A Personal Homecoming

By Limuel S. Celebria

(We are republishing some of the memorable columns of the late Limuel Sotto Celebria, one of the founders and the first editor-in-chief of Daily Guardian, as a tribute to one of the most erudite and prolific writers in Iloilo journalism. His articles appeared under two column titles: “Columny,” a play on the word “calumny,” meaning smear; and “Lemonade,” which he used for his later essays.)

By the time you read this column, I may already be having coffee somewhere at the UP Diliman campus wondering what to do and where to go. I’m accompanying my eldest son who is attending an IT seminar which is part of the requirement for his Computer Science course at UPV Miag-ao. Apart from acting as a chaperone (sort of), I would have nothing to do for the next four days – which finally gives me time to rediscover old haunts I have never really seen in almost four decades. It will be like a personal homecoming, though I am hardly sure if anyone or anything familiar will be here to greet me.

I was White Castle. He was Tanduay, the other guy Añejo – all three of us labeled “five years”. A jolly cook from the old UPHS canteen gave us the dubious distinction after we became the first in UPHS history to be allowed to finish the four-year secondary course in five years. (Before us, everyone else who still had back subjects after the fourth year were simply asked to go find another school.)

Shows you I was a lousy student and tells me why my memories of UPHS consist mostly of things that happened outside the classroom. I was probably asleep in most of my classes. It could also explain why I was not invited to any reunion (they probably couldn’t decide whether I belonged to Class ’72 or ’73.) But so much worse is the lingering feeling I never belonged at all.

I came to enroll at UPHS by a quirk of fate. In 1968, soon after graduation from the very public Sto. Nino Elementary School in Marikina (then still a municipality of Rizal province), some of us were told to take a province-wide scholarship examination tendered by the provincial government. The top ten would get a full scholarship plus allowance to any school within Rizal province. After taking that test, a buddy asked me to join him in taking the Philippine Science HS entrance exam and, while at it, also the entrance exam to UPHS.

My buddy topped the Rizal-wide exam (I was number four). He passed the Pisay exam (I didn’t). He was number 30 in the UPHS exam (I barely made it – 112^th out 120 qualifiers). We both begged off from our Rizal scholarships but, much to my dismay, he went to Pisay. I enrolled at UPHS feeling like a total stranger, a fish out of water, a ‘syano in a sophisticated world of English-speaking brats. Among my classmates were scions of the Philippine who’s who at the time – Corpus, Dans, Fonacier, Ver, Sarmiento, Roxas, de Guia, Velasco, Majul, Lapus, among other names that rang enormous bells.

Normally reticent by nature, I became even more taciturn upon seeing the vast ocean of social disparity between me and my classmates. My insecurity grew even more when they so graciously invited me to their palatial homes. So, I tried to fit in, to be one of the boys, a member of the gang. They smoked. I did. They drank. I did. They took to weed, I did. They gave me pills to pop, I popped. They cut classes to watch porno movies (which was the rage at the time), I went along.

It took me all of four years – and a frat rumble in which I foolishly stepped up to a bunch of testosterone-filled Sigma Rho fratmen to prevent a classmate from getting stomped to death – to finally fit in.  But by then, they were all graduating and I, rather the three of us who couldn’t quite keep up, were left behind to ‘enjoy’ high school life for another year.

I thought I could catch up with the gang when I eventually get to college. (Then, a UPHS graduate got automatic admission to any UP college). But my father had other plans. He retired rather prematurely from his not so significant job at the Philippine Refining Company (now Procter & Gamble) and thought of becoming a gentleman-farmer with the handful of hectares of rocky hillside in Barangay Katipunan on the border of Calinog and Tapaz towns.

After finishing my 5^th year in mid-’73, we took a few measly belongings and boarded NN’s MV Don Juan which set sail for Iloilo. The ill-fated boat would sink to the bottom of the sea somewhere near Romblon several years later. Our family would stay put in Iloilo for good. But father’s farming dreams would follow Don Juan’s fate.

In the many years and countless occasions I have traveled to Manila, I never found the time to visit UP Diliman. I also haven’t been in touch with any classmate although, occasionally, their names and their accomplishments would pop up in the papers. Thus, there is really nothing to look forward to in this trip except perhaps the tenuous hope of triggering a few fond memories.

My son, on the other hand, will gaze upon the sprawling UP Diliman campus for the first time. Perhaps he will be able to conjure images of the might-have-beens had he decided to matriculate here four years ago instead of at UPV Miag-ao. With the changes that have surely taken place here in the course of four decades, I too may be seeing UP Diliman from the eyes of a stranger, the way I did as a young boy in 1968. But then again, there’s always the old reliable, Mr. Oblation, to welcome me. I wonder if the fig leaf is still there.