When Hospitality Comes Home

Planting Sampaguita at UP-AIT with Megaworld Hotels and Resorts: Hospitality, Heritage, and Homecoming

The morning of July 30 was the kind of day you hope for after days of scattered rain: clear skies over Diliman, a breeze moving through the trees, and light settling gently on the entrance to the University of the Philippines Asian Institute of Tourism. More than 200 people had gathered there—not for a ribbon-cutting or a launch, but to plant sampaguita.

A total of 250 seedlings were planted at the entrance to the institute, within a campus landscape shaped in part by National Artist for Architecture Ildefonso P. Santos Jr., known as the father of Philippine landscape architecture.

Small, white, and fragrant, the sampaguita needs little space to make itself known. A single bloom can fill a room or stir a memory.

For those present, the flower carried a clear meaning. In Filipino life, the sampaguita has long been associated with welcome, humility, reverence, and a distinctly local sense of grace.

It is part of many rituals: strung into garlands, draped over guests, placed at altars, offered in welcome. Its sweet scent is tied to memory—churches on Sunday mornings, family occasions, public ceremonies, and the feeling of being received warmly. Megaworld Hotels and Resorts drew on that symbolism when it launched its Sampaguita advocacy in 2023.

“When we launched the Sampaguita project, we honestly didn’t imagine how far it would go,” said Jun Justo, Cluster General Manager at MHR and a UP-AIT alumnus. Speaking on the campus where he once studied, he described the initiative as an effort to create “a distinctive brand of service—a touchpoint where guests feel a distinct difference between MHR and other homegrown brands.”

Since then, the project has grown well beyond its starting point. Nearly 8,000 sampaguita seedlings now grow across Megaworld townships, from Metro Manila to regional properties around the country. The flower has also informed what MHR calls its Sampaguita Brand of Service, built around four values: Love, Honor, Dignity, and Healing.

According to Justo, those values are meant to shape not only guest experience, but also the company’s approach to care, culture, and community. “That is when we realized that this project was never about our brand,” he said. “It became a symbol of who we are.”

The July 30 event brought together a wide mix of participants. National Service Training Program (NSTP) students nearing the end of their program were there, many of them coming off weeks of civic engagement work in communities across UP Diliman. Thirteen AIT interns—some encountering the hospitality industry in a professional setting for the first time—worked alongside MHR general managers. Faculty, alumni, media, and company leaders also attended, including Group General Manager Art Boncato and Claire Del Rosario-Bernabe, MHR’s Director of Customer Experience and Head of Sales and Strategic Partnerships.

Del Rosario-Bernabe, herself a UP-AIT alumna, led the morning’s opening prayer with words that felt less like a formal invocation and more like a statement of purpose. “May these values take root not only in the soil,” she said, “but also in our hearts, guiding how we serve our communities and our nation.”

Dean Giovanni Francis A. Legaspi of UP-AIT welcomed the gathering and spoke about the significance of adding the sampaguita to the campus landscape.

“Together with Megaworld Hotels and Resorts, we are promoting the sampaguita not only as our national flower but as a symbol of our national identity,” he said. “It represents nationalism and patriotism, while reminding us of pride, excellence, heritage, and peace.”

Justo’s remarks later in the program turned more personal. He spoke about his time at UP-AIT and what it meant to return to campus in a new role.

“There’s really something special when you come home to a place that helped shape who you are,” he said. “Hospitality isn’t limited to what you offer to guests or customers. It’s also reflected in recognizing the responsibility we have to the places and communities that we are part of.”

Addressing the interns directly, he added: “I can only hope that our student interns will somehow become industry professionals someday and will look back on this very day with the same pride and passion as we have today.”

He closed by returning to the larger significance of the planting. “As we plant this sampaguita seed today,” Justo said, “we are also planting hope, responsibility, and shared commitment to preserving our heritage for future generations. Maraming salamat po sa inyong lahat. I’m always honored to be home.”

“Hospitality isn’t limited to what you offer to guests or customers. It’s also reflected in recognizing the responsibility we have to the places and communities that we are part of.”
– Jun Justo, Cluster General Manager

At the entrance of UP-AIT in Diliman, 250 sampaguita seedlings are now taking root. For the students who pass them each day, they may begin simply as part of the landscape. Over time, though, the scent may come to mean something more: a reminder of where hospitality, heritage, and service were brought together in one small act of planting.