Tag: May 20, 2008

FROM your morning coffee to the can of softdrinks during lunch and the cup of ice cream for dessert— there’s no avoiding sugar. However, due to some dietary problems such as diabetes and obesity, some people resort to chemically modified alternatives—artificial sweeteners in the form of aspartame.

Recent studies, however, show that these food substitutes have yielded several adverse effects among its consumers. Will this scenario signal the ending of the sweet sensations over artificial sweeteners?

According to GreenFacts, a Belgian non-profit organization which summarizes complex scientific reports on health and environment for the public, aspartame, chemically known as L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester, is a low-calorie artificial sweetener used to replace sugar and to control weight.

IT TAKES insight and imagination for one to see art in the grime and austerity of everyday life.

All too often, art is seen as an escape into a world crafted by the artist’s imagination. Reality is sometimes too harsh, after all. Yet for Melvin Culaba, it is this harshness that brings vitality to his work.

Dubbed by critics as one of the Philippine art world’s best-kept secrets, the UST alumnus has had eight one-man shows and more than 30 group shows in the past 15 years, not to mention entering the finals in such prestigious national art contests as the Art Association of the Philippines Annual Competition and winning an art fellowship grant from the Vermont Studio Center in the United States.

FOUR UST singing groups teamed up and with their angelic voices, gave auidiences the sound and taste of heaven.

The Liturgikon Vocal Ensemble, together with the Coro Tomasino, the UST Chorus of Arts and Letters, and the AMV Accountancy Chorale presented “In Communion,” a concert of sacred music, last April 12 at the Philam Life Auditorium.

“Communion means the possession of something in common,” said Cynthia Sy, a senior member of Liturgikon said. “We are choir groups who share the same beliefs and faith.”

BACK in high school, Ryan Laborte had the habit of scribbling clothing designs at the back of his notebook to relieve his boredom during Chemistry classes. Little did he know that this doodling habit would make him realize his passion for fashion.

Emerging in the recently-concluded 2008 Animax Fashion Ability contest as second runner-up, Laborte is now set toward a career in fashion design. Hearing about the contest from a friend during its first run in 2006, Laborte planned on joining but shelved the thought since he was about to enter college then. It was only during the contest’s second year that he decided to sign up and submit his design.

EVERY SUMMER, it’s either bumming around or earning a sum for some Thomasians.

With the grueling pressure and migraine of schoolwork, summer break should be a breath of fresh air for the Thomasian community, most especially for its students.

But instead of sporting flip-flops and hitting the beach, some Thomasians have opted to pound on the metro beat to earn cash, gain experience, and make the most out of their vacation. They either work part-time or do practicum.

Instead of idling around this vacation, incoming sophomore Marc Paulo Catolico has found a way to earn money by working in an Ortigas-based online English language center helping Koreans master English.

“I have a 40-year-old doctor, two finance officers, and a high school student as my [students],” said Catolico, who is taking up BSE in Secondary Education major in Science.

APRIL 1999. It had been almost a year since Genio Graphics started business but the advertising agency still did not have a client other than the previous company of its co-founder, Anthony Villanueva.

But Villanueva, a 1990 graduate of Advertising Arts at UST, was not worried.

When a Sun Life Financial representative came through the agency’s doors that month to have his company’s magazine conceptualized, a whole new market finally discovered the outstanding personalized services offered by Genio.

Now, Sun Life is just one of the many companies which owe their attention-grabbing advertisements to Villanueva’s agency.

The 39-year-old believes that he has his Thomasian roots to thank for the success of his company.

TWO BISHOPS from two different corners of the globe have offered their reactions to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 World Communication Day, which was formally released last May 4, Feast of the Ascension or the Sunday before Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit dawned on the apostles in order to strengthen and inspire them to spread the Gospel across the ends of the earth, perhaps the only historic guidepost on the press and the mass media.

The 42nd World Communications Day, “The Media: At the Crossroads between Self-Promotion and Service. Searching for the Truth in order to Share it with Others,” is characteristic of most Church documents on the media: it is both a pat on the back and a rap on the knuckle.

THE BRITISH folk hero Allan Quatermain, breathing through the mouth of Sean Connery in The League of Extraordinary Gentleman¸ reminded the Shane-West portrayed Tom Sawyer – upon helping the fabled American kid-vagabond duck a falling edifice caused by the roof-top wafting of a visibly alarmed Dr. Jekyll (who was obviously in Hyde mode) – to always “keep your eyes open boy” because “(I) can’t protect you all the time.”

Perhaps it was the movie’s innocuous way of unraveling the fatherly side of the man whom “Africa would not allow to die” that it (wittingly or unwittingly) ripped through the fictional limits of cinematic, nay comic narration just to add a little mush to what could have been another exhausting gory-to-glory by-product of the ever revolving Hollywood action mill.

VERY uncalled for.

As an act of protest against the Arroyo administration, five student activists of the state-run Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) waved “Oust Gloria” banners and posters during the PUP commencement exercises in the presence of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.

Ermita was the guest speaker of the university’s graduation rites held last May 9 at the World Trade Center. PUP conferred on Ermita an honorary doctorate in Public Administration during the ceremonies.

“Nasaan ang kabataang naglalaan ng kanilang magagandang sandali, mga pangarap at kasiglahan sa ikabubuti ng kanilang bayan?”

- Padre Florentino, El Filibusterismo

HABANG dumaan at lumipas ang Araw ng Kagitingan noong Abril 9, biglang sumagi sa isip ko ang paksang “kabayanihan.” Kung hindi ako nagkakamali, karamihan, kung hindi halos lahat, sa mga sundalong Pilipino na kabilang sa mga tagapagtanggol ng Bataan ay nasa kasibulan pa ng kanilang kabataan. Bilang isang kabataan ng kasalukuyang henerasyon, hindi ko lubos isipin na sa kabila ng batang edad ng mga sundalong-Pilipino ay nagawa nilang tiisin ang mga hirap na dulot ng digmaan at pagkakapiit.