University of the Philippines Preparatory High School

nd World War, but were now dedicating themselves to educating students born during that war. The students’ parents still talked nostalgically of “peacetime”, a golden age in their memory, of Manila before the war. In the mid-50s, long before the tumult of major political upheavals to come, everything seemed possible — maybe we were on the road back to that golden “peacetime”. The Second World War was long gone (although there were still bombed-out ruins close to UP Prep) and the threat earlier in the decade that the government might be overthrown had largely abated. There was room then to be innovative, time enough even to be optimistic. It was in this setting that the UP Prep was established. We were in the first class, already high school juniors — there was no precedent for how things should be done. Science labs were being tried out for the first time. The curriculum content was highly flexible; teachers had to experiment to make things work. Classes were freewheeling and we thought we had license to push boundaries. It was this eclectic mix of teachers and students, the unpredictable and unforeseen small interactions between these unique personalities that made U.P. Prep the premier high school that it was.

- Toto Olivera '56