150 Years. 150 Things About the Ateneo. (51−100)

66. Loy­ola House/ LST. The house of Jesuit scholas­tics (or broth­ers) on cam­pus, it is where stu­dents would come to talk to their Jesuit spir­i­tual direc­tors for ICs (indi­vid­ual con­sul­ta­tions). It also known for the LST cafe, which is a favorite lunch place for many stu­dents because of its good afford­able food and great view of the Marik­ina Val­ley below.

67. Jesuit Res­i­dence. The other house of Jesuits on cam­pus, the Jesuit Res­i­dence has a great view of the Marik­ina val­ley below. It is the house of Jesuits who work in the Ate­neo. This is where Jesuits like Fr. Roche, Bulatao, Hizon, Dacanay and Nebres live.

68. San Jose Sem­i­nary. This was where Fr. Tom Green used to live, and where Padre Fer­riols and Fr. Mano­ling Fran­cisco lives. This is the home of San Jose seminarians–diocesan sem­i­nar­i­ans under for­ma­tion to be priests.

69. Titanic. The high­est point in LST, this is one of the most beau­ti­ful places with one of the most beau­ti­ful views on cam­pus. It was named after the for­mer pres­i­dent of LST (and now Pres­i­dent of Ate­neo de Naga), Fr. Joel Tab­ora, and the movie and that famous scene where Leonardo diCaprio/Jack shouted “I am King of the World!” while stand­ing on one of the rails of the ship. If you were ever there on top of LST look­ing at the Marik­ina Val­ley below, you would prob­a­bly do a Jack Daw­son too.

70. Eagle’s Park. It’s hard to find this place. It’s some­where in the mid­dle of the field fronting Gates 2.5 and 3. But if you do find it, you’ll know you’re there (I’m not sure if it still has a sign). For some strange rea­son, the place is windy and really peace­ful. It’s a good place to rest and think when you’re out jog­ging.

71. Manangs/Clubhouse. Who has never been to Man­angs? I don’t think you can ever call your­self an Ate­nean if you’ve never eaten there. Famous for its ini­haw na liempo, pork­chops and lechon. Alumni find a way to come back to Ate­neo dur­ing lunchtime to eat there.

72. Full­House. In what is now TOSH (The Old Spaghetti House), there used to be a quaint resto called Full­House, with its Chicken ala Kiev and Chicken Crepe. Yummy. I’m sure those of us from the Ate­neo of the 90s remem­ber it.

73. Food For Thought. I do not know if it’s still there, but Food For Thought is one of the “tra­di­tional” eat­ing places in the Ate­neo. It’s pop­u­lar for its make-your-own sandwiches.

74. CERSA. The Res­i­dence Halls’ asso­ci­a­tion of stu­dents. I don’t know what they call the coed dorm asso­ci­a­tion now.

75. Cov Courts. Venue of great bas­ket­ball games (this is where Ryan Sison and Jec Chia worked their magic before mov­ing up to Ate­neo Team A), PE classes, and even social activ­i­ties like the recent Task­Force Ondoy.

76. Moro Lorenzo Sports Cen­ter. Designed purely for train­ing pur­poses, it houses an indoor bas­ket­ball court, an indoor track oval and train­ing gyms, all using Regupol floor­ing — which is the low-impact rub­ber­ized sur­face ath­letes pre­fer. In addi­tion to this, the MLSC has a sports med­i­cine clinic.

It has a lot of spaces, which actu­ally fol­low cross-training dis­ci­plines. There are areas for aer­o­bic activ­ity, spaces to stretch, tone and strengthen in, a health bar to grab energy food from, and coves in which to relax and cool down. On the ground floor one can eas­ily locate the Prayer Room of the saints, the Sports Med­i­cine Unit, the Health & Fit­ness Cen­ter, and the Michael L. Escaler Sports Hall of Fame, all along one single-loaded cor­ri­dor. For refresh­ments, the MLSC has the newly estab­lished Cafe Azul, fre­quented by ath­letes and stu­dents alike.

Up one level is bas­ket­ball court that is used by the school’s var­sity teams, as well as PBA teams, and the bad­minton courts. Half a floor up, are the locker rooms, audio-visual room and the Marco Lorenzo Weights Room, with Ham­mer Strength equip­ment. A full floor above the courts is the two-lane, 200-meter track oval, which pro­vides a view around the entire court area. Finally, on a mez­za­nine above it is the mar­tial arts area.

