The Varsitarian

THE FACULTY of Engineering returned to the top of the university-wide quiz contest, ruling both the Team and Individual categories in the Quadricentennial edition of the prestigious Pautakan 2Q11 tournament.

A packed Medicine Auditorium saw the re-emergence last February 28 of the Engineering team that once dominated the competition. It regained the championship in dominating fashion with 260 points, leaving perennial title-holder Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) and the College of Nursing to battle for spoils.

Engineering’s Francisco Montalvo III also clinched the title with 190 points in the Individual contest at the expense of defending champion Artlets, whose representative, Louis del Rosario, settled for third with 185.3 points. College of Accountancy’s Emmanuel Castro clinched the silver medal via a slim 0.1 advantage.

Amid heated protests and audience uproar, Engineering pulled away early in the final round in the Team category with Artlets and Nursing fighting tooth-and-nail for the second spot.

Artlets got the better of Nursing by a mere 0.1 lead, 190.3-190.2.

Engineering team captain Divino Bibat said the squad’s strategy to prepare more in UST History and Mathematics categories paid dividends in the deciding stages of the tournament.

“We [focused] on [the] two categories and used them [to] our edge in the competition,” he said.

The Quadricentennial championship is Engineering’s seventh Pautakan title, their last one dating back in 2001.

Defending champion Accountancy landed in fourth place with 175 points, while the College of Commerce finished last in the final round with 110 points.

Pautakan veteran

Montalvo, a four-time participant in the quiz competition, credited his victory in the individual category to his being a Pautakan veteran.

“I just relied on my forte, which is UST History, [and I] also [took advantage of my] being a four-time contestant for Engineering,” he said.

College of Rehabilitation Sciences’ Jose Vergara, an early crowd favourite, finished fourth with 135 points, and Jose Gabriel Chua of the Faculty of Pharmacy placed fifth with 115 points.

Pautakan was first staged by the Varsitarian in 1977 and is the student publication’s longest-running extra-editorial activity. The resource persons, who have been providing questions for the competition over the years, include multi-awarded poet and academician J. Neil Garcia (Humanities), playwright-historian Jose Victor Torres (UST History), National Research Council of the Philippines member Anita Ong (Mathematics), and the late historian Rogelio Obusan (UST History).

This year’s quiz show was hosted by former UAAP courtside reporter and Education alumnus Claude Despabiladeras, disc jockey Andi Manzano, and ABS-CBN talent Dino Imperial. Margaret Rose B. Maranan and Alma Maria L. Sarmiento