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U.P. Beta Sigma Fraternity Batch 1964 [Artwork by Jess Abrera / Design and Layout by Orly Magistrado]
Great news comes to batch 64 on their 50th By Vicente G.Tirol Fifty years. That’s how long it took before some members of Batch 64 of the UP Beta Sigma Fraternity in Diliman, me included, learned a bit more about our own batchmates – where they are now and what they are doing. Why the long wait? Well, for one, I do not remember that our batch ever met as a batch, whether before or after we were initiated into the fraternity. Maybe that’s why we did not become close. For another, before we became Beta Sigmans and, especially after, we naturally gravitated towards brods from earlier batches with whom we had more shared interests. But the coming of the batch’s golden jubilee this year changed all that. We were turning 50, so we scrambled to locate and then know more about one another and then, where possible, to meet and to plan our celebration. Of the 35 members of our batch, five have passed on, leaving 30. Of the 30, eight are in North America, one is in Palau or Belau (formerly Micronesia), six are in Metro Manila, and seven are in the provinces. The whereabouts of eight others -- Hugo Agudo, Jr., Marcial “Mars” Baquiran, Romeo “Romy” Dalisay, Primitivo “Iming” or “Steve” Inovejas, Feliciano “Paddy” Padlan, David “Dave” Perez, Jr., Victor “Vic” Veneracion, and Pedro “Pete” Vergara – still have to be determined. Those who have gone ahead are Rodrigo “Drigs” Bayot, Romulo “Romy” Cucio, Dante Monzon, Rico Sanchez, and Joey Tolentino. With them is Pablito “Pabs” Panares, the grand princep of Beta Sigma in UP Diliman when we joined the fraternity. Our batchmates in North America are Ramon “Mon” Azarraga, Emilio “Emil” Covacha, Gilbert Dulay, Bartolome “Bart” Gacad, Dante Llacuna, Orlando “Orly” Magistrado, Benild Pires, and Raul “Roman Frantela” Lopez. Belhaim “Ben” Sakuma is back in Palau. Mon is a technician for a major watchmaking company in New York. He paints and draws on the side. Emil operated a fleet of taxicabs in Quezon City and managed a building maintenance business before migrating to the US. He is currently a senior officer at a northern California school district. In his free time, he works with a Christian church movement around San Francisco. Gilbert works with Blue Cross of California as director of risk finance and, before that, was vice president of Bank of America for specialized lending operations. Before moving to the US in 1987, he held key positions in a number of institutions in the Philippines’ public sector, including the National Housing Corporation, the Farm Systems Development Corporation of the Development Academy of the Philippines, Home Insurance Guaranty Corporation, and the Ministry of Human Settlements. Bart lives in Canada and is very active in the Beta Sigma alumni chapter there, at one time serving as grand princep. Dante was a very successful obstetrician-gynecologist before he and his wife, Aida, a psychiatrist, opted for early retirement. They now live in Maryland. Orly used to work at the University of the Philippines Los Banos, the International Rice Research Institute and Louis Berger International, Philippines Office. He now serves as lead center consultant at a Fedex office in Laguna Hills, California. He is married to Andrea Almeida, a Sigma Betan who once was the fraternity sweetheart of Beta Sigma in UP Los Banos. Ben, the former president of the International Club of UP who ran and got elected as a university councilor in the UP Student Council, first worked for newspapers then held public affairs positions in Victoria, British Columbia. He and his wife, Laila, migrated there in 1969. Ben, an Indian, did such excellent work that the government of Victoria named him honorary citizen of the city in 2000. Raul used to work with the US Navy. How he came to be known by another name is another fascinating story. Our Metro Manila batchmates include Solon Garcia, Neofito “Pete” Hernandez, Eddie Jose, Jaime “Jimmy” Santos, Victor “Vic” Ulanday and Eugenio “Boy” Valdez. Years after leaving UP, Solon went on to law at the Ateneo de Manila University. Little did we his batchmates and other brods know that he would land No. 3 in the bar exams the year he took it. Pete has retired after working most of his life at the Development Academy of the Philippines. Eddie, after being inducted into the fraternity, became inactive because he had to work to support himself through school. Today he is a successful businessman, manufacturing parts for car assembly plants in Laguna. He also owns a Toyota car dealership in Calamba and a securities company in Pasig. Now he values being a Beta Sigman because of the brods’ camaraderie and because he is able to help other people. Jimmy works for Belman Laboratories. Vic Ulanday devoted his life mainly to public service. He served as a barangay chair and later as a councilor in Muntinlupa. Boy Valdez, when last heard from, ran a gas station and a dealership in lubricants in Quezon City. Outside Metro Manila, Roman “Romy” de Leon practices family medicine in San Pedro, Laguna, while Eduardo “Eddie” Maaba practices psychiatry in Malolos, Bulacan, Darius Munoz now lives as a retiree in Argao, Cebu, after returning home from California. Before going to the US, Darius was head of marketing at an ad agency. Ike Seneres, an anti-poverty advocate who used to work under Darius, remembers Darius as a stern taskmaster. “You should know about a product more than I do, more than anyone else in the company, including the president,” Darius would say. “You should eat, drink and sleep with your product in mind,” adding that Ike should do the same with the competitor’s product. Living in the outskirts of Manila are Jesus “Jess” Abrera, Ruben “Ben” Sto. Domingo, and I. Farther north, in Cagayan province, is one more brod I will name later. Jess is best known for his cartoons in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the paper for which he worked for 28 years. These include visual commentaries in the editorial page of the paper, and a cartoon strip in the comic pages. He has also published books of his cartoons. Ben was a car salesman and then a maker of office filing cabinets before he went to the US. He is now back in the country. Ben likes to recall that he was drawn to Beta Sigma for two reasons: first, the fraternity had a serious interest in the martial arts which fascinated Ben while he was living in Japan, and, second, he learned that Horacio “Boy” Morales, a cousin, was a member. As for me, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of working with the original Manila Times. But that career in journalism was cut short when the newspaper was padlocked during Marcos’ martial rule. Thereafter, I became at various times a development communicator and development communication trainer, a lecturer in journalism at Ateneo and UP, and publisher of a short-lived newspaper. Now, for the one remaining batchmate in the province. For many, many years now, we his batchmates and other brods believed without question that he was among our batchmates who had passed on. Who told us that, no one remembers. Then, only last mid-June, we received word from Brods Victor O. Ramos and Ligerio Ancheta through the UPBSF website that they met a member of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Muntinlupa Police who identified himself as a nephew of this brod. He told Vic and Lerio that his uncle used to work with the Manila Police Department but that this uncle was no ordinary policeman: he was a sharpshooter. He said this uncle has gone home to Piat, a small town in Cagayan province, where he became mayor. He is still alive and is now doing farming in his hometown. His name: Ruben Casibang, UPD64. What better news for members of batch 64 on their 50th year as Beta Sigmans? That, one of their own lives!
For those batch 64 brods with NO pictures, kindly send your recent photo in jpeg file format, preferably high resolution to orlymagistrado@yahoo.com.
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