The Online Intrams: Behind the Scenes and More

We have started the fourth quarter with an important question. Game ka na ba? The recent online intramurals has brought up the competitive spirit of the high school body with batches competing against each other in Filipino-themed games, but what is the story behind this exciting event? Nigel Uy Cana, the head of the events committee in the Student Council, and K Rafon, a member of the events committee, shared their insight and experience in planning and preparing this year’s online intrams.

Since this was one of the major events that the council had this year, Game ka na ba? took around two months to prepare. This event needed cooperation and teamwork, which made the task more challenging especially in the online setup. Nigel also said that it was important to take into account the different capabilities of the members in the events committee. Despite the hardships in preparing the event, Nigel and K said that they enjoyed working with the committee and brainstorming ideas. K shared her experience and said, “We had to make so much; the workload was really unexpected. As I said, slogans, proposals, ppts (powerpoints), rules, and pointing systems were created all by one person per game. It was really stressful. Despite the stress, I personally had fun making my assigned ppt. I felt like I was in control, and I really had the freedom to customize it as I wanted.”

To catch the student body’s interest, the events committee created games that were relevant to the students. They used well-known pop culture references and had Filipino culture ingrained into the games. They also added unique mechanics in the games such as double-or-nothing and triple-or-nothing powerups. Previous surveys conducted by the Student Council also helped the events committee become aware of the preferred games of the student body.

But why was the online intrams created? Well, different batches were not interacting that much. The Student Council took notice of this and wanted to give the high school body an opportunity to bring the students closer together and unite as a community, thus they created the online intrams. K also mentioned that the online intrams aimed to give the students a break after exam week.

However, what do the students think of this event? Was the events committee able to successfully achieve their goal? To answer these questions, I interviewed Azriel Alvarez from Grade 7 and Dasha Wu from Grade 10 on their opinion regarding the Game ka na ba? event.

Both students said that their batch had fun playing the games and participating in the event. “I had lots of fun playing the online intrams because the games were fun, and I got to spend time with my friends,” says Azriel. He also greatly enjoyed Pinoy Henyo, where his batch was able to beat both Grade 9 and Grade 10. Dasha said that she and her batch enjoyed the batch games the most, and the batch room sessions were one of the highlights of the event. Azriel and Dasha both said that the intrams helped bring batches closer to each other and give the students an opportunity to have fun. Overall, this year’s online intams were a success, and the students are looking forward to next year’s intrams!