UPCAT 2026: Nah, we'll take a pass for now and make the most of a gap year

My boy will surely graduate with honors from his senior high school but has been too busy with his robotics team and had no time to spare to review for the UPCAT—having a copy of The Maroon Bluebook notwithstanding. And with the 2026 UPCAT exam date fast approaching (August 2-3), we'll take a pass for the meantime. (Family background: Our clan has mostly UP graduates and a few dropouts, to which I belong, lol!)

Screenshot of my email to my son: 

To make it easier on the eye, click the screenshot to enlarge or read the same email content below: 

Dear Kuya,

You may want to consider taking a gap year: The University of the Philippines is the premier educational institution in our country, and the UPCAT date is fast approaching. In that regard, it is best if we are truly prepared for that test in order to not only pass it, but to qualify for our chosen top priority course. 

Now I'm confident that you can pass it if you take it this coming weekend, but your chances of qualifying for the BA Film program of UP Diliman is much higher if you have spent ample time preparing for the test. We can take the UPCAT only once in our lifetime. And you may want to take it only when you have expended enough time and effort reviewing for it.

Having said that, you may consider taking the UPCAT next year instead. So what will happen is, you're going to take a gap year: instead of enrolling as a freshman college student for school year 2026-27, you will enrol for SY 2027-28. It's only a one-year delay and we'll make your gap year fun and productive:

1. Then you'll have an extra year reviewing for the UPCAT.

2. You can spend the gap year taking short theater and film courses from reputable organizations like TESDA, etc. (So when you finally enroll in BA Film come SY 2027-28, you'll have the advantage of knowing more than your classmates.)

3. You can spend a year doing whatever else you'll find fun. (Going to the gym?)

4. And, if you prefer, maybe earn a little from a side job? (But this should be our least priority.)

And, finally, come SY 2027-28, you'll enrol in BA Film, College of Mass Communication, UP Diliman as the most handsome college freshman of the universe!

Read more about taking a gap year here (it's common among European students and it's becoming popular among American students, too): https://post.edu/blog/pros-and-cons-of-a-gap-year/. 

What do you think?

Love,

Daddy 

 

 

+ + + 

 

 

"A Trifecta For Our Times: two lamentations and a song of hope," my animated poetry collaboration with my son, which is one of my projects as a 2024 International Fellow for poetry of the International Human Rights Art Movement (IHRAM):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ended 2024 with Tree and Other Poems by Brian Swann

Mid-afternoon, December 31, 2025. I was in bed here at my wife's ancestral home in Roxas, Isabela. I checked on my smartphone and found this email from Evergreen Review bearing, Tree and Other Poems by Brian Swann. As far as I know, it's my first time to read this poet. And I was immediately absorbed by the subdued intensity and restrained beauty that suffuse the poems from first line to last. (Spoiler alert: I'm sharing below the end parts of each poem, so you - who must be my one and only reader - better read first the entire three short poems now!)

From Tree:

where the world opens out to itself so you can go on forever,
a tree is surrounded by trees and this the one, the one
in flame you stand in, no one knowing the difference,
and if they saw anything at all they would see just a tree
and not look twice.

From Three Cormorants: 

they weren’t there yesterday
and there’s no guarantee
they’ll be there tomorrow.
This could be how the gods
might mean, ready for whatever,
marking the unknown,
assuming the blessed.

From The Empty Well: 

                         You turn, want to leave
this place with no sides, an empty well
a stone keeps falling down.

Then I fell asleep. And the tone of the poems set the mood of my mid-afternoon nap dream:

I was driving a public jeepney inside the University of the Philippines - Diliman campus, to take my former coworker at Quezon City Hall to her class one bright morning. Somehow, she was a student again of the university where she graduated from more than a decade earlier - and where I dropped out from almost three decades ago. But I took a detour in the dream to give chase to another vehicle, for a reason I could no longer recall. She ended up late for her class. I apologized. She said it's okay, and decided to just attend the next. 

I don't know why exactly I dreamed about her. But I believe that seeing her post on Facebook before I slept, with a photo of her and her grandmother shoulder-to-shoulder, and with an announcement of the latter's recent passing, must have been a factor. We're not even close friends - more so after I resigned from city hall December of 2013. But I do remember giving her a birthday or Christmas present: a stuffed toy figure of my friend who gained fame as a TV personality and comedian of the absurd. (That was among the merchandise he sold with his wife, before his fatal accident when the public bus he was riding plummeted down a mountain slope February of 2014.)

Anyway, I am delighted to have discovered the poems of Brian Swann. I believe that's all I wanted to say.

 

Ericson Acosta: Mga Pira-Pirasong Alaalang Nakakatawa’t Nakakatuwa Noong Dekada Nobenta

\

(Ang makata at aktibista na si Ericson Acosta, pinaslang noong ika-30 ng Nobyembre, Araw ni Bonifacio, 2022, edad 50.)

