Tag: April 30, 2003

A UST Track and Field player is under fire for allegedly stealing his teammate’s cellular phone last April 2.

The Office for Security Affairs reported that the trackster admitted during interrogation that he stole his teammate’s Nokia 5110 cellular phone.

The athlete said he stole the mobile phone and hid it inside his shirt while his teammates were asleep. Afterwards, he went down to the team’s locker room and hid the cellular phone inside his bag.

INSTITUTE of Physical Education and Athletics assistant director Felicitas Francisco told fellow retirees that retiring does not mean an abrupt end to their “lives of service” to the University during the testimonial dinner for faculty honorees last March 28 at the Main Building Lobby.

“Once an educator, always an educator. We have always been called to unceasingly promote Thomasian values beyond the four walls of the classroom. Let us continue to do so.” she said.

LEADING teachers meeting in the University recently said instruction in Filipino should not be downgraded despite President Macapagal’s controversial order to make English the primary medium of instruction in the Philippine education system.

But efforts to improve English instruction should be made nonetheless.

“There is no such idea to downgrade the Filipino language. We’re merely concentrating on the English language as a medium of instruction,” said Ma. Clara Ravina of the University of the Philippines.

FATHER Rector Tamerlane Lana, O.P. called for more rigid criteria in judging researches and challenged Thomasian researchers to surpass average expectations during the UST Research Recognition Awards last Feb. 27 at the Thomas Aquinas Research Complex auditorium.

“I believe that for designated researchers, excellence can only be gauged beyond the research outputs they are expected to produce,” Fr. Lana said.

The Rector stressed that the University needs researchers.

LAST year, the University welcomed its freshmen by letting them enter through the Arch of the Centuries. Before the Baccalaureate Mass last March 24, the cycle was completed as the graduates of 2003 bade goodbye to the University by exiting out of the arch.

In his homily, Rector Fr. Tamerlane Lana, O.P. urged the University’s 4,709 graduates to “be peacemakers in a world constantly threatened by the viciousness of men.”

THE NATIONAL Research Council of the Philippines, an elite organization of scientist-researchers nationwide, gave Faculty of Pharmacy Dean Dr. Rosalinda Solevilla an achievement award for her exemplary researches in the pharmaceutical sciences during the council’s 70th annual meeting at the Manila Hotel last March 15.

“I am happy that I was recognized by a national agency. I am also proud not only for the Faculty but for the University as well,” she said. “Before, the University of the Philippines used to dominate these awards. I hope tuloy-tuloy na UST naman.”

THERE is a price to pay for quality education.

Vice-Rector for Finance Fr. Melchor Saria, O.P. said the University will implement a 15 per cent tuition increase this school year, primarily to cover the salary increase of faculty members as provided in their Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

Fr. Saria told the Varsitarian that 16.8 per cent is actually needed to cover the CBA increase, but the administration will just raise tuition by 15 per cent.

PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo has appointed a UST Faculty of Civil Law professor as one of four new Court of Appeals (CA) associate justices.

In an interview with the Varsitarian, Justice Lucas Bersamin said he and Justices Hakim Abdulwahid, Rosmari Carandang, and Noel Tijam were chosen by the President from among 18 nominees of the seven-member Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to fill up four CA associate justice vacancies.

There are times when I would rather lie

here on the street with hollow blocks

hurtling from the hollow sky

gray ground asphalt sticking

to my back like worms (I tell you,

I saw worms last night, wriggling in my sleep,

gnawing at a child’s blue-green carcass),

dreaming straight from a six-beer-bottle

brawl. But there’s nothing really new here,

nothing really new about the bruises on my face,

sweat on my back and my cough in the morning

“There is no substitute for sincerity, even when the words are not those you want to hear.” - Anonymous