Tag: May 20, 2009

(As inspired by the Subic rape case and the acquittal of Lance Corporal Daniel Smith.)

DEAREST Joe, comrade and booze buddy,

What’s up? By the time your fat a** gets to sit in front of a computer and checks this loony e-mail of mine (from wherever you are in that God-forsaken republic), I ‘m already home, celebrating life anew after three years of being locked in a container van like some sort of Bin Laden operative up for rendition, Guantanamo style. Though I must say, that environment is kinda friendlier and more humane compared to the infamous holding area of suspected enemies of the state, terrorists as ex-president Dubya calls them.

THE CONTROVERSIAL rendition of singer Martin Nievera of the Philippine National Anthem during the Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton bout last May 2 has once again underscored the political, legal and artistic tokenism governing the Filipinos’ crooked, let alone fractioned sense of nationalism.

IN THIS age where everything is just one click away, there is simply no excuse but to communicate.

This just galvanizes the booming of web blogs or ‘blogs,’ which have been widely accepted by net savvies since they were conceived in 1999. According to blog search engine Technorati.com, a blog is “a web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.”

Evolution has it for blogs to serve a deeper purpose. The blogging community or “blogosphere” has become a rich pool of social interaction among Internet users that lets them engage in public discussions. Bloggers also disseminate information that somehow toes the thin line of journalism.

BLOGGING can serve many purposes especially for students. They frequently use blogs to chronicle their escapades and relieve their boredom. For accounting student Guillermo Francisco II, blogigng is a good break off his daily encounter with numbers.

A blogger for three years now, Francisco first learned about blogging from his friends. He said he started writing about his insights and experiences, and eventually “I learned to express myself.”

But studies and extra-curricular activities allowed Francisco to post entries only once a month. Still, his blog comes in handy when he is having a bad day and needs to relieve emotional stress.

“I don’t tell my problem as it is. I use figurative language. But somehow, other bloggers still understand what I’m talking about,” he said.

THE UNIVERSITY has said goodbye to 21 out of 63 faculty members still teaching past retirement age, after the Academic Senate and Council of Regents decided to give them “much-deserved rest.”

The decision — which will have a considerable effect on UST’s faculty profile — was reached during the annual joint meeting of college deans and regents, as well as UST Rector Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P., last March.

During the closed-door meeting, it was agreed that a third of “extendee” faculty members — professors allowed to teach for another three years after reaching 65, would be relieved from teaching this coming school year.

However, professors in specialized fields, as in the case of programs in the Conservatory of Music, were allowed to teach for another year.

A total of 42 “extendee” professors were reappointed.

A LONDON consultancy placed UST near the tail-end of a new ranking of Asia’s 200 top universities, behind three other Philippine schools.

UST stood at No. 144 in the listing of website QS.com of top higher education institutions in the region, behind University of the Philippines (UP) which emerged as the top Philippine university in the survey at the 63rd spot, De La Salle University (76th) and Ateneo de Manila University (84th)

But UST was in the top 100 of seperate listings in four fields — arts, life sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences.

Commenting on the results of the survey, Rector F. Rolando V. de la Rosa, O.P. said in a statement that the rankings were based largely on “perception,” meaning universities which “advertise” themselves have an edge.

UST SECURITY personnel are now obliged to not only guard the University’s premises but also their tummies, after the security office ordered them to limit their waistlines to 34 inches.

“The idea came from Fr. Manuel Roux O.P. in one of our meetings. According to the (Vice Rector for Finance), if a guard has a bloated tummy, how can he run after criminal elements inside the University?” said Clemente Dingayan, detachment commander of the security office.

Dingayan said the idea is good and there is no reason not to implement it.

“We attend the UST Health Service wellness program and have required our men who are off-duty to attend physical fitness (activities) like jogging and basketball, every Sunday,” he added.

Even the security agency of UST approves of the waistline limit.

THE VARSITARIAN, the official student publication of UST, has won the third prize in the tertiary level category of the Culture Page Writing Competition sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

The ‘V’ tied with the Advocate of the Far Eastern University.

The contest was launched in observance of the National Artists Month last February, and was opened to all high school and college student publications.

Published on the February 8 issue of the ‘V’, the article titled “A Harvest of Culture and the Arts” discussed the celebration and activities in line with the National Artists Month, now called the Philippine International Arts Festival.

The La Sallian of De La Salle University-Manila won first place in the tertiary level category, followed by the Lyceum Independent Sentinel of Lyceum of the Philippines University.

DONNED in a black suit, Conservatory of Music Dean Raul Sunico stepped into the spotlight, then calmly took his position behind the piano. Listeners swooned as he synchronized his keystrokes with the playing of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) to weave a magnificent concerto.

This was just one of the highlights in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ (CCP) concert titled “The French Connection,” staged last April 17, which paid homage to French composers such as Darius Milhaud, Camille Saint-Saëns, Gabriel Fauré, and George Bizet.

“French music is what we call impressionism,” Sunico told the Varsitarian. Impressionism is a musical style that was popularized by Claude Debussy in the late 19th and early 20th century France. The style incites mood and triggers in the listener an ineffable sense of place and natural phenomena through the use of vague harmonies.

ONLY MINIMAL changes will be made on the College of Nursing’s curriculum after the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) revoked an earlier memorandum order seeking to transform the country’s nursing course to a “five-year program.”

Issued last year, Ched Memorandum Order No. 5 (CMO 5) or the “Policies and Standards for Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program” ordered the addition of two subjects for first year nursing students, “Theoretical Foundations in Nursing” and “Fundamentals of Nursing Practice,” and stretched the required hospital duty hours from 2,142 to 2,499.

But after school owners and nursing deans from different academic institutions expressed opposition to the order last January, the Ched revoked it, only to be replaced by an “Enhanced Bachelor of Science in Nursing Curriculum.”