MAPUA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY REVISITED

A photo essay

MAPUA IS IN THE HEART FOREVER

Although I wasn’t able to practice my profession, I have always remained loyal to the school that gave it to me: Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT). Four dramatic events mark my tenure at MIT: 1) rebelliousness of Metro-Manila’s student population against the establishment, 2) a raucous NCAA basketball season, 3) a bungled, and almost tragic, field trip to Ambuklao Dam, and 4) a failed graduation photo session.

A few months before Martial Law was clamped down in the country (September, 1972), MIT students joined a peaceful march to Gate 7 of Malacanang palace where a fiery, diminutive PCC (now TUP) student leader chided ‘Apo’ Marcos about his 27 war medals. When Martial rule came, street demonstrations were banned, some militant student lead-ers went underground, a number of personalities confined at Camp Crame were made to pick up the litters on the ground, students with long hairs picked up by Metrocom agents and given a free short haircut, etc.

Their mouths literally muzzled by the authorities, students of NCAA-member schools turned their energies to the basketball games played during the season. The big names on MIT’s Cardinals bench then were Atoy Co and Trajano, DLSU’s Lim Em Beng and Mike Bilbao, the Cesar brothers of JRC (now JRU) and SSC’s Otazu. In one match pitting MIT against another school, the rooting and boos were so maddening as, e.g., "xxx (name of player who made a basket) mukhang aso" repeatedly shouted in increasing crescendo. More often than not, as the doors of Rizal Memorial Stadium were opened to disgorge the spectators inside, fist-fights would ensue with some losers chasing the victors all the way to inside the commuter buses to bash them.

The following photos were taken last April with the permission of the Admissions Director.

A view of the North or "N" building where classes in EE major subjects and Laboratories were being held.

 

A view of the Middle or "M" building with the bust of Don Tomas Mapua in the foreground.

A closer view of Don Tomas Mapua’s bust.

 

A lay-out of MIT’s Intramuros campus as it stands today.

 

MIT derives it name from its founder, Don Tomas Mapua, an architecture graduate of Cornell University. It was fully owned by the Mapua family until 1999 when it was acquired 100% by the Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC). Under YGC, MIT has expanded to include other schools like Information Technology (IT); Earth and Material Science and Engineering (EMSE); Graduate Studies (GS); Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IE); Health Sciences; Languages, Humanities and Social Sciences. It now has a campus in Makati City where the IT and Health Sciences schools are situated.

The High School and General Engineering Departments were used to be housed at the Doroteo Jose building, Sta. Cruz, Manila, until their transfer to the present Intramuros campus. There was a time (Black Friday) in 1968 when classes at DJ were suspended because of massive rescue operation (involving 6,000 volunteers mostly Mapuans) being carried out at the site of Ruby Tower (Doroteo Jose and Teodora Alonzo streets) which collapsed during an Intensity 7 earthquake on Aug. 2, 1968. 342 of the building’s more than 600 tenants perished in the calamity with 270 badly injured survivors freed from the debris after more than a week of rescue operation.

The MIT chapel located between the North or "N" building and Muralla St.

 

This is what stands today directly behind the MIT chapel. What used to be the "Lyceum of the Philippines" is now a university.

A view of Manila City Hall’s "Big Ben" from Parian Wall fronting MIT’s Main Gate. Owing to its proximity, it offers an alternative means of keeping track of the time to Mapuans doing ‘out of campus’ problem-solving projects in their Surveying subject.

 

Something very tragic nearly happened during our Batch’s field trip to Ambuklao Dam in Baguio shortly before our graduation (May 1973) --- had it happened, you wouldn’t be reading this blog article right now.

Working through his wife, the EE Dean eventually mellowed down to allow us to make the Ambuklao Dam trip. On the morning of a night stay at Baguio’s Ambassador Hotel, the ordered Binalonan minibuses arrived and on seeing them, a number of us felt wary about the mechanical integrity of some of them. Nonetheless, we subdued in our minds whatever wariness we had and took our pick of which minibus to ride on.

A few miles from the outskirts of the city, our minibus started to sputter and lag behind the others. After several of those sputters we decided we could take no more and sort of ‘twisted the arm’ of the driver to bring us to the last gasoline station we passed by where we contracted another vehicle.

At km 17 of the 35-km Ambuklao road, there was a 90-degree bend to the right. On our right was an 800-m tall mountain and on the left was an equally deep ravine. A few minutes before the turn, we smelled burnt brake lining followed by a shrill cry from the driver indicating that the brake was not functioning. Luckily, he had the presence of mind to bump the vehicle to the mountainside rather than let it go to plunge into the ravine.

To us in that vehicle, we returned to Manila the following evening traumatized as we left behind one class member at the Baguio General Hospital with a broken jaw and wrist.

To members of MIT EE ’73, don’t show me a copy of our graduation picture; I was not in it. I missed the picture-taking by a few minutes because of a monstrous traffic jam on my way from Malabon toIntramuros.

----SUBMITTED BY SS