Tag: July 31, 2011

TWO “RETURNING” thieves were nabbed in two separate incidents on campus last July 20.

Security officers caught suspects Anna Rose Romero, 21 who stole two mobile phones; and Danilo Vargas, 22, who attempted to enter the campus using a fake identification card or ID.

Romero was caught at the multi-deck carpark around 2:45 p.m. with a bag containing a Nokia phone and a Samsung GT C3303K phone.

Security Office chief Joseph Badinas said this was the second time she was caught stealing inside the campus.

THE UNIVERSITY has pledged a million signatures in a drive to stop mining operations and save biodiversity in Palawan.

The signatures for the anti-mining advocacy led by the “Save Palawan Movement” will be added to the 10 million already collected that will be submitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In line with this, a symposium, titled “One Million Pledge to Save the Environment: No to Mining In Palawan,” was held at the Medicine Auditorium last July 8 to discuss the threats of the mining activities.

“Biodiversity [especially in Palawan] is irreplaceable; it can never be returned,” ABS-CBN Foundation General Manager Gina Lopez said before some 300 attendees.

FOR THE first time, the UST Health Service visited four colleges on campus for a wellness caravan from July 19 to 22, in line with its physical fitness program.

The wellness caravan of “USTeps to Wellness: Fit and Well @ 400” consisted of nutrition counseling, health risk assessments, Body Mass Index determination, a wellness fair, a mini-wellness convention, and physical fitness sessions.

“The [wellness caravan] is part of [the University’s] disease prevention,” said Health Service director Ma. Salve Olalia. “If you want to prevent diseases, you have to promote health.”

BY ASKING the bishops to take back the vehicles they were returning, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) admitted that there was nothing wrong when the prelates got them in 2009. “We really want the bishops to keep the vehicles but if they really insist (on returning them), then the PCSO has no choice but to accept them,” Jose Ferdinand Rojas II, PCSO general manager, said. No less than the Senate leadership asked the bishops to reconsider their decision to return the vehicles, admitting that they had indeed been used for charity and social work and did not violate the Constitution as earlier alleged by the PCSO and the Commission on Audit.

Questions have been raised by certain student leaders regarding the increase in the student publication fee, otherwise known as the Varsitarian fee, and the finances of the paper. This column will attempt to clear those issues.

Let it be said in the outset that the Varsitarian is 83 years old and is the oldest Catholic campus paper in the country. Its longevity owes as much to its quality writing as to its effective operations and transparent dealings.

IT WAS my mother’s birthday and my parents’ wedding anniversary, but the double celebration turned out to be a double misery after my editor in chief and I received a “subpoena,” saying that the president of the company that owns the multi-deck carpark in UST had filed a libel complaint against us.

If only I did not have a scheduled interview with a top Dominican official that day, I would not have come to UST and seen the note tacked on the corkboard of the News section: “Rommel, you have a registered mail in the [UST] post office. They called.”

Advertising standards need to be reviewed.

The billboards of the Philippine Volcanoes rugby team wearing Bench Body underwear along EDSA-Guadalupe really caused quite an eruption.

The billboards were gigantic in size and overwhelming in content, their subjects baring their almost-perfect physiques in very skimpy underwear. But just as quickly they were put up, the billboards were quickly taken down on orders from Mandaluyong City Mayor Ben Hur Abalos, citing complaints from the public, including Valenzuela Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian's.

But the move smacked of double-standard since, to be sure, sexist billboards of women in underwear have dotted Edsa for some time now.

NOONG nakaraang buwan, nasaksihan ng mga Tomasino ang pagsasakatuparan ng isang facebook event na pianamagatang “Sabay-sabay tatawid sa Espanya.” Sa loob-loob ko, sana ganito rin ang maging mithiin ng pamilya Ampatuan—ang sabay-sabay na humarap sa korte.

Tila nahaharap ngayon ang dating gobernador ng ARMM na si Zaldy Ampatuan sa pinakadramatikong tagpo ng kaniyang buhay, kung saan siya ang parehong bida at kontrabida.

Kamakailan nang lumabas ang balitang nais ni Zaldy Ampatuan na maging state witness sa malagim na Maguindanao Massacre at sa naganap na pandaraya ni dating Pangulo Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo noong eleksyon 2004. Nangangahulugan ito ng pagharap niya sa korte laban sa kaniyang ama na si Andal Sr. at kapatid na si Andal Jr.

A MANUFACTURED scandal.

What happens when a seemingly innocuous portion of a routine report by state auditors is blown out of proportion by public officials, media outfits, and self-styled crusaders whose common denominator is contempt for Church leaders and what they stand for?

The scorn heaped at seven bishops, who got donations from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) two years ago for the purchase of vehicles, it turns out, was largely undeserved.

A MUSICAL variety of culture of West and East accentuated the visit of the Akedemski Pevski Zabor (APZ Tone Tomši?) choir, the “world’s most awarded choir” to the University of Santo Tomas home of the “choir of the world”, especially with the grand concert of the two leading choirs entitled “Dos Bravissimos” last July 25 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The APZ choir, which is composed of students from the University of Ljubljana, arrived last July 18, and spent a nine-day sojourn in the Philippines as a part of their 2011 Asian tour.

The Dos Bravissimos concert is the highlight of the Ljubljana-based choir visit to the Philippines, collaborating with the two-time Choir of the World University of Santo Tomas Singers.