By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — May 28, 2025
A camera lens and a fraternity’s torch: one captures light to immortalize, the other gathers it to scatter. In Pablo Gabriel Malvar, these twin flames converge—a filmmaker whose art is an act of defiance, an Upsilonian whose brotherhood is a crucible for creation. To know Gabby Malvar is to see a man who holds history in his lens, not as a relic but as a living pulse, shaped by the revolutionary fire of his great-grandfather, General Miguel Malvar, and tempered by the cardinal red and gold of Upsilon Sigma Phi, Asia’s oldest fraternity.
In Upsilon’s hallowed halls, where the motto “We Gather Light to Scatter” burns bright, Malvar found more than a brotherhood—he found a forge. Founded in 1918 at the University of the Philippines, Upsilon has shaped presidents like Jose P. Laurel and Ferdinand Marcos, poets, justices, and scientists who defined a nation. For Malvar, Upsilon was no mere affiliation but an invisible scaffold, a silent chorus behind his solo voice. As the Online Directory Project Lead, he wove the fraternity’s century-long memory into a digital archive, mirroring the way his documentaries—Fields of Hope, On the Brink: Uncharted Waters, The UNESCO Historical Sites of Ilocos—preserve the unlit corners of Philippine heritage. His films are not just art; they are active fraternity, pulling the world into a covenant of witnesses.
Malvar’s lineage is a revolutionary continuum, a thread of borrowed fire. General Miguel Malvar, the last general to surrender in the Philippine-American War, defied empires with unyielding courage that resonates in Gabby’s lens. Where his ancestor wielded a bolo, Gabby wields a camera, cutting through apathy to reveal truths. His Palawan: The Last Bastion and Coral Resiliency confront environmental plunder with the same tenacity; his UNESCO Historical Sites of Ilocos, which clinched Best Short Documentary at Hungary’s Papa International Historical Film Festival in 2025, reframes colonial shadows as testaments of cultural fusion. This accolade, awarded at the historic Esterházy Castle, celebrated Malvar’s ability to weave a Spaniard’s perspective on the Philippines’ colonial past into a narrative of shared heritage, spotlighting the baroque churches of Paoay and Sta. Maria and the historic city of Vigan—UNESCO World Heritage Sites recognized for their universal cultural value. The Hungary win, following a Gold Award at the 2021 Croatia Tourism Film Festival and a Silver at the 2022 International Tourism Film Festival Africa, cemented Malvar’s global reputation as a storyteller who transforms local histories into universal dialogues. In Upsilon’s cardinal red, one sees the courage of his Palawan documentaries; in its gold, the gleam of Hungarian festival trophies. The fraternity’s torch taught him to gather light—his films teach us to see it where history has been dimmed.
Upsilon’s brotherhood is a living ecosystem, much like the creative industry hubs Malvar champions as a member of the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council (PCIDC). From Diliman’s halls to the DTI’s policy tables, he carries Upsilon’s tradition of leadership, advocating for a creative economy that generated P1.72 trillion in 2023. His vision mirrors the fraternity’s own: a network of mutual uplift, where artists, like brothers, grip each other’s hands to defy oblivion. The Kapit-Kapit Monument, a symbol of Upsilon’s solidarity, finds its echo in Malvar’s films, which clasp past and future in a refusal to forget. When Upsilon celebrated his Hungary win on their official channels, calling him “Fellow Gabby,” it was not mere pride but proof of a loyalty that outlasts graduation—a bond that amplifies his voice on the world stage, from the historic halls of Esterházy Castle to the global screens showcasing Filipino heritage.
To watch Malvar’s work is to witness an Upsilonian in full: a scholar’s rigor fused with a rebel’s heart. His lens traces Vigan’s cobbled streets or Tacloban’s scarred fields, not as a tourist but as an heir—to a revolution, yes, but also to that 1918 pledge to scatter light. His documentaries are acts of creative dissent, challenging us to see the marginalized, the overlooked, the resilient. As a lecturer at the University of Asia and the Pacific, he passes this torch to students, just as Upsilon passed it to him. In his hands, tradition is not preserved but provoked, turned into living art.
Pablo Gabriel Malvar is Upsilon’s modern torchbearer, a man who honors his fraternity’s legacy by subverting its weight. His Hungary triumph, celebrated amid the grandeur of a castle that has stood for centuries, is not just a personal victory but a testament to Upsilon’s enduring ethos: to gather light is to dare to share it. Malvar scatters it, frame by frame, across the world’s unlit corners, proving that heritage is not a monument but a movement.
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KWEBA ni BAROK 
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