Tag: June 20, 2002

STARTING this school year, female freshmen students will be included in the National Service Training Program (NSTP).

The NSTP law, enacted last January, replaced the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) as the training program for students provided by the Constitution.

Under the new program, students will be given the option to enroll in either Military Training Service (MTS), Literacy Training Program (LTP) or Civic Welfare Services (CWS). However, only the MTS, which is the same as the former ROTC program, will be offered this semester.

Three years after the release of his first collection of poems, Subterranean Thought Parade, in 1998 together with Ramil Gulle’s The 25th Fly, Lourd Ernest de Veyra comes up with his second offering, Shadowboxing in Headphones (UST Publishing House, 2001).

A junior associate of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Studies (UST-CCWS) and the lead vocalist of the alternative band Radioactive Sago Project, De Veyra’s new collection of 38 poems with fluid and rhythmic tones and varying unpredictable images is another amalgam of words conquering limits and emotions.

for once

I would like

to hear someone

name him from someplace else

other than the sky

shape him

from something else

other than ash

play back his breath

through the thumping of drums

the tearing of membranes

the twanging of rusty strings

on a cracked guitar

the shriek of a sax

or a virginal pagan

offering to the saints

the break of a vocal chord

in a yodel

the taste of salt

FEAR paralyzes me as soon as I grip my pen. I am not sure if I will make sense out of the written word, especially after attending my first formal workshop.

It has been two months since I went to Baguio and had my poems critiqued by some of the country’s established and respected writers. Still, their words ring clear in my mind, causing my worst case of writer’s block to date. Now I freeze even only at the thought of writing.

“My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.” - 1 John 3:18

WHY ARE we so afraid to say “I love you”?

I was on my way home once when I received this question on my cellular phone. Initially, I thought it was one of those juvenile questions my friends usually asked. But it was Father’s Day and the message immediately made me think about how I had been as a daughter to the man who always made me feel that my existence was a gift.

Like the no-smoking policy, the digital identification system is a development long overdue. UST, which claims to be a pillar of advanced research and studies in the humanities and especially in the sciences, has finally started showing proof that its boasts are not for naught.

With the advent of the new digital ID’s, Thomasians should encounter less hassle when entering rooms, buildings, or the campus itself, and later when purchasing items or borrowing books from the library.

One thing is certain: death will come, only no one knows when. And the reality that we are hostages of time while we live is undeniable.

As time holds us hostages, we cannot do anything but wait. What we do while waiting is what will set us apart from other people who wait doing nothing. Although they are different from those who wait but can’t do anything else, everything boils down to how we value time.

To move on or to stagnate is a good measure of that.

***

“Ayoko na pare, suko na’ko…talagang hindi ko kaya eh,” said a friend of mine from the College of Architecture. It was his third time to take a Math 4 class, and he failed it also for three times. He was so depressed and afraid. He wasn’t afraid of the humiliation he could and might receive from his friends. He was afraid of telling the bad news, again, to his parents.

LAST month, Secretary-General Fr. Winston Cabading, O. P. issued a memorandum announcing the no-smoking policy on campus.

EXACTLY a week ago, the nation celebrated its 104th Independence Day with the theme, “Bayan ko, sagot ko” (my country, my responsibility). During the celebration, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appealed to every Filipino to be responsible for the welfare of the country.

In addition, she also stressed that the country is faced with two major challenges: first, defeating terrorism, and second, eradicating poverty. Pardon me for being so bold in pointing out to her Excellency, but it seems she left one out, —unproductive partisan politics.