1. May rally sa Elliptical Road, unang bahagi ng dekada nobenta. Maglalakad kami, tatakbo . . . at ang kanyang chant (in swardspeak): “Jogging, jogging, bayan ko! Jogging ngayon ang laban mo!”
2. Gabi, konsiyerto para sa UP Fair sa Sunken Garden. Pwede pang uminom noon ng beer at alak. Ang stage ay malapit sa Grandstand. Kami naman ay malayo-layo, sa bandang malapit na sa Main Library. Tisoy ang bokalista ng bandang noo’y tumutugtog. Aniya ni Ericson, “Atenista ‘yan, eh. Atenista . . .”
3. Sa tambayan ng Amnesty International, hawak ni Ericson ang pinakabagong kopya ng Kule na kung saan siya may sinulat na artikulo tungkol sa sining biswal. May kuro-kuro siya patungkol kay Roberto "Bobby" Rodríguez Chabet, na tinuturing “father of Philippine conceptual art” at noo’y nagtuturo sa College of Fine Arts. Pasimula ni Ericson, “May iconoclast dyan sa Fine Arts, eh . . .” (Eniweys, di niya trip si Chabet at/o ang mga ideya nito.)
4. "Lagi akong napagkakamalang Koreano!"
5. Nakasabay namin ng kaibigan ko si Ericson sa dyip na biyaheng Katipunan pabalik ng UP, pagkagaling namin sa National Bookstore. Naupo siya sa dulo sa bandang labasan ng dyip. Balisa siya. Sa parte ng kalsada sa harap ng Miriam College, sabi niya, late na raw siya sa rehearsal sa teatro. Medyo trapik, tapos lumiko pa ang dyip pakanan papasok sa gasolinahan ng Petron. Napamura si Ericson, “Putang-ina! Magpapa-gas pa! Magta-taxi na ako!” Tumalon siya sa dyip at sa Katipunan, kinukumpas ang kamay sa pagtawag ng taxi.

    6. Ito kuwento ng photographer at co-staffer ni Ericson sa Kule (na nakalimutan ko na ang pangalan):

Ericson: Hirap na hirap na ako maging pogi. 

Isang kasama nila: Naiintindihan kita.

Ericson: Hinde! Hindi mo ako naiintindihan! Maiintindihan mo lang ako kung tunay ka ring pogi!

      7. Cultural Night at nakapalibot sa may hardin sa harapan ng Faculty Center ang mga kasalo.                       Nakaupo si Ericson sa damo at kumakanta’t naggigitara. Parang hinaharanahan niya ang isang      babaeng co-staffer niya sa Kule habang nanonood ang boypren nito na napapangiti na lang.

      8. Nakaupo sa ugat ng puno ng akasya sa Sunken Garden, sa bahaging malapit sa Vinzons at Eduk.            Tinanong niya kami sa modulated na boses, “Naranasan niyo na bang (dramatic pause) . . .                      umibig”?

      9. Huling bahagi ng dekada nobenta, gabi ng UP Fair ulit. May booth ang organisasyon na tinatag              ko: nagbebenta ng mga t-shirt at kung ano-ano pang mga paraphernalia. May t-shirt ni Che                      Guevarra at Mao Zedong, atbp. (kahit na hindi Maoista ang grupo namin). Para sa pagkalap ng                pondo. Napadaan si Ericson, at bumili ng isang Mao t-shirt. Kalahati lang muna ang binayaran.            (P150 ata sa presyong P300.) Hindi na rin nasingil ang balanse, pero lubusang higit pa ang binayad           mo, Ericson, sa pagbuwis mo ng buhay para sa bayan – sang-ayon man ako o hindi sa iyong                  napiling paraan para sa progresibong pagbabago ng ating lipunan. (Sana nga “jogging” lang ang              laban ng ating abang bayan.)

Maraming salamat sa mga alaala, Ericson. At maaaring magkampeon ang parehong koponan ng basketbol ng UP Fighting Maroons, men’s and women’s, nitong UAAP Season 86! Sakaling may bonfire, pipilitin kong dumalo. Pipilitin maging kasing-saya ng kasalukuyang henerasyon ng mga Isko’t Iska sa isa na namang gabi sa Sunken Garden.

(Photo credits:

First photo, of Petron Katipunan Square, from Eric Martinez PH. Second and last photo, of Sunken Garden, from Jules Bañgate.)

 

The ADHD Chronicles: A Sunday Mass Memory and Some (1980)

(Interior of Ascension of Our Lord Parish Church - Greater Lagro, Novaliches, Quezon City, photo from Fr. Raul Beni Barcela, from the church's Facebook page's post, July 11, 2023)

Now that I'm a father of more than 17 years, the more I realize that I really was a different kid. For years now, occasionally during Sunday Mass, right before the offertory we tell any of our three children to volunteer and pick up a collection bag and go around. And any given Sunday's chosen one does it promptly and properly.

When I was five, for the first (and last!) time, my mother asked me to do the same at the Ascension of Our Lord Parish Church in Greater Lagro, Quezon City. So I picked up a collection bag, but I just stood near her—paralyzed. I just kept mumbling to her repeatedly, "Which aisle should I go first?" She replied and, I'm sure, gave me directions. But I didn't, or couldn't, follow. And soon the offertory song was over and I just returned the collection bag empty. (And just now, I'm thinking, if there were five collection bags in all in that church, then they must've lost approximately 20% of their Sunday Mass income because of me.)

Also at that age, I moved the slowest in kindergarten: always the last to return my empty saucer at the end of (or after!) recess, the last to unpack and repack my bag or plastic envelope, etc.

I still remember the day we visited the Infirmary for our very first annual physical checkup in UPIS, and when we were through, I was the last to climb aboard the bus because I stayed overtime at the last clinic struggling to tie my shoes. (I finally figured out how to tie my shoes properly in . . . first year high school!)

When we returned to our classroom, during dismissal, our teacher announced that she would distribute giveaways. So we all gathered excitedly around her desk. Unfortunately, she followed up with a condition: "Only for the kids who move fast."

Well, I wasn't that slow not to realize that I was excluded from the final blessing. So right there and then I walked out of the classroom—quickly, uncharacteristically.

+ + +

(And you can check out one of my latest published poems here!)