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

81. List of Notable Ate­neans. Check this wikipedia arti­cle out.

82. Bricks on Build­ings. I think it was a deci­sion by the Urban Plan­ning com­mit­tee of Ate­neo de Manila some years ago to use bricks on the facade of build­ings. It has become the stan­dard for all build­ings from now on. Bricks give the feel of tra­di­tion, learn­ing (think Ivy League schools), and some­thing that endures. That is why when you go to the Ate­neo nowa­days, it screams edu­ca­tion and tradition–something that schools with a more “high tech” look will never achieve as a first impression.

83. Jog­ging inside the Cam­pus. Stu­dents and alumni love going to the Ate­neo dur­ing week­ends or at night to jog. It’s a beau­ti­ful cam­pus to jog in. Trees are every­where. There’s enough cover and enough space to do a long long run.

84. Cervini and Eli­azo. Named after two Jesuits, Frs. Andrew F. Cervini, and Jose Ma. Eli­azo, S.J.

Cervini Hall and Eli­azo Hall are the on-campus dor­mi­to­ries for col­lege stu­dents of the Ate­neo de Manila Uni­ver­sity. Cervini Hall is for male stu­dents, and neigh­bor­ing Eli­azo Hall is for female stu­dents. Located at the high­est point of the cam­pus, it can accom­mo­date 204 male stu­dents in 51 rooms. How­ever, only a quar­ter of these slots is avail­able for fresh­men or new dorm­ers each year.

85. The Uni­ver­sity Dorms. It is a twin-building, on-campus dor­mi­tory for col­lege stu­dents of the Ate­neo de Manila Uni­ver­sity. Built in 2008, the Dor­mi­tory build­ings stand seven sto­ries high, and can accom­mo­date over 600 stu­dents. It is located behind the Uni­ver­sity Church of the Gesù, and over­looks the scenic Marik­ina Valley.

86. The Rizal Library. The Ateneo’s main library was first located in the Ate­neo cam­pus in Intra­muros, Manila. Fathers Vicente Jimenez, S.J. and Jac­into Lloven, S.J. col­lected books and started a library. Sup­ported by the Ayun­tamiento (city gov­ern­ment of Manila), the first Ate­neo library in Intra­muros served its pur­pose effec­tively for over four decades. In 1921, when the school admin­is­tra­tion passed to Amer­i­can Jesuits, the Ate­neo library was briefly under the care of Fr. Edward Duffy, S.J. Fr. Wal­ter J. Claf­fey, S.J., was appointed its first direc­tor. Claf­fey offi­cially estab­lished the library in the the Intra­muros campus’s “Salon de Vis­tas,” which was later called “Rizal Hall.” Fr. Wal­ter Meagher, S.J. became direc­tor in 1922 and two years later Fr. James Moran took over.

The library’s col­lec­tion in 1926 was the most up-to-date in Manila. In 1928, the Rizal Book Club was estab­lished with Fr. Joseph McGrath, S.J. as mod­er­a­tor. By 1931, the library had around 11,000 vol­umes but the fol­low­ing year, fire destroyed the Ate­neo Intra­muros cam­pus. The fire devoured all but a hand­ful of books. The Ate­neo then trans­ferred to Padre Faura St., still in Manila. There, the library, through the help of friends of Fr. Theodore Daigler, S.J., grew again. So that by 1935, it had built up a col­lec­tion large enough for Fr. Thomas Tuite, S.J. to intro­duce the new Dewey Dec­i­mal clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tem. Fr. John Treubig, S.J., in 1939, with 33 mem­bers of the Rizal Book Club boasted of a daily cir­cu­la­tion of 300 in a school of less than 2,000 students.

The Sec­ond World War destroyed the Ateneo’s library, which was re-started by Fr. Jaime Bulatao, S.J., who intro­duced the Library of Con­gress clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tem. Then Fr. John Car­roll, S.J. con­tin­ued the post-war effort to build the library collection.

