Tag: June 3, 2004

Just the balcony view from our room atop a two-storey villa, was enough to make anyone gape in both disbelief and enchantment. Looking at it was like being sucked into one of those postcard moments, with that distant sea waves lapping gently at the sand and the blue sky doming all over the resort encasing that perfect scene. For the city-jaded and travel-hungry person in most of us, waking to that kind sight caters to our aesthetic enrichment. Indeed, Puerto del Sol is a living panorama.

TO SAY that there is a global hype for anything that comes in a series is nothing new. People watch out for the next Harry Potter movie or book because the ending is easier to bear when there’s surely something bound to come after it. Soaps endure because people are hungry to see what comes next. Waiting then becomes more of a rest, a pause before the new beginning, rather than a fatal final breath. To cut a show short would be to blind its audiences to what comes next.

WHEN I had my qualification exams for the Varsitarian a couple of years back, I found it extremely hard to think of the perfect word to start my essays. For me, firsts are as important as the lasts.

And so it goes for all other feature articles I wrote for the paper. I have to sell my story, and sell it for no bargain. The perfect first word would help me do that—to sell each and every word of my article to my readers.

THE 2004 elections have afforded the University the chance to launch what is perhaps its most engaged campaign yet to influence Philippine democracy. It is an engagement that has been intense and sustained. Through the Voter Education Initiative, UST has educated the Thomasian community and the public on enlightened voting. Through its extraordinary statement, “New Hope, New Politics,” released during Easter and published as a full-page advertisement in several national newspapers and tabloids, the University provided the electorate certain guideposts on which candidates to choose.

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand

- an Irish blessing

THIS might go a little bit unnoticed. With the annual tuition increase, the cost of education has skyrocketed in the past few years. And Thomasians directly feel its adverse effect.

If I remember it right, I shelled out at least P24,000 to pay for my tuition and matriculation last semester. I was surprised after I found out that incoming Journalism and Political Science juniors need to pay around P28,000 and P30,000 this semester, respectively.