EUGENE CUARESMA
First Year - BS Chemical Enginering

 Sixteen year old Eugene Cuaresma perfectly fits the bill as an XDS Scholar for the current times. He has practically stumbled into the scholarship as he wandered around in the UP campus with his parents during enrollment time, desperate for such assistance. He is the picture of the “poor but deserving” student – seemingly lost and bewildered in his new surroundings, wearing the simplest clothes, yet possessed of a life story rich in drama and inspiration. Eugene was one of six children of a poor couple from Bag-ao, Cagayan who tilted a small piece of land. Just as the math and chemistry wizard had graduated at the top of his class at the local public school, his family teetered in the verge of hunger due to a series of bad harvest. Seeing their young son’s potential, the Cuaresma couple made a huge painful effort to bring him to Manila at the opening of classes, hoping that a miracle would take place that would somehow enable Eugene to be in the university his parents thought he deserved. Eugene has not recovered from the pleasant shock of finding himself living at the Kalayaan dormitory, just like the original XDS scholars in the late seventies and eighties. Asked what he found difficult to cope within his new life as a UP student, soft-spoken Eugene said, “I still can’t believe I am living in Manila. When I came her with my parents, it was my first time to set foot in Manila. Right now, I’m still in shock. That’s the term – culture shock!”  The chemical engineering freshman lets slip a disarming sincerity when asked how he is coping with his academic subjects. “I find the general subjects-like English- a bit hard. But the major subjects are easy” he answers. Then he confronts the major question of what is his life ambition, a question the visibly fires him up, “to pay off my parents’ debts”. He says, overcome by emotion. Told that paying off parental debts was only one of the main benefits if he became, say, a high profile scientist or a top executive, Eugene modifies his statement. “I would like to finish my studies, find a job and pay off my parents’ debts,” he says.

KRISTINE JOY BRAVO
First Year - BS Chemical Engineering

A parental debt excites the same passion in Kristine Joy Bravo, an 18-yearold from Tayug, Pangasinan who became an XDS Scholar in her second semester as a BS Chemical Engineering major like Eugene. Asked how his parents are doing their share in her studies, Kristine immediately sheds tears, “the weekly allowance that they send me, it comes from the “utang”, she says, referring to the userer who go around their neighborhood. Kristine’s father is a welder and his income is so small that she was able to afford only two home trips during the entire semester. She has not dared to join any organization like many coeds except for membership in a group that conducts Bible studies. Kristine is shy and intense. She is right now thinking of shifting to another course that would be “harder than the one I am enrolled in now. I like challenges. The harder the subject, the more I am motivated to go for it,” she says. Like the XDS Scholar of old, Kristine wishes for more scholarship benefits, not for herself but so that her parents can channel the money to her to her three other sisters who are also struggling with their schooling.

CHRISTIAN G. SESO
Second Year - BS Civil Engineering

Like Kristine, 18-year old Christian G Seso also anchors his quest for a UP education on his strong faith in God. “Every night I pray that God will touch someone and make him an instrument to help me pursue my studies and make my dreams come true,” the 18-year old BS Civil Engineering sophomore had said in a letter to the XDS Association. In the letter, Christian gives full account of the poor circumstances if his family - his father, a former Divisoria textile company employee, can only work now as a neighborhood handy man; his mother is a housewife; he has two elder brothers, one now married who works as a waiter, and the other a Jollibee service crew who is also a working student. After passing the UPCAT, Christian bravely enrolled using money he had painstakingly saved and then set himself up as a tutor for high school students to pay for his daily expenses, it was Josue and Yolanda Seso’s determination that inspires their two children to pursue their schooling against all odds. “My brother and I do our best to keep ourselves in school. “My brother and I do our best to keep ourselves in school. We believe strongly in education. We believe strongly in Education. We believe it is the key to freeing ourselves from poverty,” Christian said. Like the parents of Eugene and Kristine, Christian’s parents are also buried in debt, but Christian hopes to pay these someday with the help of the XDS Association. “This XDS scholarship program gives poor people like us hope and also strength to endure as we struggle to earn a diploma.”