Tag: October 4, 2011

A FIFTH-YEAR elective course on how to handle industrial boilers will be offered to Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering majors beginning next academic year.

The elective course, which focuses on the reduction of hazardous gases emitted by boilers, is collaboration of the Faculty of Engineering and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’s Environment Management Bureau (DENR-EMB), as well as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Unido).

Industrial boilers are large machines found in factories that emit pollutants.These machines are closed vessels which boil and mix chemicals. Boilers are also the source of many injuries, as well as the destruction of property due to poor engineering orientation and handling.

STUDENTS from the Faculty of Arts and Letters revisited the splendor of world literary classics in a conference attended by foreign embassy officials last month.

Junior students of Communication Arts, Journalism, Legal Management, and Sociology programs, who are taking the Survey of World Literature course, presented their research papers and short film adaptations of Roman, Greek, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese classical literatures in the event titled "Modernizing Antiquities: Updating the Classics" at the Beato Angelico building auditorium last Sept. 24.

JOSE Rizal is not a “stand-alone hero” because he belongs to a generation of heroes, said Rizal descendant and 1964 Miss International Gemma Cruz-Araneta at the opening of History week last Sept. 15.

“Whenever they introduce me as the great grand-niece of Jose Rizal, I always say that I am not the only descendant of the national hero. I believe that all of us have relatives who were in those days, heroes,” Cruz said.

With the theme “Kasaysayan: Pag-aalala sa Nakaraan, Pagsulong sa Kinabukasan,” the celebration ran until Sept. 21.

History Department Chairman Augusto de Viana said Rizal was a farmer and a trader. He had a poultry farm and organized farmers to sell their products at a higher price.

WHILE staunch supporters of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill naively rejoice over the Philippine Medical Association’s (PMA) position paper that they seem to have misunderstood, they have been overwhelmed with the first clause of the first sentence without reading the entire passage.

The PMA expressed its support in the RH bill, but only because “it is founded strongly on the principle that ‘life begins at fertilization’”—a pro-life stance. Furthermore, the group of doctors said it “abhors any procedure, machination or scheme or medication that will interrupt any stage of fertilization and prevents its normal growth to adulthood until the stage of natural death.”

IT IS the State’s duty to accord “full protection to labor, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all.” It is also its duty to entitle workers with “security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage.”

But with the course of happenings between the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (Palea) and its management, it seems like provisions of the Constitution have been set aside.

Following a nod from no other than the Office of the President and the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole), Philippine Airlines (PAL) continued with its plan to contract out its in-flight catering operations, airport services, and call center reservation operations.

Watching the evening news recently, I was struck by what a girl, about ten years of age, said in a certain report.

?”It’s not only adults who get stressed. Kids like us also get stressed, [too],” she said. Children of their age, she added, have to destress too.

I was quite surprised with what the little girl had just said. As much as I can recall, at the age of 10 I was still into playing and the word “stress” was alien to me.

Funny how being stressed has become overrated to this generation and how stress has somewhat become the trendy.

With the emergence of the Internet and social networks, distraction has been made rampant. This has added to the stress of young people.

JUST recently, National Artist for Literature Francisco Sionil Jose caught concerned Filipinos off-guard as his opinion piece “Why We Are Shallow?” published in Philippine Star made them ponder about the preponderance of shallow thinking emanating in the society.

In a way, he was able to awaken the Filipino’s sleeping enthusiasm to learn and to think out of the box, through the honest and concrete statements he used. He blamed the influences of modernization and globalization—primarily technology and that of the media—for the gradual loss of the individual’s aspiration to transcend shallowness and practice critical thinking.

A FEW weeks ago, I thought that I was dreaming when I woke up to the smell of brine, a cool breeze, and the soft splish-splashing of water. When I stepped out of my room half-asleep, I was dumbfounded. How in the world did the sea get into our house?

Experts came out with an explanation days later. The onslaught of typhoon “Pedring” was a taste of climate change.

According to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the stress that the human race has been shoving down the earth’s core, so to speak, has made inevitable and disadvantageous changes in its natural cycles. Now, the earth wants to retch.

WANG-wang, a Filipino slang word, is the siren used by ambulances and fire trucks for emergencies, and by the police for special occasions. Not anymore.

Today, “wang-wang” has become synonymous with the corrupted mentality of Filipinos and a symbol of abusive government officials.

I am aware that corruption is rampant in our country. I always hear about it in the evening news programs on TV, read about it in the papers, or on the Internet. It’s saddening to discover all these news on corruption every time. Later, I found out that it’s saddening and maddening at the same time, when you actually experience it.

JUST HOW accurate are drug tests?

No student has tested positive for drug use since drug tests were implemented in 2006, data from the Health Service showed.

Health Service director Ma. Salve Olalia said she has not received reports of illegal drug use on campus, indicating that drug tests in UST are effective.

But Dangerous Drugs Boards (DDB) vice chairman Rommel Garcia, an alumnus of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, said otherwise.

He said the random drug test is more of an assessment than detection. “As far as detecting drug users, you can never find every drug user by means of random drug testing,” Garcia said. “But if they know that there are random drug tests, they will have a little fear.”