Tag: July 22, 2013

Online lynch mob and anti-Catholic humorTHE TRUTH IS people nowadays ridicule anything Catholic. And there is no better testament to that than predominantly Catholic Filipinos—at the same time dubbed as among the “happiest” people in the globe—who make fun of almost everything in the most insensitive and irrational ways. In fact, it is our very own Filipino humor, which we have always been proud of for all the wrong reasons, that revealed so much of our hatred toward the Catholic Church, or, in a more general sense, organized religion—the very same religion that the majority think they have the right to “selectively” practice.

FREEDOM of speech is an inviolable right protected by the country’s supreme law.

But the constitutional principle seems the mantra of many who tend to abuse social media, using the slightest excuse and provocation to form a lynch mob whose goal is to express utter hatred toward anyone or anything these so-called “gods of social media” deem worthy of punishment, just to satisfy their huge egos that are apparently inversely proportional to their ability to think.

In other words, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms of social media have become means for demented people to harass others.

THE DEPARTMENT of National Defense (DND) has drawn flak for its proposal to make Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) training mandatory to help boost the country’s military force.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said in a radio interview that although there were many reservists in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, mandatory ROTC would provide the right training to allow students to assist in times of emergency.

The National Defense Act of 1935, which made ROTC mandatory, had stated that students, from the age of 10 years, were required to undergo military training until age 21. It was repealed by Republic Act 9163 or the National Service Training Program (NSTP) Act of 2001, which gave students other options aside from ROTC.

THE SEARCH for justice is still not over.

After 12 years, two of four persons implicated in the brutal murder of Mark Welson Chua, an Engineering student and Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC) cadet, remain at large.

The whereabouts of former cadet officers Paul Joseph Tan and Michael Von Rainard Manangbao of the UST Golden Corps are still unknown.

Mangabao is believed to be hiding in Malaysia while Tan had fled to the United States according to Charmaine Chua, Mark’s sister, in a previous interview with the Varsitarian.

Meanwhile, others, namely former cadet officers Arnulfo Aparri and Eduardo Tabrilla, are already serving their sentence.

TO ACHIEVE global recognition, the University needs to boost its research output.

While UST is dominating the licensure exams and is strong in other areas, research has been a constant weakness.

The University ranked 150th in the recent Quacquarelli-Symonds (QS) listing of Asia’s top 200 universities, dropping just two notches from 2012.

For academic year 2012-2013, there were 1,085 master’s degree holders and 472 doctorate degree holders in the University, data from the Office of Faculty Evaluation and Development showed.

HE ARRIVED in Manila with only a handful of centavos and dreams of making it big in the city.

Now, Carlos “Charlie” Agatep is one of the pillars of Philippine Public Relations.

But the road to success was never easy for young Charlie, who occasionally settled with peanuts for dinner and a makeshift bed to get through the night.

The son of a soldier, he left the province in the hope that life would be better in the city. It was tough, he soon found out, when he had to do odd jobs to help finance his studies. He was a “mess boy” for American soldier at one point, and a waiter in another.

THEY SAY you’re not a genuine Thomasian unless you’re “baptized” by the floodwaters of the Sampaloc area. How they are coping is a matter of acquiring survival skills they’ve somehow mastered through the years.

Take the case of hospital employees who, in a recent flooding episode on campus, filed out of the clinical division building, their feet wrapped in plastic grocery bags. Like trained soldiers, many students do the same, knowing that in UST’s flood-prone neighborhood, it can either be sink or swim during a heavy downpour.

Without hesitation, senior Marketing student Marianne Diaz waded through the murky waters on Lacson Avenue just to get home after her night class in the University.

THE BATTLE is far from over.

Pro-life groups and students from Catholic schools gathered for a Mass and prayer rally against the "Reproductive Health" (RH) Law on the day of oral arguments at the Supreme Court over the measure's constitutionality.

In his homily during the Eucharistic Celebration at the Archdiocesan Shrine of Nuestra Señora de Guia in Ermita, Antipolo Bishop Gabriel Reyes highlighted the role of prayer in the divisive battle facing the nation. "It will be a long battle, but faith is more powerful than armies. Prayer can influence history,” he said.

A CHURCH demanding reforms from the government lacks the same in its own “internal affairs,” a sensational new book claims.

Journalist Aries Rufo, in his book, titled “Altar of Secrets: Sex, Politics and Money in the Philippine Catholic Church,” reports cases of sexual misconduct, financial mismanagement, and political interference by Church leaders.

Rufo, former reporter for the Manila Standard who had covered politics and religion, says the book portrays Church leaders as humans who also commit mistakes and give in to temptations.

“They may be divinely inspired, but they could not deny their humanity and all their weaknesses. We think they have superhuman powers, but they too have feet of clay,” he says.

THE NAME of St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, is now included in the oldest and most important prayers of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Pope Francis approved last June 20 a decree adding the name of St. Joseph in Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV of the Roman Missal, the Church’s liturgical book. This was proposed by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS), the Vatican dicastery in-charge of the Church’s liturgy.