Any tips for taking philippine entrance exams?

since my parents say it's a lot cheaper, my parents are planning to send me to college in the philippines. we're still looking for schools that offer my major (graphic design; originally i was gonna do theatre but...long story). since UP, i heard, has that class and theatre as well, i was thinking about going there. any tips on the entrance exams? oh, and also...are you allowed to use a calculator on the math part, and do you have to write an essay in Tagalog? i've been reading my simulated CAT book and it has one tagalog section there, and it's really confusing since i haven't gone to a philippine school since the 4th grade (and they didn't even make us do any essays).