77. Manila Obser­va­tory. It was orig­i­nally called the Obser­va­to­rio Mete­o­rológico del Ate­neo Munic­i­pal de Manila, and later the Obser­va­to­rio Mete­o­rológico de Manila.

The estab­lish­ment of the obser­va­tory orig­i­nated from the arti­cle pub­lished in Diario de Manila by Father Jaime Nonell, a Jesuit, which described obser­va­tions of the typhoon of Sep­tem­ber 1865 done by Father Fran­cisco Col­ina, another Jesuit. The trea­tise attracted the atten­tion of the pub­lic who asked the Supe­rior Juan Vidal for the obser­va­tions to be con­tin­ued. There was ini­tially hes­i­ta­tion on the part of the Jesuits due to the prim­i­tive instru­ments avail­able but later agreed when the needed instru­ment, the Sec­chi Uni­ver­sal Mete­oro­graph, was promised to be pur­chased from Vatican.

Thus began the sys­temic obser­va­tion of the Philip­pine weather led by a Scholas­tic, Father Fed­erico Faura. It started issu­ing warn­ings on typhoons in 1879. Earth­quake obser­va­tions by the obser­va­tory started the next year. The Span­ish gov­ern­ment finally rec­og­nized the obser­va­tory as the offi­cial insti­tu­tion for weather fore­cast­ing in the Philip­pines in 1884. In 1885, it started its time ser­vice; its seis­mol­ogy sec­tion put up in 1887 while astro­nom­i­cal stud­ies began 1899.

Dur­ing the Amer­i­can period, real­iz­ing the vital­ity of the obser­va­tory, it was estab­lished by the colo­nial gov­ern­ment in 1901 as the Philip­pine Weather Bureau. The bureau con­tin­ued its works expand­ing its fields of works to include mete­o­rol­ogy, astron­omy, and geo­mag­net­ism. Works of the bureau was inter­rupted by the Sec­ond World War. Dur­ing the Bat­tle of Manila, all of the instru­ments and impor­tant doc­u­ments of the bureau were com­pletely destroyed. It thus ceased to func­tion as a spe­cific gov­ern­ment agency was estab­lished for the same purpose.

The obser­va­tory began again its oper­a­tion in 1951 in Baguio mainly for stud­ies on seis­mol­ogy and ionos­phere. It was later trans­ferred in 1963 to the Loy­ola Heights campus.

78. The Blue Eagle Gym. One of the most impos­ing struc­ture on cam­pus, it is also the most vis­i­ble from outside.

The sta­dium was built in 1949, three years before the Ate­neo de Manila moved from its Manila cam­pus to its cur­rent cam­pus in Loy­ola Heights in 1952.
Accord­ing to his­tor­i­cal records, the gym was con­structed under the direc­tion of Ate­neo Rec­tor William F. Mas­ter­son, S.J., to be an alter­na­tive venue to the Rizal Memo­r­ial Col­i­seum for the National Col­le­giate Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion games.

It is fre­quently a venue for sport­ing events of the Uni­ver­sity Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion of the Philip­pines and the National Col­le­giate Ath­letic Asso­ci­a­tion (pre-1978). Ateneo’s games, how­ever, were played at the Rizal Col­i­seum to pre­vent any home-court advan­tage dur­ing the NCAA years.

It was also a venue for Philip­pine Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion games in the league’s early years. The Manila Met­rostars of the defunct Met­ro­pol­i­tan Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion also used the Blue Eagle Gym as a tem­po­rary home court before mov­ing to the Mail and More Arena in San Andres, Manila.

The sta­dium played host to the sepak takraw tour­na­ment of the 1991 South­east Asian Games. It was sched­uled to be the venue for women’s bas­ket­ball in the 2005 South­east Asian Games, but since the Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion of the Philip­pines was sus­pended by FIBA, the gym­na­sium was not able to host the event. The gym­na­sium is the home of the Ate­neo de Manila’s Blue Eagles.

79. Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ. Fr. Bernas enjoys great cred­i­bil­ity as an unbi­ased and inde­pen­dent legal expert. He is a fre­quent resource speaker in legal con­fer­ences and work­shops. He has authored sev­eral law books and law arti­cles pub­lished and widely-used by Fil­ipino lawyers and law stu­dents. His pub­lished works are often cited in deci­sions penned by jus­tices of the Philip­pine Supreme Court and judges of lower courts.

