Tag: Vol. LXXXI

IT WAS a Wednesday night when our professor went on with his usual antics on politics, since next year’s presidential elections had been the talk of the town.

News was brewing that the administration was set to announce its standard bearer and Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro was expected to get the highly coveted endorsement.

The professor dismissed what was then just speculation, arguing that no matter how qualified Teodoro may be, the administration would not risk its meal ticket on someone “unpopular” to the masses, and even more to the elite. The confident professor even made a deal with the class that if the administration chose Teodoro, he would treat 40-something of us to Starbucks.

NEVER make your mother cry.

When Mother Nature cries, we soak and sink. As I type this column, my family and I are seeking refuge inside our humble house in Tondo. Lucky for us, the flood in our doorstep is only ankle-high.

But for those people who live in low-lying areas, roofs became instant evacuation centers, improvised boats, and even lifesavers against tropical storm “Ondoy.”

Flood has been a customary visitor of the Philippine household since time immemorial and probably until the end of time. A semester won’t be complete without major typhoons and flood sweeping through homes and claiming lives.

This scenario has been blamed partly on people’s dependency on plastic wares, excessive illegal logging, and other abuses that irk Mother Nature to her boiling point.

US AMBASSADOR Kristie Kenney saw the Tan Yan Kee Student Center “empty” last September 24. The following day, the Student Center served as a makeshift evacuation center.

This was after more than 3,000 students got stranded inside University walls due to tropical storm “Ondoy,” which caused massive floods and heavy rains in Manila. Perhaps, if only announcement of the suspension of classes had been made early, the dreadful incident could have been avoided.

A student leader’s description of the situation at the St. Raymund’s Building during the storm’s wrath was devastating. She described how students were craving, and even begging for food. Just imagine, you, together with more than a hundred of people, trapped on the second floor of a building with no electricity, no water, and no food.

First, the deluge. The wet wrath of Ondoy has exposed once again the Philippines’ lack of disaster preparedness. All right, Ondoy was unusual: it unleashed a historically unusual amount of rainfall – the worst flooding in the Philippines in 40 years. And yes, the tremendous rainfall was just a symptom of the aberration of global weather patterns as a result of climate change. But it is quite galling that for all of the Philippines’ history of disasters, for all of its status as the most storm-beaten country in the world, our disaster preparedness remains a hopeless mess. It’s a disaster. It appears that our civil defense and the rest of the Philippine state have only one perennial response to disasters, potential and real: let the populace sit as ducks, wet and wasted.

WITH a little more than a year to go, anticipation and excitement are building up for UST’s quadricentennial celebrations in 2011, and so are expectations for the once-in-a-lifetime event.

For the year-long event, officials have drawn up big plans consisting of a grand Christmas concert and “Paskuhan,” the unveiling of a new monument and a new University gym costing almost P800 million, an international conference and trade exposition, and even a song-writing contest.

The rationale behind the seemingly broad outlines for UST’s quadricentennial festivities is to show the University’s place in witnessing Philippine history, as well as in shaping it.

“The University wants to reaffirm its significant role in nation-building and service to the Church through its resemblance of moral integrity in four centuries,” Office for Public Affairs Director Giovanna Fontanilla said.

EIGHT months was all it took.

UST has long been preparing for its quadricentennial celebration in 2011, but did you know that a century ago, such a grand celebration did not take years of planning and organization?

It all started with what seemed to be a wild idea from then Rector Fr. Jose Noval, O.P. after his morning mass on April 28, 1911, the anniversary of UST’s foundation. He immediately asked a council of professors if the University should celebrate its 300th year. The vote was unanimous. The feast was set on the second week of December that year.

Nine committees headed by professors and Dominican priests were quickly organized. Some of them were the committees of Propaganda (media), Cooperación Escolar (cooperation among schools), and Funciones Religiosas (religious functions). The priority was to look for funding.

WHOEVER said that people nowadays do not read should have checked out the Manila International Books Fair (MIBF).

Primetrade Asia, Inc president Irene Lloren said the increasing number of people that come to MIBF every year proves how successful MIBF has been in promoting reading and increasing literacy.

“[The number of people coming to the fair] shows that many still thirst for books amid [advances in] technology,” Lloren said in her welcome speech during the opening ceremonies of the book fair last September 16. Primetrade is the organizer of MIBF.

Present during the opening was Sen. Francis Pangilinan, who agreed with Lloren.
“This shows how the Filipino values the need for furthering his knowledge, his education,” Pangilinan told the Varsitarian.

During the fair, Eros Atalia, a professor from the Faculty of Arts and Letters, launched his third book, “Ligo na u, Lapit na me.”

WIND-SWEPT leaves crunched with Martin’s every step as he approached the old mango tree standing high on top of a hill overlooking the city. The tree cracks of this tree were exhausts of aged breath as it struggled to stand against the strong winds that dared to blow it away. The branches swayed effortlessly, enticing strangers to take refuge under it.

Martin stared at the old tree, remembering how young and strong it appeared when he was an adolescent. He used to climb the tree to pick its mangoes when they were ripe, savoring them in his mouth. Everyday, he would swing from branch to branch, helping him develop muscles that he would soon sell for fair price as desired flesh.

Her acid lips preach futile words,
Flaccidly hovering over the pair,
Words flanked by incoherence,
And by inebriated minds.
The mist of deceit enshrouding,
As the rivulets of lies,
Drop to mocking curtsies.
She cowers before his frosted stance.
Facing the silence of blank walls,
Outside, the sun clashes with the moon.
Mika Rafaela A. Barrios

“ASTIG.”

Ganito inilarawan ni Mary Joy Angeles, nasa unang taon sa kursong civil engineering, ang pagsusuot ng damit na may disenyong three stars and a sun.

“Bukod sa ang cool ng tingin sa akin ng mga tao kapag nagsusuot ako ng ganitong damit, ipinapakita ko rin ang pagsuporta ko sa mga produktong Filipino,” aniya.

Mula sa isang awitin noong 1995, ang three Stars and a sun ay pinauso ng yumaong Francis Magalona kung saan ang mga elemento ng pambansang watawat ay ginamit na palamuti sa t-shirt, jacket, sombrero at iba pa.

Uminit ang pagtanggap dito ng sambayanan, lalo na ng kabataan, dahil na rin sa pagtangkilik ng mga kilalang personalidad tulad nina Manny Pacquiao, Apl.de.ap ng Black Eyed Peas, at ng grupong Philippine All-Stars na kitang-kita ang pagka-Filipino sa kanilang mga kasuotan.