Tag: Special Reports

FOR ITS FINAL year in office, the administration of President Benigno Aquino III is proposing the largest national budget in history and the first annual outlay to cross the P3-trillion mark. Is it pork barrel-free?

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares warns that the graft-prone pork barrel system still persists in the national budget in the form of “lump-sum appropriations.”

The 2016 lump-sum appropriations, he claims, amount to more than P573 billion.

Lump-sum budgets are viewed with suspicion as they do not contain details on how the money would be spent.

BEWARE, teachers who bully students.

A bill seeks to include high school and elementary teachers among those covered by the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013 and distinguish the “fine line between teacher discipline and abuse.”

The bill mandates the Department of Education (DepEd) to provide training for teachers and assistance to guidance counselors on how to discipline misbehaving students “without resorting to corporal punishment.”

Senate Bill No. 2793 is “not punitive” in nature but rather a guide for school officials to properly instruct students, said Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, principal author of the anti-bullying law.

APPARENTLY, not all systems upgrades result in improvement.

For many Thomasians, riding the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit (MRT) lines is a daily ascent to calvary. The implementation of a “unified ticketing system” for the three existing rapid rail transit lines has exacerbated commuter woes.

The new “contactless” tickets, known as “beep cards,” were introduced by AF Payments Inc. under a public-private partnership or PPP contract. AF Payments is owned by two big conglomerates, Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp.

DESPITE rapid technological innovation and the growing popularity of e-books, the UST Miguel de Benavides Library is confident that its services remain significant and relevant to its main clientele—students of the University.

Prefect of Libraries Fr. Angel Aparicio, O.P. said the library’s continuous acquisition of both traditional (printed) and modern (electronic) resources keeps it relevant.

“The library is using [a] variety of resources, from the traditional ones to the most modern ones. If the library is not using that, perhaps the library will become irrelevant,” he said in an interview with the Varsitarian.

IN THE early days politicians presented themselves to voters possessing the right credentials and a long experience in public service. Recent elections however have seen various personalities more than willing to throw their hats into the political arena even without the necessary preparation.

Jose Torres, a history professor at De La Salle University, considers many of the 2016 candidates as “neophytes” trying to conceal their novice status with a celebrity image.

The image of politicians, Torres argued, has been reduced to a dispenser of various favors, leading the public to root for a candidate with a “Messiah complex.”

POLITICAL advertisements are already being aired on radio and television even before the official campaign period for the 2016 national and local elections. But politicians spending big money on such ads cannot be penalized for “premature campaigning” because of a legal loophole.

Election laws and Supreme Court rulings do not prohibit these advertisements as the personalities being promoted are not yet official candidates, according to the head of the University’s political science department.

MEDICINE is among this year’s top producer of honor graduates, with four out of eight summa cum laudes for Academic Year 2014-2015 hailing from the country’s top private medical school. Medicine also yielded 35 magna cum laudes and 40 cum laudes, a bumper crop compared with the faculty’s lone honor graduate last year.

Medicine Dean Dr. Jesus Valencia said the big number of honor graduates this year seemed to be out of proportion compared with almost 500 graduates.

“There have been changes in the way that we deliver the course that made it a little easier for students [to] graduate,” he said. “Before, we implemented base 65, meaning to say that 65 was equivalent to [a] 75 passing mark.”

Medicine plans to raise its academic standards, however.

A LARGE number of honor graduates does not necessarily reflect the quality of learning of the college, according to Graduate School professor Florentino Hornedo.

Since 2011, the College of Tourism and Hospitality Management (CTHM) has produced the most number of honor graduates, with the highest figurerecorded last year—166 honor graduates out of 421 members of the graduating class. This year, CTHM produced 103 honor graduates, broken down into 13 magna cum laude and 90 cum laudes.

The ratio of honor graduates to total graduates has remained at around 25 percent, meaning one of every four graduates took home a medal.

A STATE within a state.

This is what the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) seeks to establish, an act that will run afoul of the 1987 Constitution, according to experts and analysts.

The Aquino administration, seeking to secure what it claims will be a legacy of peace and development in war-torn Mindanao, appears bent on having the BBL passed by Congress, after signing a peace agreement with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels last year. The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which was brokered by Malaysia, was signed after 17 years of negotiations between the Philippine government and MILF rebels.

AMID rising criminality in Metro Manila and across the country, the death penalty is again being revived in Congress.

Statistics from the Philippine National Police showed there was a 17 percent increase in crime incidence from January to May 2014 at 289,198 cases, from last year’s 245,347.

Index crimes, or crimes which are “serious in nature and occur with sufficient frequency,” have recorded a 19 percent increase so far this year. Index crimes include murder, homicide, and rape.

“These past years, without a death penalty, we have become a virtual wild. Criminals have more fun in the Philippines,” minority Senator Vicente Sotto III said in a privilege speech last Sept. 24.