Decades after they first rallied for truth in the halls of Diliman, the University of the Philippines’ fiercest campus radicals reunited — not just to remember, but to reignite.
They were the voices that defied silence, the pens that pierced dictatorship. And last Saturday, they came home.
In a rare gathering of campus firebrands turned nation builders, UP President Angelo Jimenez welcomed back the 1980s vanguard of student activism and campus journalism who made history with every headline and protest chant. September 13 marked the reunion of Philippine Collegian and the University Student Council alumni, many of whom now serve in key roles across the university and the public sector.
Jimenez paid tribute to “these beautifully stubborn idealists” who shaped UP’s political and cultural landscape during a turbulent decade. He also recalled his own beginnings as a Collegian feature writer working under editor Boying Pimentel, whose book launch served as the evening’s centerpiece. “Boying interviewed me for the job,” Jimenez shared, “in a cluttered backroom of the Jingle magazine press in Cubao.”
His speech wove nostalgia with urgency, invoking the memory of student leader Lean Alejandro and teasing a long-awaited biography by Alejandro’s contemporaries: political historian Jojo Abinales, human rights lawyer JV Bautista, and journalist Bobby Coloma. “They literally are the ABCs who revolved around Lean’s orbit,” Jimenez quipped, urging them to finish the book while he’s still in office.
Jimenez praised the enduring impact of 1980s alumni, saying they inspired him to expand UP’s original motto of honor and excellence by adding the word “service.” They also demonstrate, he said, “how ideals forged in campus struggles can help shape institutions and policies decades later.”
Blending wit with reflection, Jimenez reminded attendees of their defiant stand against dictatorship and inequality. “We didn’t just attend history class. We made history,” he declared. He acknowledged that today’s battles are waged in digital spaces and algorithmic echo chambers, “sometimes even against chatbots like me,” he joked. “Don’t worry,” he added with a grin, “I come in peace.”
Yet the evening was more than a tribute. It was a call to action. Jimenez urged his peers to recommit to truth, justice, and community, emphasizing that progress “zigzags, stumbles, but never stops when people like you keep walking.”
With raised glasses and laughter echoing through the Executive House, the evening affirmed that the spirit of UP’s radical past remains alive and that its revolution, as Jimenez cheekily noted, “never really ended. It has even spread to TikTok.”
The reunion was led by former Collegian editors-in-chief Coloma, Pimentel, and Popo Lotilla, alongside former USC chairpersons Kiko Pangilinan, Bong Bongolan, and Teddy Rigoroso.
Jimenez himself once served as USC chair and Collegian associate editor — proof that the legacy of campus activism continues to shape UP’s highest halls.
