What more can you ask for?

“This is my sintang paaralan.”

Despite wanting in high-end facilities readily available in other universities, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines continues to deliver, giving those schools charging exorbitant tuition fees a run for their money —literally.

The other day, the Professional Regulatory Commission released the results of the licensure examination for nutritionist dieticians, with PUP student—Chino Kairo Ronquillo Serrano topping the exam, besting students from other schools.

Last month, it was also a PUP student—Bryan Bautista Estaris who topped the licensure examination for electrical engineers.

PUP President Manuel Muhi, who’s only in his second year as school prexy, must be doing a good job in producing these topnotchers despite the fact the state university’s budget requests have been consistently slashed by half for the past years.

PUP, of late, has also been active in environmental projects. Earlier this week, PUP, in partnership with Renergy System, Inc., opened a Waste Cooking Oil-to-Energy Laboratory in its main campus in Sta. Mesa, Manila called the project a “green initiative” of the University.

Muhi said, “the PUP community has a gargantuan task to save and care for the environment.”

“The importance of recycling our waste must be the priority of everyone to reduce the amount of waste produced, contribute to the conservation of many non-renewable resources,” Muhi said, adding, “we can now find better ways of recycling cooking oil without harming the environment.”

The PUP Center for Environmental Studies described the WCO-to-energy laboratory as a “green initiative” that opens greater availability of waste-to-energy technologies to the PUP community.

“This green initiative can be utilized especially in the areas of instruction, curriculum, research and development, and extension work,” says Prof. Jimmy Fernando, CES Chief.

The project, dubbed as Waste-to-Energy Technology Center and Laboratory, includes the collection, filtering, and conversion of WCO into energy using the Renergy System equipment of Japan for use in diesel engine generators, charging stations of electric vehicles, and other sustainable usage of WCO.

WCO is classified as hazardous waste under Republic Act 6969 or “An Act to Control Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes.”

In Metro Manila, undetermined amounts of WCO are drained to the canals, tributaries that eventually flow to the Pasig River and eventually to Manila Bay becoming one of the main pollutants in Manila Bay.

Aside from producing these board toppers and embarking on projects aimed at benefitting the environment, PUP, under Muhi’s stewardship, has been active in doing research works published in international Scopus-indexed journals and the web of science.

For this year, it has already produced 94 publications from its research. Recently, the PUP Center for Environmental Technologies and Compliance Program, along with Adamson University, University of the Philippines—Diliman Science and UP—Diliman synergistic air and water quality sensing system with purification devices using local materials for MSMEs.

Of the total amount, PUP will get P13,882,608.80, P10,783,179.40 for the first year of the project and P3,099,429.40 in the second year. Target beneficiaries of the project are local communities, micro small medium enterprises in manufacturing and recycling industries.

All these were accomplished in such a short period of time. No wonder PUP graduates have emerged as the top choice of employers.

And for P12 per unit, what more can one ask for?

Muhi can never describe these feat better: Mula sa ‘yo, para sa bayan. Sintang paaralan.