In 1952, the Ate­neo moved from Padre Faura to Loy­ola Heights, Que­zon City. Mr. Fran­cisco Singson and Fr. Joseph Maxcy, S.J. were the cen­tral to the library’s devel­op­ment over the next seven years. By 1959, the School’s cen­ten­nial year, a pro­fes­sional librar­ian, Fr. Robert J. Suchan, S.J. was appointed direc­tor. In 1967, the first library build­ing was inau­gu­rated with the help from Ford Foun­da­tion, alumni, and other donors. It was named Rizal Library in honor of the Dr. José Rizal, an alum­nus of the uni­ver­sity. The col­lec­tion grew over the years.

87. The Guidon. The GUIDON was founded on June 22 by 1929. by Rev. Frank O’Hara, SJ, with Manuel C. Colayco as the first editor-in-chief. It is one of the found­ing mem­bers of the Col­lege Edi­tors Guild of the Philip­pines, along with The Var­si­tar­ian of the Uni­ver­sity of Santo Tomas, The Philip­pine Col­le­gian of the Uni­ver­sity of the Philip­pines, Dil­i­man and The National of National University.

In the 1930s, the paper immersed itself in national issues with a Catholic slant, and loudly protested a pro­posed divorce bill. Its oper­a­tions ceased when the World War II broke out, and oper­a­tions resumed in 1946 under the edi­tor­ship of Max Soliven. As the paper began to pro­mote peace, its goals expanded from record­ing Ate­neo history-in-the-making and serv­ing to include pieces that were more socially relevant.

The 1950s saw the paper dis­played abroad, with numer­ous awards given to it. The Colum­bia Scholas­tic Press Asso­ci­a­tion and the Asso­ci­ated Col­le­giate Press con­sis­tently rec­og­nized the excel­lence of the newspaper.

In the 1960s, The GUIDON filled its pages with the fea­si­bil­ity of coed­u­ca­tion in the Uni­ver­sity. In addi­tion, crit­i­cal appraisals of the Ate­neo sys­tem sought to bring the Ate­nean “down from the hill”–a protest to the dom­i­nance of the elite in Philip­pine society.

In the 1970s, the paper involved itself in the greater national sit­u­a­tion. The years lead­ing to mar­tial law saw Vol­umes 38 and 39 of The GUIDON pro­duced as Ang Pan­dayan. The paper’s Edi­to­r­ial Board like­wise found itself split, lead­ing to pub­li­ca­tion of two ver­sions of The GUIDON. How­ever, before the legit­i­macy of either one could be estab­lished, Fer­di­nand Mar­cos declared mar­tial law, forc­ing both papers to tem­porar­ily shut down. In 1973, The GUIDON was the first stu­dent news­pa­per to resume oper­a­tions after mar­tial law was declared.

88. Matanglawin. The offi­cial pub­li­ca­tion of the Uni­ver­sity in the Fil­ipino lan­guage, the name Matanglawin is beau­ti­ful and cap­tures what the pub­li­ca­tion is all about: “mata” (eye) for the stu­dent journalist’s metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail, data, word­ings and crit­i­cal obser­va­tion; “tanglaw” (illu­mi­na­tion) for the writer’s duty to explain dif­fi­cult top­ics to the com­mon reader while at the same time offer­ing new insights; and “lawin” (hawk) for the tra­di­tion of courage in cham­pi­oning the cause of jus­tice and the rights of the poor, though devi­at­ing from any ide­o­log­i­cal advocacy.

Thanks to Heights

89. Heights. The third in the “Big Three” of Ate­neo Pub­li­ca­tions, Heights focuses on the pub­li­ca­tion of lit­er­ary works. It was called The Ate­neo and The Ate­neo Monthly from 1922–29. Under the edi­tor­ship of Edil­berto S. Osmena, the mag­a­zine aimed to “cul­ti­vate lit­er­ary excel­lence and to chron­i­cle items of inter­est con­cern­ing alumni and stu­dent activities.”

