Back in the first quarter of 2025, us 65s were planning our 60th anniversary celebration, dubbed 65@60, scheduled for December of that year. It was that ideal time of the year when the weather cools off, and balikbayan brods are more willing to come home and celebrate the Christmas season with their extended families here.

When Chitong Rivera ‘61, the Illustrious Fellow or “Tatang” of our batch, got wind of our plan, he convincingly persuaded us to postpone our celebration till the next year when his batch commemorates their 65th anniversary in the fraternity. He said that their batch numbers are too depleted to mount an affair that big for the fraternity and sorority, abetted by his pronouncement that the word of your IF is law! Hahaha! 😆

Anyway, we agreed. 61@65, and 65@61, we rolled these over our tongues. And as we continuously did so, VOILA!—61@65@61 came about as naturally as dew on the grass in a clear, late-December morning in the sunken garden in Diliman. Thereon, the event logo was created by Bim Javier. (see attached)

Co-celebrations of batch anniversaries in the Upsilon are not new. Normally, it will involve consecutive batch years, like 1973 & 1974, or Walastik sa Subic in 2007, when Batch ’57 celebrated the 50th with Batch '67’s 40th. But this is the first time that the first cardinal rule was invoked to effect a joint celebration. Hahaha!😂

The first matter we needed to settle was the venue, so we could pin down a date when it was available. The first venue we considered was the North Forbes Club Pavilion in Makati. Unfortunately, it can only fit 200 people at most.

That won’t work because a joint celebration of two of the fraternity's most popular batches will definitely attract more attendees. So we turned to the UP Bahay ng Alumni, which has a capacity of a thousand. But the magic number we planned for the event was 400 attendees, with an allowance to accommodate 10% more.

We purposely chose January 31 as our event date to be proximate to the other big affair of the year, Batch 76’s 50th at Manila Polo Club, so that the social schedules of brods and sisters coming from abroad will be replete with huge affairs.

To proceed, we organized the event management team with Chitong Rivera as overall honcho, Tong Puno as dakilang chief utusan, Ray Orozco & Dante Canlas for F&B, Noy Dy-Liacco for registration, Benny Fulgencio & Bimboy Javier for Creative, and Jake Marques for prequel & sequel activities.

Initially, the financial plan was that only the brods would contribute, but upon learning this, our Sigma Delta ‘61 & ‘65 batchmates volunteered financial donations. Also, many “fan” brods from other batches donated wine, lechons, balut, and other items. A massive shoutout of thanks to them!🤝🤝🤝

We raised over a million, which we poured into great food, plentiful wine, beer, single malts, and soda, fantastic music & entertainment, souvenirs, and spared no cost to turn the acoustically unsound Bahay ng Alumni into an optimal acoustic environment. We also prepared for prequel and sequel events for the 61s and 65s, brods and sisters—a welcome dinner in Wack, Wack, a trip to Caliraya, and a culinary cum heritage tour in Central Luzon.

We experienced no significant hitches except for slow online registration for months, which picked up quickly a few weeks before the event night. Eventually, 442 registered, broken down into 298 brods, 101 sisters, and 43 guests. On the night itself, 50 walked in. It was a true box office hit!

I recall a line from a Black-Eyed Peas song— “I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night”.

Indeed, it turned out to be a good night, in fact, I daresay a great night! It is because of us, all of us who celebrated that evening. Our batches just provided the venue for the merriment and enjoyment of fraternal kinship by Upsilonians and Sigma Deltans.

Together we are awesome!