Tag: No. 4

I BELIEVE our family is extra-special.

At first blush, we are just an ordinary family. Both of my parents go to work. A brother and I are in college.

But what sets us apart from other families is my youngest brother: He’s a “special child.”

His name is Emilio and he has Down Syndrome (DS). Of course, we did not know what to do when we first learned about his condition. To be honest, I felt sad about what was about to come and how to adjust to the situation, but there was nothing we could do but to accept it—whole-heartedly.

FOOD scientists were encouraged to use creative inventions and methods in visionary food development at the Food Conference on Innovation and Advancement last Nov. 11.

Spearheaded by UST Food Technology alumnus Richmond Victor Ejanda, the conference highlighted innovations in food manufacturing, retail and services,such as reverse food engineering, deformulation, and the use of nano-encapsulated flavors.

“[Reverse food engineering] is an interesting field that is booming right now [to the point] where companies hire food technologists to disassemble their food products,” Ejanda said. “It can divide food in different ways to obtain substantial (physical, chemical and nutritional characteristics) information about the product.”

TESTS such as the Rorschach and the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI) have been commonly used by psychologists and people in general in determining one’s personality, but in the 1920s, a Japanese professor theorized that blood types can also do the same.

Takeji Furukawa of Tokyo Women’s University introduced the blood type personality theory (ABO theory) in a paper published in 1927. His “A Study of Temperament and Blood-Groups” stated that the four blood groups—A, B, AB and O—may work similarly with Hippocrates’s Four Temperaments, and that each blood group may hold characteristics unique from the other three.

WHEN he realized his friends took more pictures of their food than talk to each other during lunch, Bien Desingaño could not help but frown.

The Chemical Engineering senior had been planning to have lunch with his friends for weeks but the beeps of notifications from his friends’ smartphones told him that it did not go as planned.

“I was gone for a while because of my training with my pep squad,” Desingaño explained. “But now that I’m here everyone seemed to be too focused with their phones.”

His situation was reminiscent of the photographs published by London-based photographer Babycakes Romero in 2014. His “Death of Conversation” captured a series of images showing people “plugged in” to their devices instead of talking with their company.

FILIPINO Dominicans marked the eighth centenary of the Order of Preachers with the opening of the Jubilee Door at their mother church Santo Domingo last Nov. 7, ushering in a year-long celebration.

Reflecting on the Jubilee year’s theme “Go and Preach,” Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle led the celebration and called on Dominican friars, sisters and laity to continue their mission of “spreading the light” of Jesus Christ.

“The Order of Preachers was given official confirmation for two reasons: to preach and to save souls. That has not changed to this day,” Cardinal Tagle said in his homily during Holy Mass. “All of our preaching, including the preaching ministry of the Order of Preachers, must always go back to Jesus who is the Word.”

THE RECENT Synod of Bishops on the Family remained firm on the Church’s teaching that the divorced and remarried cannot receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist, but stressed that they are among the baptized and should be “more integrated into the Christian community,” while “avoiding every occasion of scandal.”

Granting access to the sacrament for the divorced and remarried, proposed by European bishops reportedly with encouragement from the Pope himself, encountered stiff opposition from African and some American prelates, who claimed that such change condoned adulterous relationships and would be contrary to the teachings of Christ.

THE FIRST cardinal of Myanmar will represent Pope Francis in the 51st International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) to be hosted by Cebu City in January 2016.

Yangon Archbishop Charles Bo, the first cardinal from Burma, has been appointed by the Supreme Pontiff as papal legate to the eucharistic congress, organizers announced last Oct. 25.

Cardinal Bo was one of the 20 new cardinals appointed by the Pope in February 2015. He served as president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar for six years. The cardinal is an advocate of harmonious relationships between Myanmar’s diverse religious groups.

A NEW coffee-table book on Philippine art by former Varsitarian artist and photographer documents through beautiful photography and informative text the ateliers or work studios of 75 of the country’s foremost artists, what critics have described as a very helpful “archival” project to record the creative process that goes into masterpieces of the visual arts.

“Filipino Artists in their Studios” is published by the Manila Bulletin and conceptualized and photographed by visual artist-photojournalist Jose Vinluan “Pinggot” Zulueta, a BS Fine Arts in Advertising Arts graduate of the old UST College of Architecture and Fine Arts.

A DEPARTMENT of Budget and Management (DBM) booklet seeks to inform and educate the public in lay-friendly terms the intricacies of the proposed 2016 General Appropriations Act (GAA) in the interest of public transparency.

The proposed 2016 GAA is P3.002 trillion.

The 2016 People’s Proposed Budget (PPB), as the booklet is titled, aims at comprehensibility and clarity, said BS Fine Arts in Advertising Arts alumna Adrienne Ponce.

Ponce, a freelance, graphic designer tapped by DBM to design the booklet, said she and her design team sought to make the public action visually appealing and inviting.

THE PAPER as a premier medium in Philippine art was the focal point of Papelismo 6, a group exhibit at the Nova Gallery, Makati City.

Thomasians Thomas Daquioag, Pinggot Zulueta, Benjie Cabrera and Melvin Culaba were among a dozen artists who explored the creative possibilities of paper as an art medium.

Daquioag, a Painting alumnus of UST, shows social realism in “The Heir” and “The Heir 2,” which portray a child on the floor and a woman sitting on a couch.

His other featured work, a watercolor on arches or air-dried paper titled “ABAKADA Series” features a family making their way through a flood.