Tag: September 26, 2007

SIX YEARS ago, Thomasian Severino Navarro, an electronics and communications engineer, applied for a job in Singapore but was rejected. The agency apparently thought seniority mattered and at the age of 39, Navarro was considered a year short to land the position of senior engineer. He waited for a year and applied again for the same stint. Eventually, Navarro became the assistant senior engineer for Panasonic Singapore. This success, he said, he owes to God, his family’s support, and his UST diploma.

“Without it, I would probably never make it here,” he told the Varsitarian.

Born and raised in Manila, Navarro entered UST in 1978, but graduated only in 1989 due to scarce finances. He needed to get a job first to foot the bill for his tuition. Navarro even tied the knot before coming back to graduate.

“When I came back to school, I already had a wife and children,” he said.

AFTER opening last Jan. 16 at the UST Museum of Arts and Sciences, the Varsitarian’s pearl anniversary exhibit, the Varsitarian at 80: the Struggle and the Glory, will tour the campus next month.

The exhibit will chart the history of the Varsitarian, from its foundation in 1928 by Jose Villa Panganiban, a working student, up to the new millennium when it enjoyed much respect in and out of the campus press world, highlighted by an entry in the CCP Encyclopedia of the Arts, the only campus paper to make an entry.

Showcasing these grueling and glorious years of the paper will be the golden yellow pages of its past issues delicately framed in panels.

POPE BENEDICT XVI appointed Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams as the new Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines last September 3.

The 63-year-old former Vatican ambassador to Zimbabwe succeeds Archbishop Fernando Filoni, who was appointed a substitute for Vatican’s Undersecretary of State for General Affairs, the third most important post at the Vatican’s foreign affairs ministry. Filoni succeeded Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, who has been appointed Prefect for the Congregation for Eastern Churches.

Adams is the 15th in the line of apostolic delegates and apostolic nuncios to the country.

Born in Philadelphia, USA on Aug 24, 1944, Adams, who has a Doctorate in Canon Law, was ordained priest in May 1970. Adams began work in the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1976 and served in countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, Honduras, Ireland, Denmark, and Czech Republic.

THE YOUTH must face the problem of child pornography in the Philippines.

This is the call of Batingaw, a nationwide campaign against child pornography launched by the Anti-Child Pornography Alliance (ACPA) and Iskolar, an institute for youth development.

“We are the main victims of this evil in society,” said Lean Peace Flores, chair of the ACPA-Committee on Children and Youth Concerns. “Child pornography leaves far-reaching effects that may last a lifetime because these are lasting testaments of a child’s exploitation. It excuses no one: children who have access to cell phones with cameras are vulnerable to it; thus the proliferation of sex videos of minors taken through cell phones, finding its way ultimately to the Internet.

THE THUNDER of La Naval is expected to ring loudest next month when the Philippine Church and the Dominican Order mark the centennial of the coronation of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario, La Naval de Manila.

Now enshrined at the Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City, Nuestra Señora del Rosario de La Naval was the first Marian image in the Philippines to be canonically crowned in 1907. It is said that Pope Pius X had immediately acceded to the Dominicans’ request for the canonical coronation by writing his permission long-hand in 1906.

The festivities of La Naval were the most lavish and most-attended in Old Manila. They commemorated the miraculous victory of the outnumbered Spanish and Filipino defenders against the Protestant Dutch invaders in 1646.

“Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” - Gene Fowler

THERE must have been a time in every writer’s life when he gets stricken by that malady called the writer’s block. But though many claim to have experienced its lingering symptoms, its existence is still debatable, for most of the time it is confused with another writing illness, which, if left untreated, may lead to dehydration and the drying up of creative juices. I would like to call it the slacker’s block.

WHY IS it that despite great developments in the field of science and technology (S&T), the majority of people still live in poverty?

The question was one of many posed by the research paper Prometheus Bound: the State of Science and Technology in the Philippines. The paper, which was also made into a short film produced jointly by the Advocates of Science and Technology for the People and the Science and Society Program of the College of Science in UP Diliman, aims to identify the reasons behind the stunted growth of S&T in the country, and gain knowledge on how we can develop S&T in our country in a way that will benefit the majority.

The paper also discusses the inaccessibility of S&T in the Philippines and how, despite immense progress in the field of S&T, its advances have failed to reach underdeveloped countries like ours.

MY THEORY when it comes to traveling has always been like this: the lesser the gears, the lesser the wheels, the safer the ride. No wonder, bus rides during my summer excursions in the ‘90s kept me squeamish and nauseated while treading the uncanny roads to and from Manila.

This is practically the same reason why I have been consistently nagging my mom to get me a motorcycle ever since I was a kid. In my mind, bikers have always been cool, and just thinking about how soothing the wind will feel once I zoom in with my Japanese ride irks me as I can’t get one for myself.

But then again, there’s always the downside. The growing number of motorcycle accidents may have discarded my theory.

IF THERE is one thing worth emulating about the hounds of God, as the Dominican preachers are called for their loud proclamation God’s word in and out of season over the vast ends of the earth, it is their unwavering commitment to their religious vow of obedience to the Master of the Order and to the Supreme Pontiff.

This example has been further illustrated with the resignation of the three top officials of UST--Rector Fr. Ernesto Arceo, O.P., Vice-Rector Fr. Juan Ponce, O.P., and Fr. Edmund Nantes, O.P., prior of the Philippine Dominican province. Their resignations were accepted by the Master of the Order of Friars Preachers, Fr. Carlos Azpiroz Costa, O.P. The three resigned when Father Azpiroz signalled his desire for a “new leadership team” that would “create the consensus necessary for future developments at the University and Hospital” in time for its 400th year anniversary, according to a circular from the UST Secretary General.

“ARE YOU happy?”

This may very well have been the first question posed by Fr. Carlos Alfonso Azpiroz Costa, O.P., master of the 800-yearold Order of Preachers, to his fellow Dominican brothers during his almost two-week stay in the University which ended last Sept. 13.

It was no ordinary visit— but a canonical visitation—and the Dominican pope’s stay in UST was only a leg of a national tour to examine the state of the entire Philippine Dominican Province (as well as the Holy Rosary Province of the Spanish Dominicans) as part of his duties.

Under the Book of Constitutions and Ordinations of the Order of Preachers, Father Azpiroz is required to visitate the whole Order, “either by himself, by his assistants or by others,” at least twice.