Misadventures in College

The year: 1973. Barely sixteen years old and I was getting out of our small town to live in the big city of Manila. My parents and brother accompanied me to look for a place to live and enroll in a university. Passing the College Entrance Test with a fairly high score qualified me to be accepted at the University of Santo Tomas. We found a home in the area where they had a vacancy for a “bed space”. Basically, you just rent a bed (usually part of a bunk bed) in a room with other people and you had to buy your own food somewhere else. But that wasn’t a problem because there was a lot of “carinderias” around and other home based hole in the wall places to eat.

We were about to sign up for the bed space then enroll at the university when we learned that I also passed the University of the Philippines College Admission Test. This university is the most prestigious learning institution in the country where the students were considered “iskolar ng bayan” or scholars of the nation. When I took this test a few months prior, I didn’t expect to do well so my first choice for which campus to attend was in Baguio City and the second one was Manila. I didn’t even consider Diliman, Quezon City because I didn’t know any better that Diliman was the main campus.

So off we go on a bus to Baguio City. I think it was the Pantranco Bus Lines which plied the route. It was my first time riding a bus and it’s interesting to note the food vendors along the route. They waited near bus stops and would run alongside the bus until it stopped then sell food through the windows. Baguio City is a famous vacation spot for Filipinos and foreigners alike. We found a boarding house where meals were part of the rent, then waited to enroll at U.P. Baguio. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had contacted a doctor from our town (Dr. Isahac, I think, whom I played tennis with), who was a prominent and active alumni member of U.P. Diliman. Dr. Isahac managed to secure a spot for me at the main campus in Diliman, Quezon City. By the time we learned this, we were already back in Manila to enjoy a few more days of vacation before school started. My parents had me venture back alone on a bus to Baguio city to notify the boarding house about the change in my status. The kind landlady gave me a refund without any problems. Then it was back on the bus to Manila.

In Diliman, we found an available bed at the freshman dormitory named Molave Residence Hall and after the two previous misadventures, I finally settled in at my new home. What I did after that in the university, well that’s a different story altogether and it involved playing too much tennis for my own good. To this day I still remember my student number: 73-14224. If I had given my parents the fits with all the moving around, they didn’t show it. So thank you Mama and Papa for being patient with me.