were presidents of the UP at that time. I remember CPR as a man of small stature, quite refined, and he would jog in the mornings around our neighborhood. I would see him run with his valet Rey come down the street that fronted our bedroom. The Executive House would be lighted up and be very festive when there were evening events hosted by Mrs. Virginia Llamas Romulo. Statesman SP Lopez also occupied the Executive House. I remember my mother used to get invitations for concerts and ballet events that were held at the UP Theater courtesy of the President's Council for the Arts. My mother used to take me to those concerts, particularly the ones conducted by conductor Eliseo Pajaro. Being a musician, my mother was always interested in going to Abelardo Hall and the UP Theater, where I recall I saw a full ballet rendition of Swan Lake, Manila Symphony Orchestra programs with Sergio Esmilla as first violinist and Prof. Rey Paguio conducting. Mrs. Lapena Bonifacio's plays were also held at the Abelardo Hall. I remember her zarzuela plays and a rotating stage to simulate the Banaue rice terraces that entranced my young imagination. I distinctly remember hearing The Madrigal Singers and saying that they were people we knew! I was taught piano by Imelda Ongsiako who was part of the famed troubadours. Prof. Andrea Veneracion and her family lived close by to our Area 14 house and we would play with her children, Chiqui and Aying a lot. We were able to see numerous musicals at both Abelardo Hall and the UP Theater where Manila's performing arts guests would be invited to perform. The Cultural Center of the Philippines had not yet been built.
Early this March 2012, I was asked by a former neighbor, Joan Bubu Santos Cuyugan Bohlman to join a new Facebook group called Batang UP Campus 60-70-80. This is a group of now adult UP campus youth who lived in the same areas that I visited last June. With social networking running rampant, it was very easy to share memories and remember all the folks that were part of our youth. There were pictures, maps, recollections, new names of now married youth who came in the groups site. The stories kept pouring in. I personally lost myself in the posts and threads that multiplied instantly. I cried at some of the more poignant recollections that I read, specially the ones that reminded me of my vibrant and wonderful childhood friend, Mary Socrates who made a map of our homes in Area 14 and 17 before she passed away. I have been able to remember the monkey that used to live by the Salamanca house, the ballet teacher Trudle Toots Pinon who taught us our classical barre exercises, even the ghosts that were the urban legends in Area 1, the kapres (cigar smoking dark skinned men who climbed trees and snatched children) at the southern side of campus.
In retrospect, I shared a happy and memorable youth with so many others who lived in those sawali houses that withstood the two big typhoons, Yoling and Dading in the '70s. I imagine larger storms came after that, Ondoy the latest one. Weather typhoons continue to affect the campus but I know political typhoons brewed and devastated UP Campus frequently as well. The political storms would spread nationwide. We had the opportunity to see the growth of our nation through our parents and their colleagues. We lived the simple life of learned folk in a rural community, albeit the influx of new knowledge and creativity from many parts of the the world.
My father used to say, the university is where the "golden eggs" were laid. We were part of that biology, we were part of that which continued to lay new thoughts and ideas because we lived on literally fertile grounds for them. There will be new memories of new settlers of UP, there will be new dreams and new thoughts, I hope they are as memorable as mine and the other children who lived, learned and laughed there.
The only things that remain are the memories we shared with the children who played in those fields and streets where we lived. We spent countless days among those trees, among the rocks and among the sawali houses that were the residences of the university faculty at that time.
OUR FAMILY LIVING ON CAMPUS FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS
My parents, Alfredo V. Lagmay and Leticia moved to Area 17 in 1956 and taught on campus continuously until their retirement in the late eighties. They occupied their home in 6 Purok Aguinaldo until they passed away in 2005 and 2011 respectively. When most of their friends moved out of campus housing to adjacent UP Village, my parents stayed put inside campus, like cogon grass and moss in a vast field, growing deep roots and leaving rarefied remains. My mother left a treasure trove of albums, memorabilia and pictures that comprised her 56 years of living within a 1 mile radius from her first home in T-1461 Aunario St. now CP Garcia Ave. in Area 17. She lived and loved UP, she raised all of us there, 7 siblings and 11 grandchildren. I grew up knowing most of our neighbors and playing along P. de Tavera Street in Area 14. Our house was close to the UP small Coop and the UP Executive House.
