Tag: December 4, 2009

THE VISIT of United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Philippines was made doubly memorable by the interview forum she gamely took part in and which was hosted by the University of Santo Tomas. “The Manila Forum,” which was produced by the cable news channel ANC and held at the UST Medicine Auditorium, was participated in by college students from all over the University Belt as well as other students across the land via teleconferencing. It afforded Filipino students a chance to see Mrs. Clinton up close and appreciate the intricacies--and evasions--of American diplomacy.

Although Mrs. Clinton’s visit had all the making of a media hype, and perhaps the ANC journalists who led the interview were a tad too slavish in their questions, the forum provided substance to the trip and it was well and good that it was held in an academic setting with no less than the Pontifical University providing that intelligent and historic setting.

BAHAGI na ng pagtanggap sa mga bagong miyembro ng mga kapatiran ang initiation. Dito, kinakailangan lumikom ng lagda ng baguhang miyembro mula sa mga pinuno ng kapatiran sa pamamagitan ng maayos na pagsasagawa ng mga gawain tulad ng pagsayaw, pagkanta o pagkukunwaring baliw sa harap ng maraming tao.

Dulot nito at ng iba pang mga gawaing kahiya-hiya kaya naghain ng reklamo ang ilang estudyante ng Faculty of Arts and Letters sa noo’y dekana na si Ophelia Dimalanta. Isa ang Artlets sa mga kolehiyo kung saan nagsasagawa ng initiation ang mga organisasyong pang-estudyante.

JUST how safe is UST and its environs?

The four streets surrounding UST have been a favorite place for petty crimes such as theft. Some cases have been recorded right inside the campus, police data from the past two months showed.

Data from University Belt Area (UBA) Police Station showed Padre Noval Street as the most dangerous place for students, with 22 crimes recorded from August 30 to October 30.

Seventeen criminal acts occurred in España, while 15 happened in Lacson. None were recorded in Dapitan.

Doris Galit-Paredes of the UST security office said dim lights in P. Noval may be a factor for the high crime rate in the area.

“P. Noval has many illegal settlers around. I’m not saying that they are the criminals, but there is a possibility,” she added.

UBA blotters revealed theft as the most common crime in the four corners of the University with 20 occurrences in the past two months alone.

WHO SAID there’s a zero crime rate when Manny Pacquiao has a prized fight?

At the height of the bout between Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto last November 15, computer science sophomore James Pastoral, 17, was held up by two men at 12:45 p.m.

“I was walking along the Dapitan Street from a jeepney ride in Lacson Avenue. I was about to meet with a friend in [a condominium] near the intersection of Dapitan and P. Noval Streets,” Pastoral told the Varsitarian.

But as Pastoral approached the deserted Antonio Street, four blocks away from his destination, a man pulled him by the collar.

While being frisked by his assailant, another man pointed a handgun to his nose and asked him not to shout. The two men took P1,000 and a cellphone worth P7,500.

He said he wasn’t able to report it to the police or barangay outpost, because he did not know where to go.

Is there a place for the campus press in the coming May elections?

Their contributions can be many, school reporters were told, particularly in the larger context of the youth actively monitoring the process and outcome of the country’s first-ever automated national elections.

Such was the top agenda in this year’s Inkblots, the annual UST-organized gathering of campus reporters from across the country last October 21 to 23.

Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, President Macapagal-Arroyo’s latest appointee to the Commission on Elections, said the 2010 polls were “for and owned by the youth.”

He told fellows not only to help spread information, but also to lessen the confusion that could attend the elections.

Larrazabal dispelled fears that one had to be computer-literate to participate in the automated elections. He did so via a demonstration using a virtual machine flashed in a PowerPoint presentation.

PROVING that music is a universal language, Korean conductor Jae-joon Lee conducted the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the latter’s concert series, Tour de Force Perfomances with 8 Maestros, last November 12, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Also performing with the Philippine orchestra was Korean bel canto singer Yun-kyoung Yi and the University’s very own Noel Azcona, assistant music director of the UST Singers, and Randy Gilongo, a professor at the Conservatory of Music Voice Department.

Lee also conducts voice claases at the Conservatory of Music where he is a visiting professor.

Lee learned of the Pontifical University through Professor Fidel Calalang, conductor of the UST Singers.

“[Calalang] is one of my best friends,” Lee said. “I tried to invite the UST Singers, I think five years ago, to perform in my country.”

HOW DOES one of the most iconic American plays fare in the Filipino tongue? It doesn’t work, apparently.

Showing the might of women in their Tagalog adaptation of the Pulitzer prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire proved to be no sweat for Tanghalang Pilipino, although the production still lacked some sparks.

Written by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire depicts the clash between the worlds of fantasy and reality as personified by the conflict between the weak-nerved Belle Blanche DuBois, and her macho brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. The conflict erupts after a penniless Blanche moved in with her sister, Stella, in New Orleans after their ancestral plantation was taken away from her.

EVEN WITH his big-budgeted visual effects, Roland Emmerich cannot manage to save his disaster film from disaster.

A seasoned director of the sci-fi-cum-disaster genre with his films Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow, director Emmerich has self-styled the alleged December 21, 2012 Mayan doomsday prophecy into something that involves obliterating landmarks and razing the three states he loves to destroy in previous films, namely New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington.

But in this era of visual effects and high-definition pictures, disaster films are a dime-a-dozen, following a formula passed from one catastrophic picture down to another. Emmerich suffers the most in this case by stuffing into the script certain elements of the disaster genre that we have all seen before.

WHO KNOWS the secret of dying? According to Dan Brown, the Freemasons do, but they’re not exactly willing to share it.

The popular writer follows up his 2003 best seller The Da Vinci Code with another puzzle for protagonist Robert Langdon to break. This time, the Harvard symbologist’s quest takes him all over Washington D.C., in a race against time to keep yet another grave revelation from being exposed to the world.

In The Lost Symbol, Langdon is summoned to give a lecture at the Capitol building by his teacher, Peter Solomon, a well-known Mason. However, before Langdon meets up with his friend and mentor, a severed hand in the Capitol Rotunda—Peter Solomon’s—points him to his latest adventure. The lecture is a hoax, and the hand is a clue to solving the crime.

FOR SOME, it might take hours of extensive narration to describe what life in the country was like before the arrival of modern technology and its revolutionary impact to the society. But by looking at the paintings of Thomasian Noli Vicedo, it would only take minutes.

In his second one-man exhibit titled Salakot at Sumbalilo last November 14 at The Podium, Vicedo gives his audience a feel of the old rural life with his paintings depicting Filipino townsfolk going about with their daily business.

The particular theme is inspired by the painter’s childhood years in Alfonso, Cavite during the 1960s, when he farmed with his grandparents. The exhibit was made with the intention of preserving these memories.