Close encounters of the horrific kind: The trials of UPCAT regional examiners

I got more than what I bargained for. 

 

A maddening thunderstorm raged outside as we unpacked the boxes that contained the test materials we ferried to and from Cuyo, Palawan—the assignment last year of my co-regional examiner and I for the University of the Philippines College Admission Test or UPCAT.

 

Performing this task in the deep darkness of a brownout at 9 p.m. certainly was what sealed this as a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

 

At the Iloilo International Airport, our return flight to Manila was delayed twice. When we finally made it to Manila, we spent three hours navigating some of the metro’s busiest roads, most of which were impassable due to the heavy monsoon rains flooding the city's streets. At the Centennial Airport, four taxi drivers turned us down—the traffic jam, they said, was unbearable, and the flooded streets horrible.

 

But all this was just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Stranded in Iloilo

 

The day before, when were supposed to fly back to Manila from Iloilo, we were still in Cuyo, waiting for a miracle, waiting for the ferry from Puerto Princesa. It was our only way out of the island, and as long as it had not docked in Cuyo's pier, our fate was uncertain.
 

Its arrival at 4 p.m. marked the end of two days spent being stranded.

 

But I did not complain: Cuyo was beautiful and the people around us warmly welcomed our prolonged stay. But work back home was waiting for us and we were getting anxious.

 

Maybe the universe wanted us to enjoy the island's charm after enduring the tedious 18-hour ferry ride from Iloilo City. Perhaps the universe wanted to reward us, especially when our first attempt to get to the island failed.

 

Three hours after our ferry left Iloilo's port, we headed back because the waves were too life-threatening. With heads still heavy from all the anti-sea sickness pills we took, we carried our boxes back to our dormitory at UP Visayas.
 

Ariel Manoos, my co-regional examiner and a veteran of UPCAT's regional assignments, swears the Cuyo experience is the hardest he’s had so far and certainly one of the most unforgettable UPCAT stories he narrates endlessly.
 

"It is a surreal experience, I'd say. I am not even counting the fact that we had to transfer to a lodging house very shortly before the night fell because I could sense something was ‘different’ in our room," Manoos would say, grinning.

 

The unwanted bedroom visitors
 

This encounter with the ‘unseen,’ is something that is not new to regional examiners. Professor Francisco Delos Reyes of the School of Statistics in UP Diliman swears his Cavite assignment some ten years back was highly memorable because of some ‘paranormal encounters.’

 

He recalls that during the Science portion of the examination, one student was shaking, minutes after she went to the testing hall's comfort room. "She was really shivering, to think that the hall was not air-conditioned," says Prof. Delos Reyes, who has been administering the UPCAT since 1990. 

 

The student, who was seated not too far from the comfort room, narrated that when she used the CR, a headless female figure appeared right in front of her. The student had to be calmed down for some minutes before she was allowed to continue with the exam.

 

During the same assignment, Delos Reyes himself was not spared from the scary encounter. They were billeted at the Home Economics room of the school, just beside the testing hall. He swears that someone on the roof was mimicking his movement. He could hear footsteps of the same beat as his when he moved around the room coming from above, then falling silent when he stood still.

 

Clarita Mendigo, an administrative aide at the Office of Admissions in UP Diliman, has a similar frightening story to tell. Sometime in the 1980's, she was sent to Abra to administer the UPCAT and was housed in a dormitory-type room within a church's compound. The beds, she says, were huge, and the room was too big for her and her co-examiner. She felt something was different in the room. "It felt like someone was hypnotizing me to sleep right away," she says.
 

Mendigo hit the bed at 7 p.m., which she swears was very unusual of her. Minutes later, she could not move her body and felt like someone was strangling her, just when a vision of a burly man strangling a woman appeared in her dreams. Her co-examiner heard her screaming and woke her up from the bad dream.

 

They moved to a different room the next day.

 

After that incident, Mendigo would not travel to her regional assignments without her bullet amulet—which has actually gotten her into trouble as well. Twice, she was apprehended by both port and airport officials because of it: first at the Batangas Pier on her way to her Romblon assignment, and at the airport on her way to Samar. "Now, I only travel with my rosary," she says, laughing.

 

Over air, under water

 

Effie Vinia Diane Catibog's UPCAT story is of a different kind of horror. To her dismay, she arrived in Basco, Batanes, last year without her UPCAT boxes—since those boxes contain the test materials, their security is highly-prioritized. These boxes are foremost on any examiner’s mind. 

 

Catibog and her co-examiner took a small aircraft to get to the island but the plane had to stop in Tuguegarao to refuel. Unknown to her, some of the baggage was offloaded because the aircraft had reached its maximum load after refueling.

 

"When we got to the airport and I didn't see my boxes, I panicked! I couldn't believe that my boxes were missing," says Catibog. "I was short of making a scene at the airport because, with our assignment, it's important that we travel with our boxes in the same vehicle. I got angry. Had I known that they offloaded the boxes, I [w]ould have stayed with the boxes in Tuguegarao and [taken] another flight from there."

 

She was assured the boxes would arrive by 10 a.m., but they only made it five hours later, at 3 p.m. Catibog was restless until the boxes were in her hands. The aircraft's company eventually issued a letter of apology.

 

UPCAT boxes are highly safeguarded and sometimes even considered more important than the examiner's life. Dr. Benedicta Lascano of the Office of Counselling and Guidance in UP Diliman had to traverse through almost knee-deep floods in Cotabato City in 2009 while their boxes stayed on the tricycle.

 

Together with her co-examiner, they had to extend their stay in Cotabato since half of the number of examinees failed to take the exam as scheduled.

 

"Most of them couldn't cross the river to get to Cotabato City, so we decided to hold an extra session the next day to accommodate the students," says Dr. Lascano. This year is her last UPCAT assignment, as she is set to retire this December.

 

A perk or two

 

But not all regional assignments are as scary and difficult as what these regional examiners have experienced. Many assignments are also enjoyable and allow examiners to take in some of the scenery.

 

Lita Torres, an administrative aide at the Office of Admissions who has been administering the UPCAT since 1983, could not forget her 2006 Siquijor assignment. 

 

"All the things that they say about Siquijor—that it is scary and not a safe place to visit—they are not true," says Torres. "The place is very friendly and beautiful."

 

Their local coordinator toured Torres and her co-examiner around the island, which she says is doable in 45 minutes. She was surprised upon discovering that the beaches were stunning and one only had to pay P2 to enter a public beach. "That's also the good thing with regional assignments: we get to experience the Philippines and bring home pasalubong for one another," she says, smiling.
 

Pasalubong. Now, that is an entirely different UPCAT story. —VC, GMA News