In front of our Area 14 house was a large expanse of land that became a huge playground with National Artist Abueva's sculpture as kiddie slides and climbing equipment. We ran amidst bamboo groves, acacia trees, santol, sampaloc, guava and aratiles trees. I remember my father washing our legs with guava leaves in hot water to disinfect the "galis aso" (scabies) we had on our legs from constantly being in the grassy knolls. We were prone to tics and mites that bit our extremities. We played until it was time to go home amidst rosal, calachuchi, santan, flowers that were literally from paradise. Our gardens were well maintained and trimmed regularly by menfolk my mother hired to mow the big lawns in our backyard. We had an abundance of fruits, particularly santol and sampaloc during the summer season.
Our neighbors were scholars and were avante garde. We had artists in our neighborhood. Sculptor Napoleon Abueva who lived in Area 17 had a pair of horses, Diwata and Urduja. Abueva drove the chariot around the neighborhood like Ben Hur did in Rome. He designed the pointed gate/bus stop as you enter the main university avenue. It would become the checkpoint entrance to the campus grounds and would greet thousands of new students who would come in and out of its tree lined campus. We used to play in the pond adjacent to the bus stop when my father would take us in our Rambler '66 to see the beautiful stone sculptures. There was a statue of a woman bathing her hair and a man in deep thought next to the checkpoint structure. They were my first introduction to nude art. Mrs. Virginia Flor Agbayani from the College of Fine Arts had a blue car that she painted in the style of Jackson Pollack. She was from Area 1 though, the other side of the campus neighborhood where they had the older UP Pioneers. She drove around campus in the car that pre dated the hippie generation. She was one to show us how to be ahead of our time.
Later, we moved to Purok Aguinaldo, the Rockefeller Foundation homes on the south side of campus. They were glamorous homes, rivaling the posh bungalows from fancy neighborhoods in Quezon City like the Philam homes. The grass in the back and front yard was bermuda grass just like the ones in the golf course behind it. Our backyards were spacious and had a lot of beautiful foliage particularly Agoho pine trees that lined our street. We were surrounded by not just beautiful grounds but the finest intellectuals, writers, mathematicians, engineers, lawyers and the brightest minds of the university. Later, some of the faculty members who lived in our midst would become government officials, and movers and shakers of our country. Dr. Corpuz became Secretary of Education and President of the UP at one time, Dr. Majul was a prominent scholar on Islamic Philippines. Dr. Santos Cuyugan would be the Chair for the Philippine Center for Advanced Studies. Other faculty members comprised the think tank of President Marcos during his term. But UP being the bedrock of dissent, many also initiated anti Marcos uprisings as well. In the time of political unrest in the '70's and the FIrst Quarter storm before martial law, we would be the children trapped in the UP Barricades. I remember that the car that burnt at the height of the capture of the Diliman commune was the car of Dr. Campos along F. Maramag Street adjacent to our home in Area 14. Our family of 7 kids and my mother had to flee to my grandmother's house in San Andres Bukid. My father stayed behind on campus.
YOUTH AND CHILDHOOD DURING THE AGE OF T.V.
My earliest recollection of friends on campus was Lanelle Abueva-Fernando and Patty Campos-Domingo from Area 17. Our mothers, Letty Lagmay, Coring Abueva and Marita Campos were friends and we celebrated birthday parties with cake and frilly dresses in each other's homes. I remember poking Patty with a fork and I hope she has forgiven me. That happened 54 years ago. The Socrates family had a big family and I recall the older girls June Jane and Joy who would come to our house to play with us. They delivered eggs to my mother who bought them from their poultry business. Mrs. Amelia Lapena Bonifacio, playwrite, was our next door neighbor to the left of our house. She gave me art lessons and a paper pinwheel when I was a wee 4 years old. To our right side was an aratiles tree where I would climb up to look at the Sisons who had four children, potential playmates. I had a crush on Dojo Sison, the eldest boy next door when I was six years old.
