Carillon Feature Story

The UP Varsity Pep Squad

October 9, 2024

By Susan Claire Agbayani


In December last year, the Varsity Pep Squad (or UP Pep) of the University of the Philippines paid homage to homegrown band Eraserheads for the Cheerdance Competition (CDC) Season 86 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP). The theme of their routine was “AlapaUp” (how apt!).

They executed “a high-level performance:” flips, jumps, and pyramids to excerpts from the Ehead’s “Alkohol,” “Overdrive,” “Huling El Bimbo,” “Huwag Kang Matakot,” “Pare Ko,” “Tindahan ni Aling Nena,” “Magasin,” “Harana” and ended with, what else, but “Alapaap?” They did routines with Black-Eyed Peas as theme the year prior. In 2010, the squad “executed flawless routines that incorporated Filipino traditions, such as the Masskara and Panagbenga festivals…before 20,950 spectators” according to a story published in the Philippine Star (“UP Pep Squad thrills, awes”).

The squad’s Head Coach Fae Pascua said that this Eheads-themed routine represents “the journey, freedom from struggles, and challenges faced by the team.” She added that by placing fifth, the team “finally (broke) a streak of being at the bottom three since 2017.”

The team held championships in eight non-consecutive years: for three consecutive years from 1999 to 2001; for two consecutive years in 2007 and 2008; and after not being the champs in 2009, they regained the championship again for another three consecutive years: 2010, 2011 and 2012. And then came the “dry” years. However, UP holds the “unprecedented” 20 consecutive podium finishes from 1995 to 2015. (There was no competition in 1997)

Through the years, UP Pep – or at least, several of its members – have represented the country in the Asian Games in Busan, South Korea in 2002; The Cheerleading Asia International Open Championships in Tokyo, Japan in 2008, 2009 and 2013; and the Cheerleading World Championships in Hong Kong in 2011, in Bangkok, Thailand in 2013, in Tokyo, Japan in 2015, and Berlin, Germany in 2016.

UP Pep in March last year “bagged” the championship title for the All-Girl College Cheer Division at the 16th National Cheerleading Championship (NCC) in Pasig City, at its first appearance at the NCC after a 16-year absence. In March this year, UP Pep competed in the 17th season of the NCC at PhilSports Arena, where the girls “clinched the national championship in the Open All-Girl Group Stunts L6 Premier Division with a score of 342.5 points.” On Day 2, the team finished fifth in the Open Coed Cheer L5 Elite Division, with a score of 217.5 points.

It has been a decade since UP Pep reached the top at the UAAP CDC. Prior to last year, it had consistently finished sixth in the last five editions. It had hoped to “turn its fortunes around” in Season 86, and aspired to “crack the top three for the first time since 2015,” and “to deliver a performance to remember” according to a story published in Rappler in 2023. And wasn’t that performance with the Eheads as a soundtrack truly memorable?

The squad was formed in 1994. It started as a group of five UP basketball fans known as the “Hecklers.” It eventually became the official cheerleading and cheerdance team of UP.

The UP Pep Squad has two halves: the cheerleaders and the drummers. They perform at the halftime of basketball games of the UP Fighting maroons, at different university events and functions, and at the CDC of UAAP.

Apart from Pascua, the team’s coaches include Herbert Gerard Villafranca, Drummers’ Coach, who graduated from UP Diliman in 2015 with a baccalaureate degree in Computer Science; and a master’s degree, also in Computer Science, in 2022.

The coaches were appointed two years ago, when the UP Pep Squad sought to return to the top of the UAAP CDC. Both of them are UP alumni and were previous members of the squad.

Back then, Pascua promised a new era “for UP Pep Squad, for the Fighting Maroons, and for the UP community,” according to an article written by Micah Formoso for The Philippine Collegian (“With a New Coaching Team, UP Pep Squad Eyes a Podium Comeback”). Pascua was quoted as having said, “We want to build a new legacy moving forward…: new generation, new everything.”

