PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo commended the University for its consistency in upholding Christian values amid global conflicts and crises. She called UST, Asia’s oldest university, as “hallowed ground.”
In an interview with the Varsitarian, President Macapagal-Arroyo said UST has always cultivated moral and Christian values in its students. She even called the University “an oasis of Christian values and devotion.”
“I know how UST instills its own Christian values because of my experience with my father,” the President said. She was referring to the late President Diosdado Macapagal, a UST alumnus and faculty member.
President Macapagal-Arroyo was in UST to attend the Prayer Power Campaign 2002 last Dec. 12 at the UST Grandstand.
According to the President, it was only proper that the culminating activity be held in the University. She said Thomasians are very fortunate to be in a school that has shown constancy in upholding the moral and spiritual values of Christianity amid a “secular and material world.”
“If we have more and more of these kinds of prayer rallies held in grounds as hallowed as UST, then there is more possibility that God’s will can work for the people of the Philippines,” she said.
Former President Corazon Aquino, the Prayer Power Campaign 2002 chairman, said UST was chosen as the final site for the event because it is centrally located.
The Prayer Power Campaign started last February and had been touring different schools since June.
“Prayer power is really people power. If we hadn’t prayed, God wouldn’t have come to our aid,” Aquino said.
Students from St. Paul’s College Manila, St. Scholastica’s College, Colegio de Sta. Rosa, Don Bosco Manila, Sta. Isabel College, College of Holy Spirit, Far Eastern University, and Philippine Normal University, among others, joined the prayer rally.