in 1968, I remember my father bringing me a Polariod camera from Boston and I was the first to have a self developing picture in my class at the UP Elementary School and in our neighborhood. I took pictures of my friends Mary Ann Socrates, Sara Sechrest (daughter of a visiting American colleague of my parents) and Melba Solidum (returnee from Arizona) on a Polaroid camera. They were my friends at the UP Elementary School which was walking distance to our house after you made it through the four pavillions of the A.S. connected by the very long A.S. walk. To this day, I have dreams of walking home without shoes from the UP Elementary School to our house in T-1450. My father frequently traveled owing to his affiliation with universities and invitations from abroad. They enjoyed sabbatical leaves and working trips to professionally develop themselves. We also lived with the visiting professors from UNESCO and from the scholars from various universities from the USA, China and India. I remember my folks entertaining their friends at our home and they smoked tobacco in pipes. Tito Bol Santos Cuyugan and Tito Cesar Majul would come to our house for dinner and would stay to drink some fancy Cinzano wine. Their friends, Elmer Ordonez, Alex Hufana and their wives would come to our house too. When foreign scholars came, my mother entertained in the evenings with some classical piano playing. Our parents brought us cosmopolitan culture from other parts of the world but also allowed for us to experience life with our natural playground, UP Campus first.
I owned a transistor radio that allowed me to listen to drama shows or soap dramatizations during the afternoons like "Tiya Dely" and "Dear Kuya Cesar." I was very proficient in Pilipino classes, in both written and spoken Tagalog. I read a lot of Liwayway Magazines and Pilipino song hits. Our lavandera and yayas would let us listen with them, "Lagalag" and Mga Kuwento ni Lola Basyang" before we retired to go to bed. I remember being able to speak some "Waray" because some of our household help were migrants from Leyte, and as transients, they lived in the Gulod area of Cruz na Ligas and the White House area with their relatives. We had some gardeners from the same family of workers and I remember my father recruiting Mang Isabelo to work for the UP Department of Psychology animal laboratories in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Our helpers flagged photographers who roamed the streets in the afternoons. They would take pictures of our maids with us and would deliver the pictures after a couple of days. Those pictures were sent home to the provinces to relatives who awaited them. Our yaya from Tacloban, Leyte stayed with us for a good 30 years. She married Gonzalo, the gardener from the next door neighbors, the San Juans. I even remember her trips to Muntinglupa because her husband got incarcerated for killing someone in the Gulod area with a table knife. Our helpers taught us how to cook a lot of dishes with coconut in them, we also relished panocha, biko and sweet coconut treats that they made for us from the coconut harvests from our backyard. Our mother would share the household helpers when her friends needed cooks, yayas and laundry women to help with the endless domestic chores of those huge families. I remember Yuning, a cousin of our yaya who moved to the Corpuzes after her having stayed with us for a long time. We learned from the culture that they brought with them from the Visayas islands.
In those sawali houses, and even in Purok Aguinaldo, there was no telephone. For foreign correspondence, the mailman's door knock was much awaited and anticipated. In the mid sixties, The PABX system was installed on campus colleges but not for residential areas. It took forever to acquire a PLDT line.
We acquired a t.v. set when they were first showing "Mang Gorio and his Jeepney" together with "My Three Sons" and "My Favorite Martian". But I remember having to go to the the Corpuzes, to watch t.v. there before we had one. After my father bought our big Zenith console, he locked it up most of the time with a footlong padlock because he did not want us to get addicted to watching and become passive automatons. Our t.v. experience got confined to only 30 minutes of "The Tom Jones Show" if we got lucky. Why watch t.v. if you had the garter snakes, irridescent beetles, huge carabaos, goats, bull frogs, tadpoles and blue green dragonflies that surrounded us in those verdant green gardens of Area 14 and 17? Nothing compared to the scooter rides and bicycle treks we had in our safe streets with our friends, Pardo de Tavera, F. Maramag, J.C. de Jesus, T.M. Kalaw, F. Sotto, and P. Aunario.and Florentino Streets.
