Thomasians can expect a more environment-friendly and representative celebration of Paskuhan in the coming years after this year’s “historic” festivities that featured initiatives leading to these goals.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Grand Paskuhan Concert on Friday, Dec. 20, Secretary-General Fr. Louie Coronel said University officials will begin planning for the 2025 Paskuhan as early as January.

“Ang dream ko, and we started with this now, is for our events to be more sustainable,” Fr. Coronel told TomasinoWeb. “Yung [may] greater involvement ng mga students, [may] sustainability, and [an event that’s] more creative and innovative. Yun ang gusto ko next time.”

Pro-environmental initiatives also headlined this year’s month-long Paskuhan celebration.

UST collaborated with San Miguel Yamamura Packaging Corporation (SMYPC) to implement the “Balik Bote, Balik Lata” drive, a recycling awareness campaign focused on waste management, including food, beverage containers, and aluminum cans.

The “Balik Bote” program, implemented by SMYPC for over a decade, aims to collect glass bottles, containers, or broken glass for recycling into new glass products.

Thomasians were also urged to use tumblers or water bottles instead of buying disposable ones. To aid this initiative, the University provided drinking fountains where revelers can refill their water bottles. Single-use plastic bottles were banned during the Agape and Grand Paskuhan Concert.

During the concert, Manila-based merchandiser Sainai Enterprises offered traditional Filipino mats or banig for rent at 120 pesos a piece. The banig could be used as picnic mats so the festival goers could avoid using newspapers for this purpose, reducing trash that used to litter the UST Grandstand after every Paskuhan.

Aside from sustainability, Coronel also hoped for a more representative celebration of Paskuhan in years to come.

“The aim here is to showcase our disciplines more. This year, we saw Architecture [students] and their painting by numbers. Usually, it’s the Communication and Journalism students [who produce Paskuhan]. Pero yung iba, paano kaya?” he added.

A ‘historic’ Paskuhan

A total of 42,655 Thomasians joined the Grand Paskuhan Concert at UST’s Manila campus. Coronel highlighted this year’s “historic” festivities, which went beyond Manila.

“This Paskuhan season is different from the rest because this is historic. We have the Paskuhan in Santa Rosa, in General Santos, and also in Manila,” he said.

The secretary-general added that while the pandemic has disrupted the celebration of Paskuhan in recent years, this year’s celebration showed what Paskuhan has to offer, which was reflected in this year’s theme, “Ever Grateful, Ever Thankful, Ever Hopeful.”

“Although it's not perfect, I think we are jumping on to better days. Before, during the pandemic, hindi mo pa maitodo lahat. Pero ngayon, at least, marami kami naibigay. And we listened to the Thomasian community,” he said.

“Ang nakikita ko doon, the moment you see na magsama-sama yung mga Tomasino, masaya na ‘yun. Pero the moment you see them na kumakanta [nang] sabay-sabay, sumasayaw [nang] sabay-sabay, pumapalakpak [at] sumisigaw [nang] sabay-sabay, sa akin yun ay isang attestation that they are having not just fun, but they are having the joy of Christmas,” Coronel said.

The annual Paskuhan Concert featured performances from OPM artists Sponge Cola, SUD, Alamat, Maki, Top Notch and three Thomasian bands.

This year’s attendance was slightly higher than 2023’s 39,638 and lower than 2022’s 48,000. — N. Manalang and A. Luares, with reports from Princess Patricia Lumenario and Paolo Cootauco