The last issue of The Ate­neo Monthly came out in 1929, and was replaced by two new cam­pus pub­li­ca­tions–The Guidon, which han­dled the news, and The Ate­neo Aegis, which became the lit­er­ary mag­a­zine and the school annual.

In 1931–32, the Poetry class of Fr. Hugh J. McLaugh­lin came out with a com­pi­la­tion of poems and crit­i­cal essays on clas­si­cal lit­er­ary pieces. Called Wings, they pro­duced two issues. Its edi­to­r­ial staff con­sisted of Hora­cio de la Costa, Jesus A. Pare­des, Jr., Juan Atava­dio and Jose S. Araneta.

In 1949–1952, The Ate­neo Quar­terly came out as a com­pletely lit­er­ary mag­a­zine under the edi­tor­ship of Sixto Roxas, Max­imo V. Soliven and Gre­go­rio Bril­lantes, successively.

In 1952, upon mov­ing from Padre Faura to Loy­ola Heights, The Ate­neo Quar­terly became Heights, named after the cam­pus’ lofty posi­tion in the hill over­look­ing Marik­ina. It has been the school’s lit­er­ary and artis­tic pub­li­ca­tion as we know it today.

90. The Heights Chair. The writer’s chair as an emblem of Heights was adopted around 1996. It is meant to sym­bol­ize how lit­er­a­ture is a prod­uct of care­ful think­ing by the writer, patiently inter­act­ing with and under­stand­ing the Muse, and express­ing the out­put in the writ­ten word. Heights’ spe­cial role in the Uni­ver­sity as the only and offi­cial lit­er­ary orga­ni­za­tion and pub­li­ca­tion is also embod­ied in the sym­bol of the chair– as a lofty posi­tion, where high stan­dards, qual­ity and excel­lence are val­ued to bet­ter serve the stu­dent body.

91. His­tory of the Ate­neo Glee Club: In 1921, the Amer­i­can Jesuits took over the admin­is­tra­tion of Ate­neo Munic­i­pal de Manila from the Spaniards, and the Ate­neo Glee Club was orga­nized pri­mar­ily to pro­vide litur­gi­cal music at the San Igna­cio Church in old Intra­muros. Jose Moss­es­geld San­ti­ago, a 1911 grad­u­ate of the Ate­neo who became the first Fil­ipino to sing at La Scala de Milan, was appointed conductor.

In 1932, a fire broke out in Intra­muros. In a flash the Ate­neo build­ings were ablaze. But in Padre Faura where the flee­ing Ate­neans took refuge while their school was being razed to the ground, an undaunted Jesuit, Fr. Theodore Dia­gler, con­tin­ued rehears­ing the singers for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in Trea­sure Island, the play that was staged within four weeks of the dev­as­tat­ing disaster.

Then 9 years later, World War II came. The young voices faded away and peo­ple said they must have died a nat­ural death.

So heavy the bomb­ing of Ermita in 1945 that noth­ing was left but ghostly ruins where the Ate­neo once proudly stood. But before long, quon­set huts rose on the rav­aged cam­pus. And there the well-known com­poser Anto­nio Molina honed the glee club­bers for a per­for­mance that revealed an aston­ish­ingly mature sound four years after.

It was in 1953 that the inde­fati­ga­ble James Reuter, S.J. brought about the resur­gence of the Glee Club in Loy­ola Heights fol­low­ing a 3-year hia­tus. The dramatist-teacher-glee club director-basketball coach spear­headed sor­ties in Luzon and Bacolod, and spawned the first com­bos and bands in the country.

He was suc­ceeded by Prof. Vicente Sales, under whose hand the singers won 2 First prizes and a Sec­ond in the National Songfest.

1965 saw the begin­ning of the era of Fr. Anto­nio Cuna S.J. The ami­able guid­ance coun­selor pos­sess­ing the rare power of build­ing instant rap­port with the stu­dents led the Glee Club in the first attempt of any school orga­ni­za­tion in the Philip­pines to tour the entire arch­i­pel­ago. Years after, the group pro­vided the choral back­ground of the Taga­log musi­cal Walang Sugat when it was pre­miered in Manila.

