When Vice Ganda entered the Mall of Asia Arena riding a giant Golden Tamaraw at the opening of UAAP Season 89, the image became one of the defining visuals of the night.
FEU alumna Vice Ganda makes her entrance riding the giant Golden Tamaraw during the UAAP Season 89 Kick-Off Show at the Mall of Asia Arena on September 12. Photo courtesy of UAAP Media.
Next to Vice Ganda herself, the towering Tamaraw was the single most important visual element of the performance. It brought the identity of host Far Eastern University (FEU) right into the center of the arena, not as a backdrop or a logo on a screen, but as a massive moving structure carrying one of FEU’s most prominent alumni.
Behind the Golden Tamaraw was another FEU story.
The piece was designed by Niño Ylagan, FEU Architecture Batch 2022, together with JFIA Television Production, the design and fabrication team behind the Golden Tamaraw for the UAAP Season 89 Kick-Off Show. Ylagan, who passed the Architecture Licensure Examination this year, is also a resident set designer for It’s Showtime.
For Ylagan, the starting point was unmistakably FEU.
FEU Architecture Batch 2022 alumnus Niño Ylagan, designer of the giant Golden Tamaraw, with the completed piece before the UAAP Season 89 opening. Photo courtesy of JFIA Television Production.
“The inspiration for the Tamaraw is the logo itself, the FEU,” he said.
The design process began with Vice Ganda’s vision for the performance. She provided the production team with references from major Super Bowl performances. One that particularly stood out was Katy Perry’s 2015 halftime show, where Perry made her entrance riding a giant mechanical lion.
“We tried to invite the spirit of that performance while also inserting our FEU identity, which is the Tamaraw,” said.
The result was a giant sculptural Tamaraw that also had to function as a performance vehicle. Ylagan himself described it as a “chariot.”
“It would be more of a chariot,” he said, explaining how Vice Ganda would be carried on during her entrance.
That distinction matters. The Golden Tamaraw was not built simply to be seen. Vice Ganda rode it into the arena while performers moved on and around the structure. Its construction therefore had to account for movement, weight, and the demands of live performance.
Ylagan said the team consulted structural designers and reinforced the structure with GI pipes. Based on rehearsals, three performers could perform on top, while additional performers could be positioned along the structure. The team had designed it with an additional safety allowance.
For Ylagan, the project came at a significant point in his young career. He graduated from FEU in 2022, passed the architecture boards this year, and is already working in television production.
“It’s such a great honor, especially when one of the biggest alumni of FEU will be using it,” he said.
The finished piece was the work of a production team, from concept and structural considerations to fabrication and performance. JFIA Television Production documented that process, including the behind-the-scenes fabrication of the Golden Tamaraw, offering another look at how the structure seen by thousands at the Mall of Asia Arena was built.
The Golden Tamaraw takes shape during fabrication by JFIA Television Production. Its steel framework was reinforced to safely carry performers during the live show. Photo courtesy of JFIA Television Production.
There was something particularly fitting about the final image.
An FEU-trained architect helped transform the university’s most enduring symbol into a giant Golden Tamaraw. JFIA Television Production and the production team built it for the scale and demands of a live arena show. Then another Tamaraw, Vice Ganda, rode it into the arena.
Vice Ganda performs atop the giant Golden Tamaraw as it moves through the Mall of Asia Arena during the UAAP Season 89 Kick-Off Show. Photo courtesy of Zymon Bumatay of Media Center
For one of the biggest moments of the UAAP Season 89 opening, FEU did not simply display the Tamaraw. It brought the Tamaraw to life.