A Primer on ADM5054

by Mel Salazar

ADM5054 is in many ways an organization that is wondrous strange and unique. For one, by an accident of timing, it is limited to men. Secondly, its membership can no longer grow, instead it has been diminishing and will continue to diminish until in the fullness of time it will altogether disappear. Furthermore, a member cannot refuse to join ADM5054 because that has already happened. Neither can he decide to leave the organization because that too will simply happen. At this time there is nothing he can do about either event.

ADM5054 does not refer to specific classes or batches of graduates but to a group of boys (now certainly men) who spent some time as students in the Ateneo de Manila between June 1946 and May 1954.

We use "ADM" instead of "ADMU" because the Ateneo was not yet a university in 1954. Membership is limited to men because there were, unfortunately, no girls studying in the Ateneo during this time. No new members can join because those entryways were forever sealed by the passage of years.

ADM5054 is not a graduating class in the sense that "High School Class of 1950" identifies a specific set of graduates. Its original roster, for example, was composed of the following:

Of 111 graduates from High School in 1950 only 30 went on to graduate from college at Ateneo. Of 69 college graduates in 1954, 39 came to the Ateneo only in 1950. Of the total of 150 members of ADM5054 only 30 or 20% graduated from both High School and College.

If you ask, Why then ADM5054? We will answer because most of us knew each other once. Because all of us shared something in the beginning that is worth remembering and reshaping and repolishing in the end.

So we meet, every First Friday, many of us who can. We attend afternoon mass, usually celebrated by one of our two Jesuit fellow members, then share dinner. We remember the past, help each other make sense of the present, and joke about the future, because what else, at our age, can you do about the future? In actions rather than words we say to each other: Kapatid, hindi ka nagiisa!

The HS50 College54 Connection

by Reuben Justo

There is an obvious connection between Ateneo's high school class of 1950 and college class of 1954. Clearly, from HS50 came the nucleus of College 54. But is this the only connection?

A kinship exists not only between the two graduating classes but also among their members. Their unique bond transcends school ties and must have been forged even before they came to Ateneo.

They were just grade school boys when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, an event that embroiled the Philippines in World War II, and from that fateful day in December 1941, they became innocent, yet vulnerable, bystanders in a conflict that made them know fear and see death and destruction. Unbeknownst to them, they were then being drawn into a brotherhood, an informal fraternity of young boys who were witnesses to the tragedies of war. For the boys who would later be part of HS50 and/or College 54, this was their common denominator: they all experienced a ghastly war and survived.

Japan formally surrendered on August 15, 1945. Less than ten months later, Ateneo, then located on Padre Faura, a few blocks away from Manila Bay, reopened its doors. Because Ateneo's buildings lay in ruins after the battle to liberate Manila, the future HS50, in their first year of high school, walked into classrooms that were renovated Quonset huts. There, peer friendships were made, friendships that endure to this day.

About a third of HS50 remained at Ateneo to work for their bachelor degrees. They were joined by many others, graduates of other high schools, who chose Ateneo for their college education. Old friendships were nurtured and new ones were made. It was this batch which has the distinction of being among the first to move to the school's new home. In January 1952, the high school and college departments transferred to Loyola Heights, a sprawling complex of 113 hectares overlooking the Marikina Valley.

After their graduation in 1954, many quickly joined the work force. Some furthered their studies in universities abroad or learned other disciplines at the Ateneo or other local universities.

Today most of them are retired. Some who went abroad to work have remained in their adopted countries but have kept in touch. In Manila, there is a group that continues to meet every first Friday to hear mass, have dinner and pass some hours away in conversation.

In due course, as the bells toll for them, HS50 and College 54 will lose the umbilical cord connecting them. But that day is many years away.