The youth who grew up with their big families in the 60's were the generation who lived in the time of the Beatles, the moon landing, the proclamation of the first RP Miss Universe Gloria Diaz. The t.v. was becoming part of UP households. 9 was the average number of children in the families we knew. No one had ever heard of birth control pills and family planning. Most of the knowledge we gained was from our immediate environment and our playmates. With big families came many stories about growing up, pains, travails and successes. We knew the concerns of our neighbors, the births, the accidents, the family break ups, the emerging culture of drug recreation, alcohol consumption, general campus politics, the newest developments in our economy particularly the rising cost of oil and gas. There were a lot of children playing in the neighborhood but they also utilized the recreation centers like the UP Bowling Alley, the Tennis courts, the UP women's pool, the Gym and the basketball courts that dotted the campus. A favorite basketball court was next to our Purok Aguinaldo community and one of the foreign visitors had it built for his friends and his sons who liked to play ball. The mode of transportation around campus was the IKOT jeepney and we paid 5 centavos per ride. There was a lot of mobility by walking to the big buildings on campus, going to the shopping center and even going outside of campus through the famed JD Balara UP route. For us, it was the Corpuzes, the Majuls, the Santos Cuyugans, the Camposes, the Mirandas,the Favilas, the Socrateses, the Lauretas, the Veneracions, the Lavas, the Sisons who were our immediate neighbors.
STATESMEN, ACADEMICS, ARTISTS IN OUR MIDST
Carlos P. Romulo, and Salvador Lopez were presidents of the UP at that time. I remember CPR as a man of small stature, quite refined, and he would jog in the mornings around our neighborhood. I would see him run with his valet Rey come down the street that fronted our bedroom. The Executive House would be lighted up and be very festive when there were evening events hosted by Mrs. Virginia Llamas Romulo. Statesman SP Lopez also occupied the Executive House. I remember my mother used to get invitations for concerts and ballet events that were held at the UP Theater courtesy of the President's Council for the Arts. My mother used to take me to those concerts, particularly the ones conducted by conductor Eliseo Pajaro. Being a musician, my mother was always interested in going to Abelardo Hall and the UP Theater, where I recall I saw a full ballet rendition of Swan Lake, Manila Symphony Orchestra programs with Sergio Esmilla as first violinist and Prof. Rey Paguio conducting. Mrs. Lapena Bonifacio's plays were also held at the Abelardo Hall. I remember her zarzuela plays and a rotating stage to simulate the Banaue rice terraces that entranced my young imagination. I distinctly remember hearing The Madrigal Singers and saying that they were people we knew! I was taught piano by Imelda Ongsiako who was part of the famed troubadours. Prof. Andrea Veneracion and her family lived close by to our Area 14 house and we would play with her children, Chiqui and Aying a lot. We were able to see numerous musicals at both Abelardo Hall and the UP Theater where Manila's performing arts guests would be invited to perform. The Cultural Center of the Philippines had not yet been built.
Early this March 2012, I was asked by a former neighbor, Joan Bubu Santos Cuyugan Bohlman to join a new Facebook group called Batang UP Campus 60-70-80. This is a group of now adult UP campus youth who lived in the same areas that I visited last June. With social networking running rampant, it was very easy to share memories and remember all the folks that were part of our youth. There were pictures, maps, recollections, new names of now married youth who came in the groups site. The stories kept pouring in. I personally lost myself in the posts and threads that multiplied instantly. I cried at some of the more poignant recollections that I read, specially the ones that reminded me of my vibrant and wonderful childhood friend, Mary Socrates who made a map of our homes in Area 14 and 17 before she passed away. I have been able to remember the monkey that used to live by the Salamanca house, the ballet teacher Trudle Toots Pinon who taught us our classical barre exercises, even the ghosts that were the urban legends in Area 1, the kapres (cigar smoking dark skinned men who climbed trees and snatched children) at the southern side of campus.
In retrospect, I shared a happy and memorable youth with so many others who lived in those sawali houses that withstood the two big typhoons, Yoling and Dading in the '70s. I imagine larger storms came after that, Ondoy the latest one. Weather typhoons continue to affect the campus but I know political typhoons brewed and devastated UP Campus frequently as well. The political storms would spread nationwide. We had the opportunity to see the growth of our nation through our parents and their colleagues. We lived the simple life of learned folk in a rural community, albeit the influx of new knowledge and creativity from many parts of the the world.
My father used to say, the university is where the "golden eggs" were laid. We were part of that biology, we were part of that which continued to lay new thoughts and ideas because we lived on literally fertile grounds for them. There will be new memories of new settlers of UP, there will be new dreams and new thoughts, I hope they are as memorable as mine and the other children who lived, learned and laughed there.
Batang UP Campus 60-70-80's by Candy Lagmay Bandong is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.