Tag: July 6, 2013

STUDENTS’ mastery of the English language has become a top priority of the UST High School (USTHS), said Principal Marishirl Tropicales.

To adapt the demands of the K to 12 program, the USTHS changed the English proficiency test to be administered this school year to the Test of English as a Foreign Language Junior Standard Test (TOEFL Junior).

K to 12’s curriculum requires schools to “develop effective communication skills among the students.”

TOEFL Junior is a stringent paper-based test that aims to determine the level of English proficiency of students aged 11 to 15 years old and identify their strengths and challenges. The test covers listening and reading comprehension and language form and meaning.

A JUNIOR Medicine student will represent the University in a Japan-led forum this month on economic growth of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

Jan Joel Simpauco is one of the country's only four student delegates in the upcoming 12th Hitachi Young Leaders Initiative (HYLI) in Bangkok, Thailand.

With the theme "The Road Ahead: ASEAN's Role in Asia and the Global Economy," the forum on July 1 to 5 will address "regional economic and social infrastructure issues" in the region.

Simpauco, who placed eighth in the July 2011 Nurse Licensure Examination, is the only delegate with a medical background among the four Filipino representatives taking up business or economic courses.

THE FACULTY of Pharmacy and Thailand’s Mahidol University have signed an agreement to foster academic exchanges.

Former Pharmacy Dean Priscilla Torres and Mahidol University’s Medical Technology Dean Virapony Prachayasittikul and Pharmacy Dean Chuthamanee Suthisiasang signed the memorandum of agreement that will enable both universities to have an exchange of faculty and students, do joint research projects, organize joint symposia, and share academic materials, journals, and information.

Torres led a five-man delegation to Thailand last May 20-24 to finalize the agreement.

The delegation also visited Chulalongkorn University.

UNIVERSITY Archivist Regalado Trota-Jose received last June 21 the Manila city government’s Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan award for his work in historical conservation.

Other awardees included Jonas Roces (sculpture), Guy Rafael Custodio (visual arts), Pedro Cruz Reyes, Jr. (literature) and Leonilo Doloricon (painting).

THE DEADLINE nears, but for all intents and purposes, the Aquino administration will not be able to distribute all lands to farmer-beneficiaries when the the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper) expires next year.

The Department of Agrarian Reform has distributed only 120,000 hectares since this millennium started, and if you think that’s not too bad, then consider how many hectares remain undisributed: 870,000 hectares for land acquisition and distribution (LAD)!

Figure out the math: With less than a year, can the DAR finish LAD?

I GREW up in the north. When my friends here in the capital ask me what beautiful places our province could boast of, I would say, besides the old, magnificent Baroque churches, the beaches just a short drive away.

Boracay may have its pristine white beaches. But the shores of Ilocos have black sand, also called magnetite sand, which is rich in iron and metallic minerals for steelmaking.

Steel is in demand in industrialized countries for the production of equipment, especially in the automotive and construction industries. Such resource can boost the country’s economy.

I WAS on a jeepney going home when I saw a poor woman carrying her child, busily shouting and calling for passengers to ride on the jeepney. I thought she only had a child—the one she was carrying—but then I was shocked upon seeing two other small naked children sitting and playing on the streets with no one looking after them. They were also her children.

I suddenly felt pity for them because these poor children were not as lucky as others who live sheltered lives, attend school and play with toys. But despite being exposed to harsh society, these children still managed to smile and be contented.

IT HAS been 12 years of long suffering for the family and friends that Mark Welson Chua left behind. And a lot have happened since his killing—the mandatory Reserved Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) was abolished and one of his killers was sentenced to death in 2004 when the death penalty was still in existence.

But the ROTC continues to be demonized.

Even I as a freshman thought ill of the ROTC. When I was asked if I wanted to join ROTC in my first enrolment in UST, my answer was a resounding “no.”

Old relatives of mine loaded the gun as they would tell me stories of cruelties of their ROTC superiors and how they were forced to do degrading things based on the whims of their commanders.

MUSICOLOGIST Corazone Canave-Dioquino pointed out in her article published in the official website of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts the three divisions in Philippine music history: indigenous, religious and secular, and semi-classical and popular music.

Indigenous music nowadays is played by only a small percentage of indigenous groups in the country. Dioquino explained that there are no writings about this type of music before the arrival of the Spaniards, but consequent reports by friars and travellers depict instruments made of wood, bamboo or bronze usually in the form of drums and flutes. Early Filipinos used music to celebrate various occasions like birth and weddings, or to mourn the passing of a loved one.

HITTING two birds with one stone?

The Philippine government has its eyes on the relocation of almost 20,000 families living in the waterways of Metro Manila as a way to combat two of the region’s most sickening problems—housing and flooding, said Florencio Abad, secretary of the Department of Budget.

“By providing decent shelters in habitable environments to families living in waterways, we not only account for the safety of these communities, we also strike at one of the major causes of flooding in the metro,” he said in a statement.