Our beloved alma mater has sustained 90 years of nurturing young people; and keeping them equipped for college life and vocational training and service. Indeed, we are glad to have been part of that objective and what we are now is perhaps because we studied in PUC/AUP Academy.

Along with the growing number of students in AUPA are the challenges we cannot help but face and tackle one hurdle after another. Despite growing pains from wear and tear because of age, by God’s grace we still have emerged standing, victorious, and steadily increasing; and slowly becoming an international school.: Out of an average annual enrollment of 500 for the past five years, more than 100 of them are foreign students.

The Academy has recently passed two accreditation resurveys by the Adventist Accrediting Association (AAA) and the Association of Christian Schools, Colleges and Universities Accrediting Agency Inc. (ACSCU-AAI) respectively, both in the year 2006, under the leadership of Pastor Baltazar Diesta (Academy Principal, 2005-2007). Both teams will return in 2009. By then it is expected that AUPA, the laboratory academy that belongs to the only autonomous university in the region can handily fulfill all recommendations, for the seemingly illusive maximum of five years accreditation by both accrediting bodies. This colossal task, of course, cannot be accomplished by only a handful of laborers. Excellence can only be possible through a unified force of human and material resources of all groups claiming to be part of AUP Academy. Gone were the days when a school can be given a commendable accreditation only because of strong Instructional Programs, and remain a mediocre in the other areas being measured such as Physical Plant and Alumni.

Academy Needs based on major recommendations:

1.  The completion of the Academy Gymnasium:
At present there are only the floor, the iron posts, the roof and two basketball boards with hoops. Although collection of funds started in 2000, construction of the gym began in 2006. Based on the plan the walls, the ceiling, the stage, some offices, classrooms, and the comfort rooms have yet to be constructed, as funds would allow.

2.  The construction of Academy Phase III
Part of the Academy site plan is a two-floor building of 16 classrooms behind the two main buildings; another is for the library, computer laboratory and administration offices at the center. Construction should start soon so that the academy can completely vacate the rear wing of the Old University Gymnasium and to centralize all Academy activities in the new site. According to the AUP administration, construction will start on November 26, 2007, but the funds are only for three classrooms. At present the library, the computer and Industrial arts laboratories, the Internet center, the Guidance, Discipline, Pathfinder, Physical Education and other faculty offices and all three sections of the first year are still located in the old building. They will all find their places in the new site as soon as Phase III is completed.

3.  A Grand Academy Alumni Homecoming:
There are only two on record. They were in 1995 and 1996 initiated and organized by Dr. Ephraim de la Cruz who eventually became the first AUP Academy alumni president, along with Dr. and Mrs. Joel and Elma Rivera Ombao and Dr. Annie Lopez, who were among the officers that drafted its Constitution and Bylaws. Dr. Leonore Gensolin was the adviser, as Dr. Czaezar Idaosos was the Academy Principal.
Last school year, the Academy faculty in coordination with Mr. Leo Arit, AUPA Alumni Association president, scheduled a Grand Academy Alumni Homecoming on March 22, 2008. It will be so much fun to share this very rare event altogether organized by batches, the more the merrier Details of the homecoming will be posted after one month, while the AUP Academy website is being updated.

4.  Scholarship grants for poor but talented and deserving students.
The Academy is replete with promising and talented young people. Quite a number of them bring honor and prestige to the school through winning in national music contests. Some of these children do not really have the means to support their education. Jimmy and Daniel Tagala, violinists and protégées of the famed virtuoso Gilopez Cabayao, are Seventh-day Adventists and have won in the NAMCYA: Jimmy-twice, and Daniel –once. Prof. Cabayao was keen enough to spot their innate talents so he has been training them for free. As a result of their talent and popularity, AUP would sometimes invite them and the rest of the family to perform in formal gatherings. They would also be invited to join the AUP orchestra for outreach programs and paid concerts in prestigious concert halls for the benefit of AUP projects. But they have been studying in public schools because they could not afford the tuition in Adventist schools. This school year, because of their desire to have a taste of Adventist education, Mrs. Tagala could not do otherwise but to send them to AUP Academy by faith.. This year we will try to organize a scholarship committee in the Academy and I Hope that we can find generous sponsors who believe in our cause, in supporting the poor but deserving and talented students in AUPA.
If we calculate how much force, human and material resources have been produced based on PUCA/AUPA’s number of years, ninety years would speak so much more than what is required. It is a matter of pulling these resources together towards a unified direction to produce one magnanimous force to achieve a goal. There is strength in number as long as everyone is working towards one direction. This direction is to meet all the major recommendations before February, 2009; eventually moving toward being a prime high school that will “shine on forever “not only in this country but throughout the world; to fulfill the maxim that God’s people should be the head and not the tail, occupying until Christ’s soon return. The task of keeping the school in shape cannot be borne only by the principal or the faculty, or the students, the parents, or the university administrators and board of trustees, not even only by the alumni… it is a team effort moving by God’s grace and blessings.

On behalf of the Academy faculty, staff, students, parents, and administration, I appeal to the PUC/AUP Academy Alumni who are somewhere out there in the vast Cyberspace to play an active role in the team for the much needed support to all our pending projects, in cash, in kind, or in person.