Photos by Mr. Meljohn Tatel and Mr. Mike Midem

The week-long PISTAYM 12 battle of brawn, stamina and ingenuity among eight groups of students and their respective group mentors was concluded last February 11, 2011 with Group 5 emerging as overall champion in all the events.

Since its introduction in the early 80s as an expansion of the festival of one-act plays (Pagmumulat), Pistaym has been bringing together in competing groups students across the year levels.

Academic competitions were: Current Events, Spelling, Academic Quiz, Scrabble, Essay Writing; Sports: Basketball, Volleyball, Kick Baseball, Soccer, Table Tennis, Chess, Dama, Tug-of-War, Dodgeball, Darts, Badminton; Cultural: Cheer and Dance, Modern Dance, Poster Making, Photography, Elocution, Oratory, Instrumental Solo, Instrumental Duet, Vocal Solo, Vocal Duet, T-Shirt Painting, Storyang Suanoy          

The students, divided into eight groups, competed in 38 events and were coached by their respective teacher-mentor group coordinators assigned for each group.

PISTAYM is a corruption of “Peace Time”, alluding to the pre-and-post World War II era. While the name invokes irony, PISTAYM OF THE 80s ended petty conflicts among students from various year levels.

This year’s PISTAYM saw the introduction of three-on-three basketball for girls and the revival of dramatics which replaced the long-running comedy skit competition among the groups. The groups were made to choose acts from classic William Shakespeare plays to be staged in 15 minutes.