Following a week-long display of talents and excellence, both the School of Engineering and Architecture (SEA) Tigers and the Social Sciences (SS) Dragons emerged as the overall champions of the Festival of Excellence (FoE) 2025, marking a historic first in the event’s history where two clusters shared the coveted title.
Embodying their cluster’s motto of doing everything out of love and striving for the top, SEA Representative Alvin Parreño shared that despite their program’s demanding schedules, the Tigers overcame these challenges through the dedication of the people working behind the scenes to bring their performances to life.
“Our main challenge talaga is the time frame on how to accomplish, on how to practice, given that we are engineering students, however because of our mechanisms and motivational grit and our strategies, we have overcome that all thanks to people behind this FOE, EASEC officers and TWG,” Parreño said.
The SEA Tigers triumphed as champions in Mugna, secured first runner-up in Esporre, and claimed second runner-up in both LIhok and Diskurso.
Declared as co-champions, SS Dragons Overall FOE head Steven Gamutan, shared the same sentiments on the struggle of balancing academic responsibilities with the pressure of leading the cluster through the competition.
“The most difficult challenge, balancing, going home late, and as a Polsci student, we have a lot of readings so, it was challenging to balance readings at the same time the demands of being the FOE overall head for SS but I did it,” Gamutan said.
The SS Dragons clinched the championship in Utakan and Diskurso, earned first runner-up in Obra and Sadsad in collaboration with the Computer Studies (CS) Chameleons, and received special recognition in Agik-ik.
Both representatives expressed the same goal and motivation of doing everything for their clusters and celebrated the rare moment of two teams seizing the top spot.
“I believe, siguro same determination with the other cluster and the same mindset to really aim for the top and I congratulate them as well because we really did a good job to all clusters,” Parreño said.
“It actually didn’t matter, I just feel so happy na it has come to this point. I really didn’t expect this. I’ve only dreamed of this but I guess dreams do come true,” Gamutan said.
In this year’s FOE rankings, the Accountancy (ACC) Griffins finished as first runner-up, with the Humanities and Letters (HUMLET) Wolves taking second.
The FOE closing ceremony was held on March 15 at the 4th floor of the Martin Hall.