The coaches bring something unique to the table: their unique strengths and weaknesses. They endeavored “to conduct training that are safe spaces (and) a coaching strategy that would bring out the best of the team.” Part of this strategy, of course was “communication,” and “operating on trust, not fear.” As well as “maximizing the team’s energy in strength and conditioning, gymnastics and dance.” Their concerns included the physical as well as mental health and emotional wellbeing of the team’s members.

Villafranca is ably assisted by Assistant Coach Seldane Donne Tagao, who is also an alumna of UP Pep, and was also a former Head Drummer. She graduated from UP with a baccalaureate degree in Biology in 2019. The team’s Strength and Conditioning Coach is Josiah Cabanag.

Pascua says that while her coaching style is uniquely Filipino, she incorporates cheers from different countries where she trained in cheerleading: Malaysia, Singapore and Canada. She was part of the UAAP Season 77 cheerdance performance.

“I joined the team in Season 74,” Villafranca told Carillonthrough a message on social media. “I was a Head Drummer during the season.” [Note: there are two head drummers]. “I was an active alumnus, and I continued to help after I graduated after Season 77. I rejoined the team as Senior Resident in Season 82 while taking my masters,” he added.

“I joined as the Lead Coach for Drummers, and Assistant Team manager in 2022, right as Season 85 started. I primarily coach the drummers,” he further said.

Training

The squad relentlessly trains for three to four hours on weekday nights at the UP Diliman Football Field. The drummers train at the Baseball Garden of the College of Human Kinetics for three hours daily on weekdays, Villafranca said.

“We are honored to witness and compete against teams from all over the country. We are excited for the future of Philippine cheer and we hope it continues to grow with every Filipino cheerleader pushing the sport even further,” Pasco said in April.

With full confidence, Pascua said, “The team is getting ready to bloom come UAAP Season 87, where the University of the Philippines (is) set to host.”

“UP Pep has come a long way from where we started when we revamped the program in late 2022,” said Villafranca. “This is not the work of any one person, but the combined efforts of the current and previous members of the coaching staff, the community that supports us, our alumni, and, of course, the student-athletes themselves. We are immensely grateful for the continued support and encouragement we receive, and we remain hopeful for the future of the UP Pep Squad,” he concluded.

UP: The University of Phantasms

By Yvette Tan

It’s no secret that the University of the Philippines is haunted. The institution is old and has seen many lives pass through its hallowed halls—some of them choosing to stay behind.

Every campus has its own set of iconic ghost stories. The Carillon reached out to students and employees from UP Diliman, Los Baños, Manila, and Visayas for ghost stories from their respective campuses and the response was phenomenal, to say the least. While it would have been fun to include all the stories, there’s a word count to follow, so this article will be limited to one story from each campus.

The UPDIO staff are no strangers to the supernatural goings-on in what used to be a storage area of the College of Fine Arts. (Photo courtesy of UP Diliman)

UP Diliman – A Doppelganger in Bartlett Hall

Haidee C. Pineda, a longtime employee of the UP Diliman Information Office (UPDIO), talks about her experience in the UPDIO’s first location, Bartlett Hall, which used to be a storage area in the College of Fine Arts. Even before her supernatural experience, Pineda was no stranger to the many spooky stories told by her colleagues about their encounters with the unknown. She herself never experienced anything, until one morning in 2004, when she arrived at the office early and ran into her coworker, Kuya Joey. He was wearing a dark green polo, black pants, and boots with a very distinctive design. Pineda greeted her coworker “good morning,” but didn’t receive a reply. Instead, he sat at his desk, which was directly across hers.

She chalked it up to him getting off the wrong side of the bed and began to check her mail as the rest of her co-workers began to trickle in. She heard the door open behind her and turned to look at the newcomer. To her surprise, Kuya Joey stepped through wearing a light brown polo, black pants, and black leather shoes. He greeted her with a jovial, “Good morning! You’re here early!”

