The Batchmates Return!

By Herman M. Lagon

After over three decades, attending a face-to-face high school reunion is a whirlwind of memories and emotions. My University of Iloilo High School (UIHS) Batch of 1991 is coming together this weekend, bridging miles and years. We have walked different paths, spreading across the country and even the globe, yet the pull to reconnect is powerful. This reunion feels like more than just a gathering; it is a chance to revisit our past and rediscover the parts of ourselves we left behind.

Organizing a reunion after 33 years, when most of us have crossed 50, has been challenging. Some classmates are unreachable, while others choose to stay distant for personal reasons, which we respect, though we cannot help but wonder about their stories. Like many, I am balancing many tasks—preparing for my dissertation, keeping up with teaching and admin tasks, and managing PR for RSCUAA 2024 that will start the day after our reunion. But nothing could keep me away from this gathering. It has been months in the making, a rare opportunity to reconnect with friends and memories that have quietly shaped who we are.

Our batch was a vibrant mix of around 360 students spread across nine sections—seven for the day class and two for the night class, a lively “international” class of students from the City Proper and neighborhood districts and towns in Metro Iloilo. High school was a time of laughter, friendships, and life lessons. Despite my flaws, I remember being unbelievably chosen by my teachers as the “Gentleman of the Year,” believe me, you, and writing for the UI Star as the university’s youngest journalist—experiences that sparked a lifelong love for make-believing and storytelling. Some memories still bring a sting of embarrassment, like forgetting the name of Rizal’s lawyer, Lt. Taviel de Andrade, during the General Information PRISAA and missing out on a gold win, and continue to do so almost consistently in many other contests in school. But other moments, like getting the highest NCEE score, being a City Councilor in the Rotary Boys and Girls Week Celebration, and leading the Alfa Company despite being 4-foot-11, taught me grit that has stayed with me. Those tough-as-nails drills, pre-dawn formation, and late-night honor guarding at fiestas taught us teamwork, discipline, and a sense of responsibility—qualities that have served us well in life.

Of course, the friendships we built were just as meaningful—and sometimes as colorful—as everything else. I remember the late nights crashing (and sometimes crushing) at friends’ places, my first Tanduay and San Miguel hangover blackout at Veterans’ Village, my failed attempt to puff Philip Morris menthol cigarettes just to “try” a vice for the barkada, and even the black eyes I earned in two silly fights, one over a girl and the other over a snitch accusation. Looking back, those moments were high-stakes and edgy, but they made for memories that still make me laugh today. The firsts in kisses, crushes, heartbreaks, dates, sweet dance, love notes passed in class, clumsy hand-holding, sweaty palms, popping up pimples, and overly dramatic, immature LQs, are unforgettable [sometimes unforgivable]—mainly because they were so clumsy and mortifying. And those classic prom and acquaintance party blunders that still make me cringe today taught me a thing or two about laughing at myself and moving on, even if the memories still make me want to disappear!

The quirky stories from those years remain vivid and never fail to make me laugh. Like that time in sophomore year when, at just 12—two years younger than most of my classmates—I threw a stone at a bully who called me “putot” (shorty) and sprinted to the guidance office before he could react. Or our first-year Catechism teacher from Santa Maria, who somehow managed to teach us more about aliens than the Bible. And let’s not forget our “Mountain Tiger” teacher who taught RA 6425 with a conviction that left you feeling guilty before even thinking about drugs, cutting classes, or excessive partying. Then there was our well-meaning but slightly misguided sex ed teacher in junior year, who, perhaps due to a lack of suitable materials, resorted to a Hustler magazine to demonstrate anatomical differences. And who could forget that time in third year when we turned our class table into a pingpong arena, only to have our ceiling fan meet its untimely end thanks to a rogue pingpong ball?

