Political Tidbits
The UP spirit
By Belinda Olivares-Cunanan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:36:00 06/23/2008
Typhoon “Frank” (international code name: Fengshen) hit Metro Manila and the Central Luzon region by surprise early last Sunday morning. It was expected to smash into the Bicol region after slamming Samar Island on Saturday and exit to the Pacific. CNN’s early weather updates showed that Frank would not make a landfall here but move along our Pacific shores. But it suddenly cut across to Iloilo province from the Eastern Visayas region and then swerved upward to the islands of Romblon and Mindoro all the way to Central Luzon, exiting through the province of Pangasinan.
A lot of blame is now being heaped on the Philippine Coast Guard (PCFG) and Sulpicio Lines for the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars off Romblon, but it’s clear that last Friday the ship was given the go-ahead by the PCG because only Signal No. 1 was hoisted over the Central Visayas region, for which a ship of that size was cleared. Nobody knew that Frank would be so unpredictable.
Weather bureau chief Nathaniel Cruz on Monday noted Frank’s most unusual pattern. He said that normally upon hitting land a storm would weaken, but Frank gained strength. Moreover, typhoons don’t normally hit Luzon in June. He said that a big lesson is that we should not ignore typhoon signals. “When it’s Signal No. 2, it’s best to anticipate an upgrade instead of a downgrade and be prepared,” he said. Amen.
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The Philippines joins many places recently visited by natural calamities, such as the Mississippi area in the United States, Burma, many provinces of China, including the recent earthquake zone in Sichuan province, India, Australia and parts of Europe. Yet, in other parts of the world, such as California and New York, a heat wave was taking its toll. All these developments are part of a world climate gone berserk due to global warming. But what I really worry about are the terrible effects these disasters will wreak on the global food situation, which was already precarious even before these calamities struck.
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The University of the Philippines (UP) put on such a grand series of events to celebrate the first 100 years of its existence and the sentiment of alumni who trooped back to their alma mater from various corners of the country and the globe seemed to be that they couldn’t have enough of that fabulous feeling of participating in its 100th birthday and reveling in its preeminence in the life of the nation. Its illustrious sons and daughters were honored for their achievements, and the three nights of concerts at the Cultural Center of the Philippines last week proved immensely successful.
But to many, the grand climax was the alumni homecoming at the Araneta Coliseum (made available for free by alumnus Nene Araneta) organized by the UP Alumni Association. The whole-day extravaganza featured various programs put up by the jubilee classes, with “Most Distinguished Alumnus” Chief Justice Reynato Puno delivering the keynote speech, in which he stressed that “in critical issues the UP alumnus has no right to be wrong.”
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Luckily Frank cooperated and it was only as we left the big dome at 6 p.m. that blinding rain poured. But what’s truly incredible was the display of that “Push On UP” spirit as the typhoon still raged Sunday noon. The college of liberal arts under its alumni president Tony Aguenza had scheduled lunch and fellowship at Bahay Alumni on the Diliman campus and many thought it would be cancelled. But lo and behold, so many alumni showed up, among them former UP presidents Dodong Nemenzo and Noel Soriano and their spouses, Princess and Angge.
Other colleges and departments had cancelled their own scheduled reunions at that time, but hearing that liberal arts doggedly went on with its own, many of them trooped to Bahay Alumni, e.g., the nursing golden jubilarians led by Essem Perez and alumni from biology, chemistry etc. That was not all. In the evening, many liberal arts alumni, led by Dodong and Princess Nemenzo, returned to Bahay Alumni for the scheduled ballroom dancing to the music of Nonoy Lopez’s band, with Ed Olaguer and Edu Abraham keeping the side-program going. That’s the UP spirit for you.
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UP alumni were inebriated with all the talk about how many presidents, Senate presidents and House speakers, national artists and national scientists, etc., were UP graduates. The new UP Charter signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was also cheered, especially the part freeing the UP from the salary standardization, which would enable it to give better salaries to its academic and non-academic personnel.
But a sobering thought was a media report last week on a recent survey showing that only two Philippine universities made it to the list of the world’s top 500 universities, namely, UP and the Ateneo de Manila University, and both were ranked poorly. UP leaders, such as former UP president Jose V. Abueva, opined that the listing was flawed as its parameters were open to question. For example, universities in more affluent countries are boosted by their bigger budgets since dividing these by their student population results in higher expenditures per student—an immediate plus factor. I understand that UP president Emerlinda Roman has written a paper disputing the results and I’d be glad to write about it. But suffice it to say that there is a lot of room for improvement and our target should be to make UP the leading institution of higher learning at least in Asia.
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June 26 is the 33rd anniversary of the death of Opus Dei’s beloved founder, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, who was canonized by Pope John Paul II on Oct. 6, 2002. To celebrate it, Masses will be said in various churches around the country: on June 26, 6 p.m. at the Manila Cathedral, led by Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, 7 a.m. at Mt. Carmel Church in New Manila, and 5:30 p.m. at the Holy Rosary Parish Church in Angeles City, with Archbishop Paciano Aniceto. On Friday, there will also be a 7:15 a.m. Mass at the Santuario de San Jose in Greenhills, San Juan. The public is cordially invited.
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