Tag: June 18, 2011

FIFTY honor graduates received scholarship grants in the Faculty of Civil Law, with hopes that one of them would be UST’s next bar topnotcher.

Reginaldo Oben, a Civil Law alumnus and 1961 bar topnotcher himself, donated P2 million to the faculty’s “scholarship fund” last June 7.

Divina said that similar grants were also given last year to attract honor graduates to study in UST. He said the faculty wanted to reclaim its “honor” after failing to land in the Top 10 in the last nine years.

STARTING this school year, students will now pay P150 to finance the operations of the Varsitarian.

The paper sought the 25-percent increase in a continuing effort to improve its quality of journalism in the service of the Thomasian community. It has a circulation of more than 40,000 copies published fortnightly.

This year, it will also come out with magazines, special supplements, and a coffee table book honoring the “400 Greatest Thomasians” as part of UST's Quadricentennial celebration.

Other publications include the literary magazine “Montage,” Ustetika literary folio, features magazine “Tomasino,” and a new edition of “The Varsitarian Campus Press Stylebook.”

The ‘V’ will also have an improved website, www.varsitarian.net, which will offer better graphics, videos, and photo galleries.

Besides publishing, the Varsitarian also organizes and finances annual activities such as the Inkblots National Journalism Fellowship, Ustetika Literary Awards, and the Pautakan Inter-collegiate Quiz Contest.

Two other annual extra-editorial activities are funded in full by the paper: the UST J. Elizalde Navarro Workshop in Criticism on the Arts and the Humanities, and the UST CineVita Film Festival.

The Varsitarian is likewise a generous and regular donor to UST’s Literature department, Literary Society, Journalism Society, and the Philippine Center of the International P.E.N. (Poets and Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists).

“Rest assured that the Varsitarian will not only maintain, but also continuously improve, all editorial and extra-editorial works,” said new editor in chief Alexis Ailex Villamor.

UST HAS again secured a respectable slot in the Top 200 Asian Universities by London-based consultancy firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), but dropped by three places—from 101st to 104th.

Despite its relatively “good” showing in the 2011 listing, it obviously needs more catching up with frontrunner institutions University of the Philippines (UP) and Ateneo de Manila University, which are at the 62nd and 65th places, respectively, to at least achieve a certain parity with them. (Besides, sliding down the list does not exactly evoke a good image for UST, particularly to freshmen who have decided to entrust their collegiate education—and their future—to the University.)

FINALLY, the country’s 79-year-old Revised Penal Code (RPC) is up for a “comprehensive review.”

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has taken a gargantuan step to replace the archaic and deficient general criminal code, which was enforced during the American occupation in the Philippines in 1932, through the formation of what she called “Criminal Code Committee.”

According to her, given the dramatic changes that transpired in this civil and modern time, there is “an urgent need to craft a truly organic and Filipino criminal code attuned to values and norms.” 

Many of the provisions of the RPC are even copied from the first penal code in the Philippines introduced by the Spaniards, causing systemic injustice in the country today.

THE NEW school year has opened for most of schools in the country, but some colleges and universities keep their “Enrollment on-going” and “No tuition fee increase” streamers hung for almost the entire year. What comes with the advertisement are promises of easier job opportunities after graduation from celebrity-endorsers, making education look like a piece of commodity available in the market.

Filipinos are not too dumb to know that these promotional scheme—desperate enough to attract enrollees—are merely marketing strategies, but some students just have no choice and, thus, avail themselves of these promos.

NURSING graduates from all over the country will take their much awaited licensure exams next month. After four years of struggle to complete all the course’s requirements and to meet the expectations and standards of the profession, they will take the last step to becoming professional nurses.

But their struggles will not end there because after passing the board exam, many of them will be added to the 257,296 jobless nurses in the country. They will have to wait in order to finally find a “decent” work.

The nursing profession in the country is threatened by the overpopulation of nursing schools, contractualization, and low salary.

In some hospitals, understaffing is also a problem.

WHAT was supposedly a popular liturgy in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary became a grotesquery of sorts. Liturgy was transformed into blasphemy. This is what Reproductive Health (RH) bill supporters did when they used the age-old Catholic tradition of Santacruzan to promote their anti-life cause as if the maelstrom of advertisements promoting the bill is not enough already. This mockery and desecration of a religion has gone way overboard.

MAYHEM knocks on your door when you least expect it.

Last May 24, a gang of hold-up men, known as “laglag barya” gang, victimized my fellow Varsitarian staff member. I was with him when the incident happened and with me were the camera lenses that the Varsitarian would lend to its photographers during covers. Fortunately, I dodged the misfortune that struck him as none of my belongings were taken, but I should have known that we were jinxed from the start.

When does life really begin?

Opponents of the reproductive health (RH) bill argue that many types of contraceptives are abortifacients, meaning they terminate life inside the mother’s womb, a position flatly rejected by its proponents.

While advocates of the bill assert that life does not begin at fertilization which means no life is ended by the anti-implantation effect of contraceptives, medical experts from UST – Dr. Edilberto Gonzaga and embryology professor Josephine Lumitao – are clear: Life begins at fertilization.

Fertilization marks the union of the egg and the sperm cells, Lumitao said.

Gonzaga said the fertilized egg, scientifically called a “zygote”, immediately becomes a living individual during the process.

ONE GROUP built a robot, one that could keep an eye on thieves, using cellphone technology.

Not to be outdone, another group showed how “kamote” could help cure a blood clot-related condition. Still another one proved that with a little dose of yoga, patients suffering from osteoarthritis could still live a meaningful life.

Don’t look far for the year’s best researches. They’re right on campus; courtesy of some of the most creatives and sophisticated minds UST has produced.

Electronics Engineering majors Jennifer Jill Aquino, Seigfred Prado, June Andrew Rabin, Jade Antonette Rico, and Josyl Mariela Rocamora used 3G cellphones to control a robot.