We shared spooky tales about the “kapre” haunting the Lunok tree, the white lady on the third floor, and ghosts supposedly lurking in the school’s lower levels—stories as bizarre as the graffiti covering our bathroom walls. After school, we followed our usual rituals: pancho sa Buho snacks, batchoy bowls from Central Market, and bonding over fish balls and banana cues with friends right outside the gate. And if memory serves, we even had a school-sanctioned outing to watch Beetlejuice (for reasons still unclear to me) along with the inspiring films Stand and Deliver and Dead Poets Society at Allegro, where many of us took the opportunity to goof around in the dark. Those days were a colorful mix of innocence, curiosity, mystery, and wonderfully awkward life lessons that only grow richer with time.

Our teachers, those unforgettable characters who shaped our days, left lasting marks on us. Ma’am Milagros Sirilan, our strict yet caring math teacher, became like a second mother to me until my engineering days. Ma’am Naids Espino, who assigned me a project on LASER technology in my freshman year, sparked my fascination with physics, an interest I still carry. And who could forget Ma’am Lourdes Pettersson’s explanation on latent heat of fusion, Ma’am Lilia Ongchua’s solutions in quadratic equation problems, Ma’am Myrna Ong’s strategies in proving identities, or Ma’am Nenie Barbon’s take on the Lilliputians in Gulliver’s Travels? I still remember how pungent the smell of hydrogen sulfide was in our Chemistry laboratory, how Elias is more relatable to me than Crisistomo Ibarra, how the Preamble is to be articulated with gusto [even if the concepts of sovereignty, patrimony, and posterity were still vague to us then], how Guard Bebeng’s strict gate rules morphed in multiple variations, how tasking it was to compute the log value using the logarithmic table via interpolation, and how liberating the pages of the giant encyclopedias, dictionaries, and atlases in the library were. Even the “bad genius” method our world history class invented to tackle last-minute tests taught us a little about resourcefulness (though maybe not in the best way!). Shoutout to all the UIHS teachers and staff who helped form who we are. We are forever grateful for their dedication, patience, and lasting impact on our lives.

Reunions like this offer more than a chance to scroll through old photos [in a mix of Bagets colorful grunge and hip-hop with ripped or acid-washed denim, plaid, and oversized styles] and slum books [if you get my 1990s drift]. They allow us to reconnect in person, where laughter feels real and inside jokes resurface. These are the friends who saw us in our most unfiltered, hopeful, and sometimes vulnerable moments. And even today, we are still as loud and chatty in our Messenger group as we were back in the halls of high school. We are not just the professionals, entrepreneurs, leaders, parents, and responsible citizens we have become—we are also still those curious, juvenile, irreverent, and ambitious high school kids we once were.

I am proud to be part of UIHS Batch ’91, a crew of talented, witty, and driven folks who have become thoughtful, opinionated professionals and citizens. Bound by “excelsior,” we were a true patchwork of personalities: student council go-getters, varsity stars, spirited cadets, creative artists, graceful performers, honor roll whizzes, laid-back chillers, bookworms, class clowns, fashionistas, fraternity daredevils, working students, dedicated scholars, social butterflies, teachers’ pets, lovable brats, single parents, everyday classmates, and everything in between. Somehow, despite all our quirks, persuasions, and occasional clashes, we stuck together. When life threw challenges our way, we learned resilience, and the friendships we forged back then have managed to withstand the test of time.

As our remarkable batchmate organizers have reminded us, this reunion is not about measuring who “made it” the biggest or the best; it is about celebrating our journey together. It is a tribute to the memories, the struggles, and the laughter that shaped who we have become. Life pulls us in many directions, and it is easy to lose sight of where we started. But reuniting brings us back to those simpler days when friendship and laughter were all we really needed.

As we share stories, eat, drink, sing, dance, and laugh together, I hope to catch glimpses of the proud taga-UI friends I once knew and feel the warmth of connections that never faded. Today, we will be reminded that some bonds, forged in the fires of youth, truly last a lifetime. What was once just a distant hope has become a priceless moment—a piece of our lives we will carry forward, a reminder of who we were and who we will always be to each other.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.