UPIEAA Helps IE Club with 50th Anniversary Celebration

The UPIEAA board gave its full support for the IE Club’s 50th Anniversary homecoming, dubbed, Aurum, which means ‘gold’ in Latin (which is why the element symbol for gold is Au), held last November 25 at the Palacio de Maynila in Malate.

The board committed to donating P30,000 by picking up 3 tables of 10 seats each. Each seat was worth P1,000. Whether or not more senior alumni could occupy those seats didn’t matter – UPIEAA simply committed to buy the seats regardless from which batch the alumni would come from.

In addition, President Ricky Banaag and former president Bing del Rosario committed to P6,000 each to pick up the tab for the draft beer kegs.

Attending the event were Ricky Banaag, former director Liza Ting, director Benjie Mirasol, former UPIEAA VP Ricky Pena, 2017 UPIEAA awardee JJ Alano, Carl Riego, Bernie Abis, Boyet Castro, plus other much younger alumni. Although he couldn’t personally attend for health reasons, retired IE Professor Madz San Mateo, a staunch supporter of the organization since the start , delivered a recorded video message. The organizers had targeted 100 alumni to augment the 200 IE students expected to grace the occasion.

There was a special program segment entitled ‘Blast from the Past’. Unfortunately, decent historical records only exist from 2012 so most of the early years’ milestones had been anecdotal and spotty. Still, the organizers managed to come up with several trivia and fun facts, such as:

1. Technically, the IE Club is older than the IE department. The Club was formed in 1967 and the Department was only torn from its ME moorings to become its own department in 1971.
2. IE Club’s first fund raisers for the bene\it of disadvantaged sectors began nearly 40 years ago when it held movie screenings at the San Miguel Theatre and 30 years ago at the Meralco Theatre. Raised funds went to hospitals and children’s centers.
3. The founders wanted to call the organization OrgIEs – obviously, Organization of IE Students. Though popular wi th the members, it never became the official name due to concerns that the UP and college administrations would find it inappropriate.
4. The organization’s now famous cheer – IE Club One – didn’t originate during Engg Week. Rather, it first surfaced after an IE Club election contest that was closely and intensely fought. The cheer was made to remind Clubbers of their overall unity despite the division caused by the election.

Two dates stood out during the segment – December 9, 1967, which was when the IE Club charter was rati\ied by its \irst members; and June 1978, when Prof. San Mateo took over as IE Club adviser (till his retirement).

There were several performances from different teams, several toasts, and quite a number of awards handed out as this was also ‘Clubber Awards Night’.

The IE Club is currently headed by President Beto Arellano and Executive Secretary DJ Daway, supported by several VPs: Dana Sy for Academics, Paula Joya, Tobi Gancayco and Nina Domingo for Affairs, Otto Uylangco for Finance, Nicole Tan for Membership, and Aleezah Alunan for Publicity. Patty Atienza, PM for Alumni Relations, took the lead in organizing the event.