Tag: September 18, 2013

MILEY Cyrus’ recent Video Music Awards (VMA) stunt took the social media by storm as the Canadian singer-actress drew flak over her raunchy and inappropriate dancing called “twerking” on stage.

This image of her seems to be far from the innocent Disney girl “Hannah Montanna” her fans looked up to. As she grew up, she slowly departed from her “nice girl” image. Proof of that was five years ago when photos of her posing for the camera with just a green bra on circulated online.

But her latest stunt earned Miley labels ranging from crazy to disturbed.

Meanwhile, many people still came to her defense, saying she was just “growing up” and had the right to do things as she pleased.

A FORMER Budget secretary thinks President Aquino was bluffing when he said last Aug. 23 that he would abolish the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), popularly known as “pork barrel.”

It was an insincere attempt to resolve the issue, said UP economist Benjamin Diokno, former secretary of the Department of Budget and Management under the administration of President Joseph Estrada who’s now Manila mayor.

The President drew flak over his Aug. 23 announcement, which was interpreted as not abolishing PDAF per se but instead introducing a “modified” system of pork barrel.

PDAF has become a bribe from the president for lawmakers to be lenient in their constitutional duty to scrutinize carefully the national budget, Diokno said.

IS IT wise to elect minors to government posts?

Since its inception in 1991, the Sangguniang Kabataan has been met with criticisms questioning its wisdom and practicability. The SK has so far withstood recurring calls for its abolition.

For Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice, who has filed House Bill (HB) 1122 seeking to abolish the SK, the youth council gives barangay leaders a chance to corrupt the youth instead of training them to be good leaders.

“We all know that corruption is rampant in the local government units, so how can you train the youth with the possibly corrupt leaders as their trainers?” Erice told the Varsitarian in an email.

THEY say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. And it was through satisfying many appetites that these young Thomasians have succeeded.

For Carlo Ramirez, a senior Hotel and Restaurant Management student, and Monica Agnes and Kathleen Teodoro, alumni from the College of Commerce and Business Administration, business is what they have dreamed of having since childhood.

They came a long way, innovating food choices and delighting the palate of the Thomasian community.

Muffcake adventures

It all began in high school for Carlo.

SOMETIMES the solution to one’s problems comes in the form of others’ concern.

This year’s Guidance Week celebration focused on the theme “Reaching beyond Embracing a Culture of Care Towards a Healthy and Safe Thomasian Community,” opening the festivities with a short program held at the AMV Multi-purpose Hall last September 3.

On its fourth year, the Guidance Week picked the theme to target the students’ emotional wellness, aware that they are exposed to different factors and circumstances that can push them to become mentally stressed.

Incorporating the theme into this year’s celebration, all activities are related to the culture of care and support to each student.

Economics goes beyond the the law of supply and demand.

The UST Theological Society held this year’s Edward Schillebeeckx lecture forum with the theme “The Economics of God: The Relationship Between Theos and Oikos,” last Aug.30 at the Medicine Auditorium.

Thomasian environmentalist and human rights activist Rodne Galicha focused on finding the economic concepts of spirituality by looking beyond its social context, revisiting the concepts of creationism, environmentalism, and asceticism.

While many might consider economics as a social science, Galicha, a former seminarian, brought the subject to a new light and related it to religion, particularly Catholicism.

FROM writing articles in newspapers and magazines, this UST Journalism graduate’s way to success was paved by the internet and fashion.

Back in high school, accessory designer Ana Gonzales admitted she was not a very stylish person. Her only fashion concern back then was the outfit she wore during Sunday mass.

But having obsession for accessories, the simple hand-crafted trinkets she made as special gifts to her friends soon turned into a potential business venture.

Gonzales now designs and sells different accessories, from bracelets to rings, on her online shop, Anagon Collection.

“If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?”

These words of Pope Francis, said during a freewheeling press conference aboard a return flight to Rome from the hugely successful World Youth Day celebrations in Rio de Janeiro last July, represent a change in tone by the Church on gays, observers note.

When popes spoke publicly about homosexuality, the message was often a condemnation of gay marriage, and so Vatican critics took Francis’ words in a positive light.

Church teaching is actually not against “homosexual orientation,” but “homosexual acts.”

THE CHURCH is in dire need of more priests to cope with the country’s growing Catholic population.

According to the Catholic Directory of the Philippines, the number of Filipino priests increased to 9,040 in 2013 from 8,605 last year. But the number of Filipino Catholics rose to 76 million this year from 70 million in 2012.

The increase in the number of priests is still not enough to serve Filipino Catholics, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz said.

“There are more Catholics now than before, that’s why one priest is too little compared with the Catholic population,” Cruz was quoted by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) News Service as saying last Aug. 12.

MULING pinarangalan ang dalawang Tomasino sa ika-63 na Don Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature, Setyembre 1 sa Peninsula Hotel, Makati.

Nakamit ni Eros Atalia, propesor ng Filipino sa Faculty of Arts and Letters, ang unang gantimpala sa kategoryang Nobela para sa kaniyang “Tatlong Gabi, Tatlong Araw.” Samantala, itinanghal naman sa ikalawang puwesto sa Poetry ang koleksiyong “Crown for Maria” ni Carlomar Daoana, dating associate editor ng Varsitarian.

Noong 2006, nasungkit ni Atalia ng unang gantimpala para sa kaniyang “Intoy Syokoy sa Kalye Marino” sa kategoryang Katha. Sa nakaraang taon naman nakuha ni Daoana ng unang gantimpala sa Poetry dahil sa kaniyang “The Elegant Ghost.”