He has served as Ami­cus Curiae (friend of the court), ren­der­ing expert legal advice dur­ing court ses­sions at the Philip­pine Supreme Court, and dur­ing leg­isla­tive inves­ti­ga­tions at the Philip­pine Sen­ate. He earned a Bach­e­lor of Arts in Eng­lish, Latin, and Greek Clas­sics and a Mas­ter of Arts in Phi­los­o­phy from Berch­mans Col­lege in 1956 and 1957 respec­tively. He obtained a Bach­e­lor of Laws from Ate­neo Law School in 1962 and placed 9^th in the bar exam­i­na­tions of that year. He also earned degrees in Licen­ti­ate of Sacred The­ol­ogy from Wood­stock Col­lege in 1966, Mas­ter of Laws and Doc­tor of Juridi­cal Sci­ence from New York Uni­ver­sity in 1965 and 1968 respectively.

He was the 28^th Pres­i­dent of the Ate­neo de Manila Uni­ver­sity after Fr. Jose Cruz and before Fr. Nebres.

80. Fr. Ben Nebres, SJ. Fr. Ben is the longest-serving uni­ver­sity Pres­i­dent of the Ate­neo de Manila Uni­ver­sity, becom­ing Pres­i­dent in 1993, until now. He cur­rently sits as a mem­ber of the board of trustees of George­town Uni­ver­sity, Regis Uni­ver­sity, the Asian Insti­tute of Man­age­ment (where he sits as Vice-Chair), and other col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in the Philip­pines. He is also a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors of Philip­pine Long Dis­tance Tele­phone Com­pany, and is cur­rently chair­man of the Syn­er­gia Foun­da­tion. He was also Provin­cial Supe­rior of the Soci­ety of Jesus in the Philippines.

He was born in Baguio City on March 15, 1940 and grew up in Bac­no­tan in La Union, Philip­pines. He stud­ied at the Bac­no­tan Ele­men­tary School, and then moved to Christ the King Col­lege in San Fer­nando, La Union. His voca­tion to the priest­hood came early, and soon enough he found him­self at the Vigan sem­i­nary in Ilo­cos Sur. He fin­ished high school at the San Jose Sem­i­nary, and then moved to the Sacred Heart Novi­tiate in Novaliches.

Nebres was found­ing Pres­i­dent of the Math­e­mat­i­cal Soci­ety of the Philip­pines in 1972. He was one of the found­ing offi­cers of the South­east Asian Math­e­mat­i­cal Soci­ety (SEAMS) also in 1972. The SEAMS has con­tin­ued activ­i­ties among the South­east Asian nations by sup­port­ing grad­u­ate pro­grams, research, and math­e­mat­ics edu­ca­tion. Nebres was Pres­i­dent of the SEAMS 1977–78 dur­ing its period of con­sol­i­dat­ing its network.

Nebres was also one of the founders of the Con­sor­tium of the lead­ing uni­ver­si­ties in Manila to develop Ph.D. pro­grams in math­e­mat­ics, physics and chem­istry. The Con­sor­tium has suc­ceeded in devel­op­ing a crit­i­cal mass of sci­en­tists in these areas, has devel­oped exten­sive links with sci­en­tists abroad (par­tic­u­larly in Aus­tralia and Japan), and is now the core of a large net­work of schools in the Philip­pines (more than 110 high schools as well as over 30 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties) which are sup­ported by the Philip­pines’ Depart­ment of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy as the lead­er­ship group for improv­ing sci­ence and engi­neer­ing edu­ca­tion in the country.

From 1992 to 1998, Nebres was Chair­man of the Project Advi­sory Group for a World Bank– and OECF-financed Engi­neer­ing and Sci­ence Edu­ca­tion Project of the Philip­pine Depart­ment of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy. From 1994 to 1998, he directed a team for the Philip­pine Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion on the devel­op­ment of edu­ca­tion plans to strengthen ele­men­tary and sec­ondary edu­ca­tion in the poor­est provinces of the coun­try. He has served as Chair of the Tech­ni­cal Panel on Sci­ence and Math­e­mat­ics of the Com­mis­sion on Higher Edu­ca­tion (CHED) since its incep­tion and also chairs the CHED Tech­ni­cal Work­ing Group for fac­ulty development.