Stranded on a Hill

Twice a week for the past year or so, I’ve found myself in Katipunan. When my dear friend R asked if I wanted to be a consultant for AHEAD Tutorial & Review Center, I agreed immediately. I am a nerd at heart, what can I say? Plus, it would take me back to the playground of my youth—the hills of Loyola.

I have many fond memories of Katipunan. Because my family lived all the way in Las Pinas, I had to live in a dormitory for most of my college years—first in a ladies’ boarding house in Esteban Abada, then inside the Ateneo at Eliazo Hall.

I remember when Katipunan was still a quiet haven of a community. My classmates and I would go to this carinderia beside a vulcanizing shop for a lunch of inihaw with rice; dinners I usually had at Anne’s, something with buttered beans. We would drink at this rundown place called Ambrosia’s. Shakey’s and KFC were the only fast-food joints thereabouts.

In the afternoons, we would run from Colayco Hall all the way to the University of the Philippines, first touching the Oblation before trotting home. In the middle of the night, my roommates and I would sometimes step out of the gates of the Ateneo and cross Katipunan to get us some siopao at Kowloon House.

That Katipunan is long gone.

Today, Loyola Heights is crowded with condominium buildings and mini-malls, banks and fast-food joints, and enough traffic to rival the streets of Bangkok. Progress has its price, I suppose, but the prize ain’t always pretty.