Pineda immediately turned to the figure across her. He had her back to her but he was still there: dark green polo, black pants, boots. Her blood ran cold. She asked Kuya Joey if he had arrived before her. He replied that he had just gotten in. She dragged him to his desk, but the man from earlier had disappeared.

People avoid passing by Baker Hall in UPLB at night as there have been numerous reports of mysterious figures, including one with glowing red eyes, seen moving about inside the supposedly empty building. (Photo from https://www.facebook.com/rgdobakerhall/)

UP Los Baños – Charles Fuller Baker Memorial Hall

Set along the foot of mystic Mt. Makiling, UP Los Baños, popularly known as Elbi, is known for its proximity to nature. And because of Mt. Makiling’s reputation as a supernatural hotspot protected by the mountain’s namesake Maria Makiling, as well as its past as a Japanese interment camp, Elbi has its own fair share of supernatural stories and urban legends as well.
The Charles Fuller Baker Memorial Hall is one of the oldest buildings on campus, and is used to hold events or some PE classes. It is also said to have been the main building of the Japanese interment camp. Figures walking around at night have been reported, as well as of a huge dark human shape with red eyes peeking out from one of the building’s windows. There is also a story about a passer-by seeing a full-blown party attended by people in period clothing. The building’s reputation is enough to deter most students and employees from walking near the area at night, for fear of seeing people who aren’t really there.

UPV’s Main Building was used as a concentration camp during the Japanese occupation, and it is believed that the souls of some of the prisoners remain there to this day. (Photo courtesy of UP Visayas)

UP Visayas – UPV Main Building

GC T. Castro of the UPV Office of Alumni Relations sent in a story about UPV’s Main Building, with sources from various UPV personnel. Construction of UPV’s Main Building began in 1931. It served as the Iloilo Municipal Hall and then as Iloilo City Hall in 1935, before being used as a concentration camp from 1942 to 1945 under the Japanese occupation. It was donated to UP in 1947 to open UP College Iloilo, now the Iloilo City Campus of UP Visayas.

It’s said that one room on the north-east side of the building used to hold three prison cells where many Filipino and most probably American prisoners were tortured by their Japanese captors, and it was possible that some of their bodies were buried in the area. Accounts say that in as early as the 1950s, people were still finding bones scattered across the main building. To this day, UPV employees continue to report strange activity in the building that range from unusual sounds such as a chair being dragged across the floor, doors closing, heavy steps on the stairs, the sound of newspaper pages being flipped, and even human voices that range from from soft cries coming from nowhere to actual mimicking of voices of co-workers.

One personnel who has been working in UPV since the 80s claimed that he’s seen the source of the sound of the chair being dragged—a pained human figure in ragged clothes with a ball and chain clamped to one ankle. He said that the sound was made by the figure dragging the ball and chain as it walked through the halls of the building.

Spectral children are but one of the many spirits that have been experienced in UP Manila’s Calderon Hall. (Photo from https://cm.upm.edu.ph/p/history/)

UP Manila – Calderon Hall

UP Manila, the original and oldest site of the UP System, carries with it a rich tradition of haunted tales that have persisted through the years. Forensic pathologist and current chair of the Department of Pathology Raquel Fortun tells a story of her own: “I had a mezzanine office in the Department of Pathology (incidentally beside the lobby Admissions just separated by a wall) from 1995 when I returned from forensic pathology training, until 2018 when we renovated. I did not really pay attention to unusual sounds (for example small objects like coins or buttons would seem to fall on the wooden floor but nothing was there) and occasional feelings of uneasiness. I did not think the place was haunted until a guest (TV journalist) once waited there looking at my books. She later insisted there was a small girl at my desk, she asked was she my daughter? It took some time before I understood what she was trying to say and clarified my daughter was not with me that day and if she was she’d be in school uniform. The girl she saw wasn’t. Since then I’d be wary of kids in the department, I would touch the child’s head and ask our secretary if she sees him or her too.”

