OrSem: Mithi

I returned to OrSem in 2022 as a Designs and Publications volunteer, mostly working in photography and video. I knew the project through a viewfinder rather than through its hierarchy.

In 2023, I wanted to apply for a Designs and Publications organizing committee role as either Head or Deputy. I held back because I was afraid my junior term abroad in Taiwan might overlap with OrSem, and I did not want to lead a team if I could not be there. Luckily, the dates worked out and I was still able to return as a volunteer.

Some of my DNP friends and I would joke about me applying to become O-Chair. I did not take the idea seriously until the discernment talk in February 2024. It was my final year in Ateneo and possibly my last chance to give something meaningful back. I stopped treating it as a joke and asked what I could contribute from end to end.

Only three people pitched for the position. The application was daunting, but the possibility of rejection felt smaller than the regret of never trying.

My proposal centered on sustainability in three forms. Human sustainability meant right-sizing a volunteer base that had grown beyond 700 people, drawing clearer responsibilities, and taking burnout seriously. Financial sustainability meant spending with intention and finding ways to preserve the quality of the experience without treating a bigger budget as the only answer.

Environmental sustainability meant understanding the footprint of an event at OrSem's scale. Instead of claiming that one year could solve everything, I proposed gathering the data future teams would need. We called that longer horizon OrSem 2030. Mithi would establish a baseline, and every OrSem after it could implement, test, and learn.

Kat and I did not know each other before we were appointed. We spent our first week simply learning how the other person thought. Kat brought experience in acquisitions and logistics, so she stayed closest to Finance with Ashley and Cheska, Logistics with Aki and Julia, and Sponsorships with Jake and Tiana. Within Logistics, Ella led Security and Mobilization while Frankie led Acquisitions.

My background in photography, design, and technology drew me toward Talks and Tours with Kleid and Shell, supported by Jana on Formations and Ezyi on the Community Immersion Program; Designs and Publications with Danni and Henri, with Nicole leading Designs; and Secretariat with Des and Percy.

We shared Entertainment, the area where both of us had the most to learn. That uncertainty made delegation even more important. We trusted Jae and Godwin, its Head and Deputy, to shape the committee's work while we kept it aligned with the whole program.

No committee could operate as an island. Our job was to connect seven groups, make decisions when an issue had travelled as far as it could, and keep hundreds of people moving toward the same welcome.

Mithi was not the first answer. Nicole and the design team developed three complete directions in a very short window. Sikat continued Muli's rising sun and the promise of another beginning. Sigla expressed passion through movement, energy, and freedom. Mithi centered on aspiration and Ateneo as a place where those ambitions could grow.

We set Sikat aside before the final presentation because the word could mean both a rising sun and being popular. The first meaning fit our idea, but the second risked making a welcoming event sound as if Ateneo were celebrating its own status or exclusivity. We pitched Sigla and Mithi to the Vice Presidents' Council, then found the strongest direction between them: the name and meaning of Mithi, expressed through the playful visual energy of Sigla.

Nicole deserves so much of the credit for what followed. She and the team did the real visual work, turning multiple ideas into distinct, fully imagined worlds under a genuinely difficult timeline. Danni and Henri gave them the space to cook.

I helped guide the direction, questioned what felt too strong or too far from the idea, and then trusted them to make it better. The final identity is theirs. For me, mithi is the space college gives us to discover who we want to become and begin moving toward it.

The Waste Audit grew directly from my sustainability pitch. We encouraged reusable materials and documented where the event generated the most waste. Secretariat, led by Des and Percy, gave the project a home for data and systems. The value was not a perfect number or an immediate transformation. It was finally having evidence that future organizers could act on.

Other ideas came from the organizing committee. MOREsem expanded OrSem into a week-long campus celebration with talks, food, games, merchandise, and spaces that upperclassmen and faculty could enjoy too.

One of the most important lessons of chairing Mithi was knowing which ideas were mine and making room for better ones from the team.

Jake and Tiana, together with the entire Sponsorships team, secured more than ₱8 million worth of sponsorships from over 50 brands.

That support gave OrSem room to create a generous experience for thousands of students while staying serious about financial responsibility. I am deeply grateful for the persistence, care, and trust it took to make that possible.

On the second onsite day, heavy rain made the campus tours unsafe. At the scale of OrSem, questions move through several layers before they reach the Chairpersons. By the time one reaches us, the answer may sound like a simple yes or no, but it carries the work and safety of thousands of people.

We cancelled the tours. Logistics, led by Aki and Julia, and Talks and Tours, led by Kleid and Shell, had already prepared fallback protocols with their teams. Blocks returned to their classrooms for group activities instead. I wanted every freshman to experience Ateneo through the tour, but no part of the program mattered more than bringing everyone through it safely.

Good planning did not mean forcing the original schedule to survive. It meant building a team that could change direction without falling into chaos.

Kat and I tried to lead laterally. We were not above the organizing committee. Heads and deputies understood their own work better than we ever could, and everyone was allowed to contribute beyond the boundaries of a single committee.

Trust did not mean disappearing. When discussions stalled, teams conflicted, or a decision needed a single direction, we stepped in. Our responsibility was to define where the project was going, give people enough ownership to shape how it got there, and protect the shared mission when the parts began pulling away from one another.

Being a leader did not mean getting everything right. I made mistakes during Mithi, and some of them were felt by the organizing committee and likely by our volunteers too. I do not want to look back on the experience as if it were perfect, because it was not. What mattered was recognizing where I fell short, taking responsibility, and learning how to move forward with the people affected.

The moment I understood that we had actually done it came during O-Night. The Designs and Publications team played the same-day edit they had made from the two onsite days.

Months of decisions, anxiety, and responsibility suddenly became a few minutes of people laughing, dancing, and welcoming one another. I finally let everything out. Watching the team see what they had built, then enjoy the performers together, remains one of the proudest moments of my time in Ateneo.

Mithi made the program more streamlined, less exhausting, and more open to the wider Ateneo community. More importantly, it left behind baseline data and a direction that future OrSems could question, improve, and carry forward.

The next February, Kat and I used Mithi's systems and numbers in the OrSem 2025 discernment talk. We explained what each committee had carried, showed the 708-person volunteer structure, and invited someone else to set the next trajectory. That handoff mattered as much as the final show.

The following year's OrSem was named Sigla, one of the directions we had left on the table. I loved that. OrSem was never something one pair of Chairpersons could own. Every batch inherits the work, reshapes it, and passes it on.

If Tayo taught me that a welcome could cross a screen, Mithi taught me that a project at this scale only works when trust can travel through the whole system.