A few notable musi­cians took turns in fill­ing the void left by Fr. Cuna. Among them were Prof. Alfredo Bue­naven­tura, the faith­ful arranger of a host of pieces in the reper­toire then, Fr. Ruben Tanseco, S.J. who shared the baton with the lat­ter dur­ing the Golden Anniver­sary Con­cert and Prof. Ramon San­tos.

Then in 1974, when the uni­ver­sity turned co-educational, Noel Velasco, a mem­ber of the Philip­pine Madri­gal Singers, took charge of the first mixed choir and gar­nered 3 First prizes and a Sec­ond in the com­pe­ti­tions in Metro Manila as well as in Himig, a national tilt.

92. Tang­ha­lang Ate­neo. Tang­ha­lang Ate­neo descends from a long line of Ate­neo the­ater companies-The Ate­neo Dra­mat­ics Soci­ety and the Ate­neo Exper­i­men­tal The­ater, among others-which flour­ished in the col­lege cam­pus since its pre­war days at Padre Faura. It started out in 1974 as a group of friends who wished to stage plays, and hav­ing no the­ater to speak of on the Loy­ola Heights cam­pus, sched­uled per­for­mances at the col­lege cafe­te­ria. The group pressed the admin­is­tra­tion for a more suit­able venue, and by 1978, a large class­room, seat­ing about 80 peo­ple, was con­verted to a the­ater of sorts (since 1989 how­ever, Tang­ha­lang Ate­neo has been stag­ing plays in a 250-seater the­ater called the Rizal Mini-theater). In the old classroom-theater, the group con­structed wooden grids, light boxes, trans­formed a huge piece **of can­vass into a cyclo­rama, built an enclosed con­trol booth, and draped win­dows with dark curtains.

93. Ate­neo Art Gallery. The Ate­neo Art Gallery is a museum of mod­ern art of the Ate­neo de Manila Uni­ver­sity. It is the first of its kind in the Philip­pines. And if you’ve never been there, shame on you! (just kid­ding!) It is housed on the ground floor of the Rizal Library main building.

The Ate­neo Art Gallery holds over 500 art­works that include paint­ings, prints, draw­ings, sculp­tures, pho­tographs and posters. The col­lec­tion traces its roots to the late Fer­nando Zóbel de Ayala. Painter, art scholar and teacher at the Ate­neo, Zóbel donated over 200 art­works to form a study col­lec­tion for uni­ver­sity stu­dents. First housed in Bel­larmine Hall in 1961, it moved to the ground floor of Rizal Library in 1967, where it has remained since.

The Gallery’s fine prints and draw­ings con­sist of over 300 works by local and inter­na­tional artists from the Renais­sance to the present. The etch­ings, engrav­ings, wood­cuts, lith­o­graphs and other graphic-arts media rep­re­sent over 80 artists, includ­ing Rem­brandt, Goya, Delacroix, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and Juve­nal Sansó.

94. Law School. The Ate­neo de Manila opened its Law School on June 6, 1936, with Ate­neo alum­nus Manuel Lim as its first Dean. Fresh­men and Sopho­more classes, and even­tu­ally, junior and senior classes were opened. In 1939, the first Ate­neo law grad­u­ates took the Bar Exam­i­na­tions. In 1940, the Ate­neo Law School pro­duced its first bar top­notcher, Clau­dio Tee­hankee, who would even­tu­ally become Chief Jus­tice of the Supreme Court of the Philip­pines in 1986.

95. Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness. The school is located in the Ate­neo Pro­fes­sional Schools Build­ing in Rock­well Cen­ter, Makati City. Its cur­rent dean is Alberto L. Buen­vi­aje, who suc­ceeded Alfredo R.A. Beng­zon, who became Dean Emer­i­tus of the AGSB and Dean of the Ate­neo School of Med­i­cine and Pub­lic Health. Aside from the Makati Cam­pus, AGSB has satel­lite schools in Sta. Rosa (Laguna), Cebu, Clark (Pam­panga) and Lipa (Batangas).

