Tag: March 24, 2003

A UST student won the Metro Manila Spanish declamation contest last month at the Instituto Cervantes, Spain’s cultural embassy in Manila.

Faculty of Arts And Letters (Artlets) Student Council president Manuel Ramon Amanse represented the University and delivered the piece “Invocacion a Rizal” that earned him the gold medal, a trophy, and a cash prize of P2,000.

It was the same piece he delivered when he won first place in the 2001 Spanish declamation contest sponsored by the UST Department of Languages.

A Theology student leads this year’s batch of Rector’s Academic Award recipients after obtaining the highest general weighted average (GWA) for the school year.

Seminarian Wenifredo Padilla, O.P., the University’s lone candidate for summa cum laude, obtained a GWA of 1.15 to become the valedictorian among valedictorians of UST batch 2003. Sem. Padilla was vested the Rector’s Award last March 18 during the Student Awards Day at the St. Albertus Magnus Auditorium.

INSPIRED by Arlene Maneja’s achievement, Civil Law Dean Jaime Lantin has vowed to sustain the University’s campaign to dominate the bar’s top ten.

“The Faculty would strive harder so that Maneja’s feat would be duplicated in the next few years,” Lantin told the Varsitarian.

Before Maneja aced the 2002 bar examinations to break a 66-year drought, only two Thomasians have topped the bar exams since 1913—President Diosdado Macapagal in 1936 and former Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion in 1924.

“WALA kang silbi!”

Paulit-ulit na lang na ibinubulyaw sa akin ito ng boses na mula sa isang walang katawan, taong-hangin. Minu-minuto, segu-segundo, ito na lang palagi at wala na siyang ibang pasaring sa akin. Apat na salita na, aaminin ko, tagos sa buto ang lagatok sa aking pagkatao. Nakakapikon na.

Sino bang linta? Ako? Aba, patunayan niya!

I COULDN’T believe this would be my 12th.

When I first wrote this column, I did so with utmost pessimism. That is obvious with the column’s title.

And I would like to believe that the previous 11 were read and furiously appreciated, serving as inspiration to many.

In the end, I say that I wrote them with sincerity, hoping that they could effect change. Nonetheless, writing them was burdensome since getting the message across without stepping on sensitive toes is rather difficult.

IS THE United States-led war against Iraq a just war? The answer is at best tentative since all the requirements of the just-war doctrine appear not present in this case. For example, is the war sanctioned by legitimate authority? If one considers the United Nations as the authorizing agent, then the war is not justified. But is the UN a legitimate authority?

LATE again. My classmates all turned their heads toward me as I came in. Embarrassing? No, not for me. I’m always late for class. I know I’m very far from landing on the dean’s list or being model student, but it’s ok. I have my reasons and offer no excuses.

THE UST Faculty of Theology signed an agreement with the Dominican Center for Institutional Studies (DCIS) of the Vietnam Dominican Province that would allow the latters’ students to study at the University last Jan. 14 at the Rector’s Hall.

Rector Fr. Tamerlane Lana, O.P. said the affiliation would greatly help DCIS students, including the Province’s religious and clerics, in their theological formation because of the Faculty’s rich resources.