Revolutionizing Disruptions: Dr. Melinda Bandalaria, on her nine-year term as UPOU Chancellor

By Thea Claudette Castañeda

UPOU Chancellor Dr. Melinda dela Peña Bandalaria

Under Chancellor Dr. Melinda Bandalaria’s nine-year term, UP Open University is recognized as one of the leaders in open distance e-learning, not only in Asia, but also globally.

The nature of UP Open University, or UPOU, is inherently different from the other UP Campuses, given that its platform is mostly– if not fully– online. This provides a big challenge, not only in spearheading the paradigm shift in education, but also in adapting to the ever-changing trends in technology, all while keeping the same quality of education that other UP campuses offer.

Revolutionizing disruption is a direction that Chancellor Bandelaria keeps in mind for UPOU. As technologies are disruptive in nature, such as with the internet in 1994 and with OpenAI today, Chancellor Bandelaria views them as tools to utilize and turn into something advantageous, especially for transforming education.

This means maximizing the affordances of modern ICTs to make available inclusive, accessible learning opportunities. Chancellor Bandelaria adds, “Wherever these learners are, there is an opportunity for quality education provided by UP. Openness and quality education are not mutually exclusive.”

Challenges Faced as a UPOU Chancellor

“As a chancellor, you have to lead, you have to harness all the resources that we [the university] have, which is also limited, so that we can develop new ways of doing things but still aligned with the tradition of the university,” Chancellor Bandalaria said, when asked how the unique qualities of UP Open University affect her role as chancellor.

UPOU was established in 1995, a year after the internet was introduced to the Philippines. The campus incorporates innovation and new technologies into its essence as an Open University, while still preserving the values of Honor and Excellence that the University upholds. UPOU became fully online in 2007, becoming the first open university in Asia to do so.

With that said, friction in perceiving technologies and innovations, is something that innovators like Chancellor Bandelaria deal with on the norm. As she said in the interview: “When you introduce innovations, sa simula, hindi lahat ay may buy-in. You have to convince even your own people.”

Aside from filling the gaps in adopting innovations, UPOU also deals with the negative perception that online learning is an inferior way of learning compared to how other CUs implement education. Chancellor Bandelaria, however, views online education not just as an alternative option, but as a future of online education. “We look at distance e-learning as the way to go for the future. So pinanindigan namin ‘yon.”

Leading the Education Sector During COVID-19 Pandemic

The challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the education sector to shift to online platforms. UPOU had an advantage in that part, already implementing flexi-times and work from home setups while offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) through their online platform, something the university had already been implementing since 2013.

Having initially thought that it would be business as usual, Chancellor Bandelaria retained UPOU’s setup, but later on realized that there are students that are going to be frontliners in the future, as the campus offers health programs. Stakeholders and staff are also facing their own challenges in their own homes, so. Chancellor Bandelaria then positioned UPOU as an education frontliner providing public service during that time. She led the campus in reaching out to volunteers to provide webinars for free, and maximized the existing MOOC to offer training programs for open distance e-learning, also for free.

These initiatives are under UPOU’s #OPENFight Against COVID-19 campaign, all in the name of the public service. Under Chancellor Bandelaria’s term, UPOU helped the academic sector transition to online learning not only in PH, but also in some other parts of Asia.

Legacy and Achievements

Within her nine-year term, Chancellor Bandelaria became president of the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) in 2017-2019, leading mega-open universities size-wise in terms of how things are done. She is also appointed as an ambassador for the International Council for Open and Distance Education Open Educational Resources Advocacy Committee (ICDE OERAC). The ICDE serves as a consultative partner to UNESCO, where Chancellor Bandelaria is also a member of its Open Educational Resources (OER) Dynamic Coalition advisory group, representing Asia. She is also currently elected a member of the executive board in both AAOU and ICDE.

Chancellor Bandelaria noted that these achievements have been memorable during her term because they are also indicators that UPOU is one of the leaders in open distance e-learning. While being able to achieve this status during her term, she also recognized the efforts of the previous chancellors, for paving the way in leading UPOU to where it is today.