Tag: Vol. LXXXI

DESPITE itself being a victim of tropical storm “Ondoy,” UST reached out to devastated towns in Rizal and Bulacan, holding relief drives from September 29 to October 2.

The Central Student Council (CSC) launched “Tulong Tomasino” as part of efforts to help victims in the aftermath of the storm, which left almost 300 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless after battering Luzon last September 26.

Jose Cruz III, director of the Office for Community Development, said the University extended help to the town of Marilao in Bulacan last September 30. An estimated of 1,700 families benefited from relief operations and a medical mission.

After being hampered by high flood waters and rains last October 1, UST volunteers led by the Philippine National Police Mobile Group pushed through with their relief drive in Cainta, Rizal the following day. They brought an estimated 2,000 bags.

IT WAS not only in UST where Thomasians felt “Ondoy”—the storm battered Thomasian households in Pasig, Marikina, and Rizal, the areas worst-hit by calamity.

While 3,000 students and professors were stranded inside the campus last September 26, at least 200 Thomasians were affected by heavy flooding, which destroyed homes.

The Central Student Council said initial data from different colleges showed there were about 200 Thomasians living in disaster areas. The number is still expected to increase.

Computer science senior Jerome Pascual and his family stayed at their house’s rooftop all night due to the high waters at the Provident Village in Marikina, where massive flooding killed 58 people.

“[When the flood subsided], we temporarily settled at our grandparent’s house in Tondo. We came back the next day to clean our house filled with mud. We have not yet finished cleaning as of this time,” Pascual said.

THE FACULTY of Civil Law was “disappointed” with its ranking as the seventh top law school in the country based on its bar exam passing rate, saying a list released recently by the Commission on Higher Educations (Ched) was “not that accurate.”

Civil Law officer-in-charge Augusto Aligada said UST has consistently been in the fourth place alongside San Beda College in producing the biggest number of lawyers every year.

UST garnered a 51.81-percent average in last year’s bar exam, way above the national passing rate of 20.58 percent.

“I am puzzled by the method by which [Ched] arrived at that conclusion because [it] should have considered the size of the school,” Aligada said.

UST dropped three notches from No. 4 in the 2008 ranking. The newly established De La Salle Professional Schools-Far Eastern University (FEU) Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Juris Doctor Dual Degree Program took its place this year.

THOMASIANS are still hopeful despite the “corrupt political culture” in the country, believing that electing a “business-minded college graduate” to the presidency could end the “dirty custom,” a University-wide survey has showed.

The “Political Opinions of the Youth Survey,” conducted last August 3 to 7 by the Research Cluster for Culture, Education and Social Issues, showed that Thomasian students see the upcoming elections as a “source of change.”

THIS is how you do it in May 2010.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic – the company tasked to automate next year’s polls – gave the Thomasian community a taste of how the first computerized national elections would take place.

Some 500 students saw a demonstration of the voting procedure using a precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine at the UST Seminary Gym last September 25.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez likened the computerized voting system to texting, “since the machine produces the election returns only in a minute.”

The PCOS is attached to a big ballot box, which has two compartments for “valid” and “invalid” ballots.

The ballot can be accomplished by shading small oval icons beside candidates’ names, using a marker provided by the Comelec.

Comelec is buying 80,000 PCOS machines for the polls under the P11.2-billion automation project.

UNITED States Ambassador Kristie Kenney has expressed support for the country’s first automated national elections in 2010, but stressed clean elections “are not all about machines.”

In a visit to UST last September 25, Kenney said the integrity of next year’s polls depended on the electorate.

“It’s not about having a machine in every voting center. As long as you are confident that the votes are tallied legitimately and people vote independently in choosing who they want to vote for, machines don’t necessarily matter,” Kenney said in a press conference at the Rector’s Hall.

She reminded people that there is no perfect candidate, saying that even US President Barack Obama did not get 100 percent of American votes.

When asked who among the country’s political figures may be likened to Obama, Kenney replied, “No one.”

UST’S TWO high schools finished second and third among 82 Manila-based private schools in new examinations on subject proficiency given by the Department of Education last August 20.

UST Education High School, the University’s laboratory high school, landed next to topnotcher St. Jude Catholic School in the National Achievement Test (NAT) for second year high school students, followed by UST High School.

Among the five subjects included in the NAT, UST High School got its highest score of 75.51 percent in English, but got the lowest grade in Mathematics, with 42.67 percent. The sophomores averaged 62.53 percent in Filipino, 59.61 percent in Hekasi or Heograpiya, Kasaysayan, at Sibika, and 56.45 percent in Science.

THE CATHOLIC Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) has agreed to the government’s revised Nursing curriculum, after changes on subjects and shortening of clinical duties were made to an earlier Commission on Higher Education (Ched) memorandum that made Nursing practically a five-year program.

Ched Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 5 was revoked last January, following the stiff opposition from private schools. UST was among the few schools that implemented the new curriculum.

Ateneo de Zamboanga President Fr. Antonio Moreno, S.J. said four years is enough to finish Nursing.

“You do not need five years to finish Nursing, unlike other courses like Engineering,” Moreno said during a press conference for the CEAP National Convention at the Manila Hotel last September 16.

“BAKIT ang mga taga-UST mahilig magsulat tungkol sa kamatayan? Don’t you even know how to live?”

Itinanong ito ng premyadong kuwentista na si Jun Cruz Reyes sa mga kalahok sa Palihang Pampanitikan ng Varsitarian noong nakaraang taon. Napansin kasi niya na sa ilang taon niyang pagiging hurado sa Ustetika (ang taunang parangal pampanitikan ng UST) at kasama sa palihan, hindi mawawala ang mga lahok na katha na may tauhang namatay o kaya naman ay tumatalakay sa kamatayan.

Bukod umano sa nakakabagot at nakakasawa na ang ganitong uri ng katha, tila nagiging tatak na ito ng mga Tomasinong manunulat, lalo na ng mga baguhan. At maging ako, guilty sa gawaing ito. Sa unang palihang sinalihan ko, kuwentong kamatayan din ang isinumite ko.

NOWADAYS, the fusion of education and technology in the University no longer seems like a far-off idea, with the introduction of the electronic learning access program (E-leap). But despite the technological advancements that E-leap provides, my experience with the technology was a mixture of love, frustration, and ultimately, appreciation.

I was given my first taste of the program in my sophomore year through the Literacy Training Service (LTS) of the national service training program. The training program’s first semester mostly dealt with lectures, quizzes, and examinations which were administered through E-leap. Since assignments were given occasionally, I encountered no problems with this new computer-based set-up. So far so good.