12.4 Current Affairs and General Knowledge

How Current-Affairs Items Work

A slice of PUPCET General Information asks about recent events: who won an award, which law was signed, which official holds a post, what disaster struck. These items cannot be mastered from a textbook alone — but they are beatable with a simple habit. Exam writers draw from events roughly 12 months before the test date, weighted toward nationally significant stories: elections and appointments, landmark laws, major calamities, international competitions, and honors earned by Filipinos abroad.

Building a Reliable News Habit

1. Pick two or three reputable sources and scan headlines weekly: the Philippine News Agency (PNA), the Official Gazette (officialgazette.gov.ph), GMA News Online, ABS-CBN News, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, and Rappler.
2. Verify before you memorize. Cross-check any surprising claim in a second established source; social-media posts and forwarded messages are not sources, and fake news is common around elections and disasters.
3. Keep a one-page monthly summary: new officials and laws, major typhoons and their PAGASA names, Filipino winners abroad, and big sports results. Ten minutes a week is enough.
4. Know the current officeholders cold: the President, Vice President, Senate President, House Speaker, and Chief Justice are asked almost every year. Re-check them about a month before your exam date — officials change.
5. Track the commemorations: Independence Day (June 12), Rizal Day (December 30), Bonifacio Day (November 30), Ninoy Aquino Day (August 21), National Heroes Day (last Monday of August), Araw ng Kagitingan (April 9), and the EDSA People Power anniversary (February 25).

Government Agencies and Acronyms

Acronym questions are a PUPCET staple. Learn what each agency does, not just what the letters stand for — exam items usually describe a function and ask which agency performs it.

Memory trick: the hazard-monitoring agencies PAGASA (weather) and PHIVOLCS (volcanoes and earthquakes) both sit under DOST — a classic trick question, since many students guess DENR.

Notable Filipinos You Should Know

Sports. Hidilyn Diaz won the Philippines' first Olympic gold medal, in weightlifting at Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021), ending a 97-year wait. Gymnast Carlos Yulo then won two gold medals (floor exercise and vault) at Paris 2024 — the first Filipino to win multiple Olympic golds. Manny Pacquiao remains the only boxer to win world titles in eight weight divisions, and he later served as a senator. Pole vaulter EJ Obiena holds the Asian record, and Alex Eala became the first Filipino to win a junior Grand Slam singles tennis title (2022 US Open girls).

Arts and culture. Lea Salonga won a Tony Award for Miss Saigon and provided the singing voices of Disney's Jasmine and Mulan. Fernando Amorsolo was the very first National Artist of the Philippines (1972), famed for his sunlit rural landscapes. Other National Artists worth knowing: writer Nick Joaquin and architect Leandro Locsin, designer of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Science and invention. Fe del Mundo, a National Scientist, was a pioneering pediatrician and the first woman admitted to Harvard Medical School. Angel Alcala, also a National Scientist, pioneered marine protected areas that saved Philippine reefs. Physicist Gregorio Zara held an early videophone patent, and Filipino-American engineer Dado Banatao developed key personal-computer graphics chips.

Quick General-Knowledge Facts

• Basketball is the most popular sport; the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), founded in 1975, is Asia's first professional basketball league.
• The Philippines hosted the 2019 Southeast Asian Games and co-hosted the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup with Japan and Indonesia.
• The currency is the Philippine peso (PHP), issued by the BSP; polymer banknotes began entering circulation in recent years, starting with the P1,000 note.
• The country averages about 20 tropical cyclones per year; PAGASA assigns local names (like Ondoy, Yolanda, Odette) from its own rotating lists, separate from international names.

Know Your Target School: PUP Facts

The PUPCET frequently asks about PUP itself — free points if you prepare them:

• Founded: October 19, 1904, as the Manila Business School, part of the new American-era public school system.
• It became the Philippine School of Commerce (1908), then the Philippine College of Commerce (1952), and was converted into the Polytechnic University of the Philippines on April 1, 1978 through Presidential Decree No. 1341.
• Main campus: Sta. Mesa, Manila, along the Pasig River; PUP also operates branches and campuses across Luzon, including Taguig, Quezon City, San Juan, Bataan, Bulacan, Pampanga, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon province, and Mindoro.
• Motto: Tanglaw ng Bayan (Light of the Nation). Students proudly call themselves Iskolar ng Bayan — scholars of the people.
• School colors: maroon and gold.
• PUP is one of the largest state universities in the country by enrollment, serving tens of thousands of students across its campuses.
• Long famous for very low tuition, PUP is now covered by Republic Act No. 10931 (2017), the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, which provides free tuition and other school fees in state universities and colleges for qualified students.

Your Current-Affairs Checklist

Two weeks before the exam, make sure you can answer all of these without looking them up:

• Who are the current President, Vice President, Senate President, House Speaker, and Chief Justice?
• What major laws were signed in the past year, and what do they do?
• Which Filipinos won international honors, medals, or titles recently?
• What were the strongest typhoons of the past year and their PAGASA names?
• What are PUP's founding date, original name, university-conversion date, motto, and main campus location?

Common Traps and Exam Tips

• DOST vs. DepEd vs. CHED: DOST handles science (and the weather bureau), DepEd handles basic education, CHED handles colleges and universities.
• The BSP manages the money supply, the BIR collects taxes, and the DBM prepares the budget — a classic three-way shuffle.
• Hidilyn Diaz won the first Olympic gold; Carlos Yulo won the first gymnastics golds and the first multiple golds. Match each athlete to the precise milestone in the question.
• PUP was founded in 1904 as a business school, not as a polytechnic — university status came only in 1978.
• For anything time-sensitive, trust the fact you verified most recently, and re-verify the top officials one month before test day.