96. School of Gov­ern­ment. In 1996, the ASG was estab­lished to develop pub­lic lead­er­ship and man­age­ment. It seeks to pro­vide coop­er­a­tion among the gov­ern­ment, the pri­vate sec­tor, non-government orga­ni­za­tions, and people’s organizations.

In Novem­ber 2000, twenty-five staff mem­bers of the Philip­pine Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture started the cus­tomized, full-time pro­gram. In Jan­u­ary 2001, six­teen stu­dents for the first batch and thirty stu­dents for the sec­ond batch started the gen­eral Mas­ter in Pub­lic Man­age­ment (MPM) pro­gram for the publc. In June 2001, twenty senior staff mem­bers of the Philip­pine House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives grad­u­ated from the cus­tomized, part-time program.

97. School of Med­i­cine and Pub­lic Health. The school is located in the Don Euge­nio López, Sr. Med­ical Com­plex in Orti­gas Cen­ter, Pasig City, beside its part­ner hos­pi­tal, The Med­ical City. The pro­gram is designed to be inte­grated with a pre-professional phase through the Health Sci­ences pro­gram of the School of Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing at the Loy­ola Schools.

The Pro­fes­sional Phase of the pro­gram of learn­ing offered at the ASMPH is a dou­ble degree pro­gram lead­ing to the degrees of Doc­tor of Med­i­cine and Mas­ter of Busi­ness Administration.

98. Alay ni Igna­cio. I was deeply impressed when I heard their story for the first time from one of its founders.

In Octo­ber 2000, a group of Ate­neo col­lege stu­dents began a jour­ney that would change their lives and count­less oth­ers forever.

It all started in what seemed like an innocent-enough The­ol­ogy class under Mr. Har­vey Keh. From there, they learned about social jus­tice, equal­ity and broth­er­hood. They thought long and hard about how all these con­cepts related to their lives then, even meet­ing up over sev­eral cups of cof­fee to fig­ure out what to do with these new insights they had.

What came of those mid-afternoon cof­fee breaks is what is now known as the Alay ni Igna­cio Pro­gram or sim­ply called ANI.

Now aware of the sit­u­a­tion of edu­ca­tion in the Philip­pines, as well as what they could do to con­cretly make a dif­fer­ence, they envi­sioned ANI as the venue where they could push for edu­ca­tional devel­op­ment in the high school level. Thus, that sum­mer and every sum­mer since then, vol­un­teer col­lege stu­dents serve as teach­ers, con­duct­ing enrich­ment and advanced courses in Math, Eng­lish, Sci­ence & Chris­t­ian Liv­ing to selected stu­dents from Metro Manila pub­lic schools. Their goal is to help pre­pare and encour­age their young pupils to pur­sue a col­lege edu­ca­tion. [from the Path­ways To Higher Edu­ca­tion Website]

99. Ate­neo Debate Soci­ety. Founded in 1991, the Ate­neo Debate Soci­ety is Asia’s most-awarded debate insti­tu­tion. The ADS has won the National Debate Cham­pi­onships eight out of ten times and the Asian Cham­pi­onships for six con­sec­u­tive years. As one of the Top Ten debate soci­eties in the world, the ADS has built for the Ate­neo de Manila Uni­ver­sity a global rep­u­ta­tion for debate excellence.

100. Ate­neo Sanggu. The Sanggu is the Ate­neo de Manila Stu­dent Coun­cil. “It is the sole autonomous gov­ern­ment of the Loy­ola Schools Stu­dent Body, and all of its pow­ers emanate imme­di­ately from and belong ulti­mately to the said body.”

It has churned out and is con­tin­u­ing to churn out great lead­ers not just for Ate­neo but for the rest of our people.

GO TO PART 1 (First 50). PART 3 (101−150).