It began on a rather freakish note. From out of the blue, The Varsitarian, UST’s school organ, came out swinging at Ateneo and La Salle, calling them “cowards and lemons,” and their faculty a bunch of “intellectual pretenders and interlopers.”
Kindly allow me to react to the article titled “CHEd upholds UST stand vs Go: Academic freedom” (Inquirer, 6/19/12).
The city government of Manila did a good job at making a stretch of España, within the vicinity of the University of Santo Tomas, attractive by installing gleaming streetlights and prettified street islands. It gives the impression that the place is safe and secure. That is why my wife and I usually enjoy strolling along this street on Sunday nights.
“Royal” and “pontifical” are the words that come with any mention of the University of Santo Tomas.
The closing this week of the year-long quadricentenary celebration of the University of Santo Tomas and the astounding report by the international bank HSBC that the Philippines would become the world’s 16th largest economy by 2050 by virtue of improving macro-economic fundamentals, its large population and rising education standards, should impress upon naysayers, many of them Filipinos themselves, that the country must be doing something right all along.
Creative application of academic freedom
The University of Santo Tomas may be the oldest Catholic university in Asia and may be acknowledged as one of the best universities in the country, but it has shown that age does not automatically translate into wisdom, and high academic standards do not necessarily mean sound administrative decisions. This is what it has done by conferring a doctorate in civil law on Chief Justice Renato Corona. According to respected journalist Marites Vitug, UST bent its own rules to give Corona an undeserved academic honor.
“If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?” Charlie Brown asks in the award-winning comic strip “Peanuts.”
The news item in Jan. 2’s Inquirer, where the University of Santo Tomas was reported to have urged the press not to drag institutions like UST to the impeachment controversy, and where UST also notably claims a “long tradition of integrity and untarnished reputation, commitment to excellence” among other criteria or standards to which it subscribes, reminded me of an experience with UST authorities involving a younger brother of mine, Agaton (“Aton”).
Renato Corona must be one very lucky guy. First (in the order in which the public got to know about it) Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo sneaked him into the highest post in the country’s highest court well past the day and hour when the Constitution allows an outgoing president to make such appointments.
I WRITE in reference to two Inquirer articles: “UST break rules for CJ” (Inquirer, 1/1/12); and “UST: CJ earned PhD” (Inquirer, 1/2/12).
The New Year portends threateningly significant events for most Filipinos. By mid-January, the Senate ignites the fireworks of a potentially tumultuous year with the start of the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
RECENTLY, MY husband and daughter and I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant and one of the items on the menu was “fried pork intestines.” I ordered the dish at once, prompted by a memory fragment that brought me back almost 40 years ago. I was then an incoming sophomore at the University of Sto. [...]
