By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
I was set to write on Facebook and on a very prolific writer there, posting so many interesting and valuable pieces. I even came out with a title– anak and idol Alex Bangsoy. Yes, he is a close relative, I am his uncle. But then something flashed in my mind about one of his recent posts. His daughter, the UP at Baguio professor, just left for Canada on a fellowship to obtain her PhD or doctorate there.
Facing my laptop, however, I realized a 500 word piece would not do justice to the subject and all her achievements. More so, the lessons therefrom which readers and the public in general can learn. Of particular interest are the “Latin Honors” she must have garnered.
But I have to come out with something and it is just about 30 minutes from deadline.
Sharing that distinction is another relative, Dr. Andrei A. Domogo who traces his roots to the same town, Besao, Mountain Province. He is the first PhD graduate of UP Baguio, his field is mathematics, He marched on the graduation stage in full Igorot attire or regalia. We in this paper were so happy to banner his picture on the front page of this paper that July of 2022
That time was not so far from the year when an Aeta proudly wore the white “bahag” of his tribe during the commencement exercises in UP Manila. His fraternity brods were so joyfully noisy cheering as he marched on the stage. He was the first from his tribe to graduate from college. The last time I looked, he was teaching in UP Clark. That means he was not an ordinary student, thus he qualified to teach there.
Writing this, my aforesaid illustrious relatives who were somehow connected to UP Baguio Baguio brought me down memory lane– but on the other side of the lane. At the age of 17 when I stepped into the portals of UP, as a freshman, I immediately joined the biggest fraternity in the country. At that time, we were known as the “basaguleros” in the campus. That suited me well as I was not wired to be a scholar or conventional. I was always the other kind, the topnotcher when it came to absences. Absences did not mean days. It meant weeks, or months, or half a semester, or almost the whole semester. I was consistent in all the UP campuses in Luzon. I attended them all. I dilly-dallied, I slept, I also became a drunk. In short, I enjoyed.
Of course, later on, I realized I was not getting any younger. So I reformed and redirected my extracurriculars to more positive endeavors. But that would be another long story.
A few years back, I met a UP Baguio professor and I asked about what I heard that UP was becoming like a sectarian school in terms of strictness as to the conventional rules. His answer was, “in a way yes, but we still get students like you.”**
