Editorial

THE FUROR may have died down, but UST and the public at large must reflect on what lessons could be learned from the death of Andrew Pelayo’s newborn last Feb. 29, an incident that caused a social media storm and tainted the reputation of UST healthcare.

Pelayo has vented his grief on social media and blamed the death on the refusal of obstetrician-gynecologist Ana Liezel Sahagun to admit his laboring wife for not having the full P20,000 advance required by the UST Hospital for admitting patients.

While Pelayo’s original Facebook post or rant has been deleted, it has been shared and reposted a thousand times, which resulted in an online character assassination of Sahagun, with netizens branding her “mukhang perang ob-gyne,” and worse, “killer doctor.”

WITH the implementation of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 or the K to 12 next school year, higher education institution (HEI) workers face retrenchment and an uncertain future.

With K to 12, students will now have to undergo kindergarten and 12 years of basic education (six years of primary education, four years of Junior High School and two years of Senior High School [SHS]), before qualifying for higher education.

FRIARS or brethren of the Order of Preachers, or the Dominicans, have much to be thankful for their order having reached its eighth centenary.

Their father, St. Dominic de Guzman, would be proud of the achievements of his sons, especially since the reform and renewal of the Church since the medieval ages have always been associated with the mendicant friar orders of which the Dominicans, along with the Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, are at the forefront.

His pride should extend to the whole Dominican family—not only friars, but sisters and nuns as well as the Third Order and lay confraternities.

FILIPINO Catholics may celebrate what they brag to be the longest Christmas holidays in the world, but they seem averse to the worldwide persecution of Christians, especially those right in Asia Minor where Christ was born.

In the Middle East, a Christian dies every five minutes, according to a report by the Catholic News Agency. Vatican analyst and journalist John Allen wrote that 11 Christians are killed per hour, per day, for the last 10 years. The situation has since escalated due to the increasing Islamic extremism in the area.

IT IS appalling that while Thomasians have been generally scarce on social media on such pressing concerns as corruption in government, the future of Philippine democracy, the persecution and even massacre of Christians in the Middle East, and the removal of crosses in China by communist Beijing, they’ve suddenly become overzealous netizens over the very petty subject of the good-grooming policy of UST. It is likewise appalling that the UST administration, which is otherwise mum on the same urgent issues affecting the Church and society, is fanatically pressing on the same. Now UST is the butt of ridicule on social media for preoccupying itself with the most trifling of matters.

The matter is not even about overall grooming but about hair of all things!

THE PRESIDENCY is no easy job, but there sure was no shortage of aspirants wanting to take it just the same.

After the five-day period set by the Commission on Election (Comelec), a total of 130 people filed their certificates of candidacy (COC) for president, the highest number in Philippine election history, easily beating 2010’s 99 candidates.

They included a man who described himself as an “intergalactic space ambassador,” another who goes by the name “Archangel Lucifer,” and a few others who said they were running because they had been told by the heavens to do so.

ACCUSING Justice Secretary Leila de Lima of being behind the criminal complaint filed by expelled Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) minister Isaias Samson Jr. against the INC leadership for alleged illegal detention, tens of thousands of the sect's members took to Edsa and surrounding streets to demand that the case be withdrawn, that De Lima stop meddling in the affairs of the INC, and for the government to respect the separation of church and state.

SA KABILA ng mabilis at samu’t saring pagbabago sa komunikasyon, pantay na pagpapahalaga pa rin ang dapat ituon natin sa Filipino, katutubong wika, at dayuhang wika na humuhubog sa kultura at kasaysayan ng Filipinas.

Sa paglulunsad ng “Linguistic Atlas ng Filipinas” ng Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino (KWF) na naglalayong itala ang mga impormasyon gaya ng distribusiyon, deskripsiyon, at mapa ng mga wika sa bawat rehiyon, mas mapagyayaman at mabibigyang-pansin ang mga katutubong wika. Ilan sa mga ito ang unti-unti nang nawawala o iilan na lamang ang nagsasalita.

POPE FRANCIS’ first encyclical, at first glance, seems a document focused only on environmental issues—the first of its kind, though previous popes have mentioned the significance of care for the environment in their own encyclicals—but it is more than that: it is actually more of a critique of today’s individualism that led to the corruption not just of the natural, but also our social, economic, cultural, and moral ecologies.

THE THOMASIAN community could have ignored the highly intriguing reference made by President Aquino in his last State of the Nation Address (Sona) to a “big university” (“malaking unibersidad”) that had allegedly refused the plan of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to transform its campus into a catch basin for floodwaters. But trust the President’s men to make matters worse for him by making things clear, blunt, and arrogant: two days later, Malacañang spokesman Edwin Lacierda superciliously told a TV program that the big university the President alluded to “was definitely not Jesuit” and later urged UST to choose public “safety” over a “prized soccer field.”