The Varsitarian P.Y. 2018-2019 Issue 03

Volume XC, No. 3 • October 30, 2018 THE OFFICIAL STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSIT Y OF SANTO TOMAS Manila, Philippines

DELIVER US FROM EVIL—WITHIN: Philippine bishops to update guidelines on protection of minors CRISIS threatens to engulf the Catholic Church after revelations of more cases of sexual abuse committed on minors by clergymen and coverups by the hierarchy in dioceses in New York and Pennsylvania in the United States and in Australia.

In the wake of these scandals, members of the clergy in the Philippines admitted that guidelines on the protection of minors set by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) are lacking and that better pastoral

response has to be rolled out.

Fr. Winniefred Naboya, the judicial vicar of the Diocese of Malolos in Bulacan, said the Church has been slow in responding to cases of clerical abuse and admitted that spiritual approach is not enough.

“The serious attack to the Church now is the apparent condoning of the abuses made by clerics,” Naboya told the Varsitarian in an interview. “For at times being silent and naïve and slow to act amidst reports of abuses. In my

opinion, this can be partly true in the sense that the Church has its own way of dealing with the problem. Spiritual and not legal was most of the time the solution or opting for the “removal and transfer” of assignments to soften or condone the issue.”

Naboya admitted that in the past, the “routine procedure as solutions to the problem” was by ignoring the issue or just by reassigning priest-abusers to different dioceses.

He said, however, that the Church has now

become “more rigid in disciplining her clergy,” citing Pope St. John Paul II’s motu proprio “Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela,” which stated that such crimes must be reported to civil authorities to make way for an investigation according to the laws of the state.

In a pastoral letter on Aug. 30, CBCP President and Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles called on canon lawyers and bishops to revisit the existing guidelines “with renewed resolve and

Protection PAGE 3

UST drops 17 spots in Asian ranking THE IMPROVEMENT of the University’s academic and employer reputation and citations per paper has become imperative after UST slipped in the latest Asian university ranking of the London-based Quacquarelli-Symonds (QS) along with three other Philippine universities.

UST, which now ranks at the 162nd place, obtained an overall score for the 2019 ranking of 33.6, down from 37.6 in the 2018 listing, where the University placed 145th.

“The results offered essential information to us in reinforcing [our] strengths and continuously work in the realization of our strategic action plans in improving the… University’s ranking in the growing global education market,” Nestor Ong, UST’s deputy director for the QS ranking, told the Varsitarian in an interview.

Despite the slip in UST’s rank and overall performance, the University improved in several criteria for assessment, compared with 2018.

UST managed to improve its score in international faculty, international students, inbound exchange and outbound exchange, faculty-student, staff with doctorate degrees and papers per faculty criteria.

Ranking PAGE 3 Capuchin caretakers assist devotees to touch the glass which encases the heart relic of St. Padre Pio de Pietrelcina. PHOTO BY MICHAEL ANGELO M. REYES

Thousands flock to UST to view Padre Pio relic

Thomasian tops 2018 CPA board exams

DEVOTEES of Padre Pio de Pietrelcina were urged to emulate his faithful heart amid social stigma, during the Mass in honor of the arrival of the saint’s heart relic in UST last Oct. 8.

Caloocan Bishop Pablo David said being on the police drug watchlist is the worst stigma in the country.

“This stigma can get people jailed or even killed and then people just shake their heads with pity when they see their dead bodies on the street alley, especially among the informal settlers in Metro Manila,” David said.

David, vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, reminded the faithful that Christ’s way is never to kill, but to offer one’s life for others.

THE BATCH 2018 valedictorian of the UST-Alfredo M. Velayo College of Accountancy topped the licensure exams for certified public accountants (CPA) this October, while four other Thomasians made it to the top 10.

Lahaira Amy Reyes led the new batch of Filipino accountants with a score of 91.83 percent.

Marc Angelo Sanchez placed fourth with a score of 90.33 percent.

Thomasians Charissa Mae Espinola and Kathleen Mae Puno shared the fifth spot, after scoring 90.17 percent.

James Andrew Licaros notched the 10th spot with a score of 89.33 percent.

The University’s passing rate, however, plummeted to 76.82 percent, or 285 out of 371 making it to the cut, from last year’s 91.99-percent passing

Padre Pio PAGE 3

UST hails National Artist conferment on Mañosa RENOWED Thomasian architect Francisco “Bobby” Mañosa was named “National Artist” last Oct. 24.

Mañosa, a graduate of the old College of Architecture and Fine Arts in 1953, is known not only as a talented designer and architect but also as a pioneer in the field of Philippine architecture.

College of Architecture Dean Rodolfo Ventura hailed the National Artist for his efforts to establish a style of architecture that “is more or less Filipino in a way.”

“He deserves [it very] much as he was able to

WHAT’S INSIDE

UNIVERSITY Faculty Union president defends backchannel talks in previous CBA negotiation.

PAGE 3

The Tiger Spikers celebrate their win against the Far Eastern University Tamaraws last Oct. 7. PHOTO BY ENRICO MIGUEL S. SILVERIO

come up with a style of architecture that is more or less Filipino in a way, as compared to the others that are neutral, in his case he really fought for that. [H]e was consistent in his designs and very much professional talaga,” said Ventura in an interview with the Varsitarian.

He said architecture graduates of the University should follow his example of being nationalistic and firm in his beliefs.

“Being nationalistic in a way and being firm with his beliefs as far as his style is concerned,

EDITORIAL

The AFP’s “Red October” plot proved to be a work of a factory of fiction writers instead of the defenders of Filipinos from the growing threat in the disputed waters and from their own commander in chief. PAGE 4

MEDIA MEN IN DANGER

The culture of impunity prevails as attempts to silence those who speak truth to power continue and journalists are killed in their line of duty. PAGE 4

CONCUSSION PROTOCOL

CPA PAGE 5

National Artist PAGE 7

The head injury of Growling Tiger Steve Akomo calls for the UAAP leadership to come up with a concussion protocol to avoid the incident from happening again.

PAGE 4

MIDTERMS 2019

Two UST alumni running for senator put education reform high in campaign agenda.

PAGE 2

LA NAVAL

Devotees of the Our Lady of La Naval were told to combat materialism and strengthen family ties during the celebration of her feast this year.

PAGE 7

MANILART

Thomasian artists mount their exhibits on 10th year of ManilArt. PAGE 6

TIGER PADDLERS

The UST Paddlers bag twin championships in the UAAP Season 81 table tennis competition.

PAGE 11

2 News

Editor: Julia Claire L. Medina

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Union chief defends backdoor talks in 2014 negotiations

By KEVIN A. ALABASO

UST FACULTY Union (USTFU) President Dr. George Lim lashed out on his critics in the recent union general assembly, defending his backdoor negotiation with the University administration in the previous collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiation.

Lim said the backdoor negotiation in 2014 with UST Rector Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P. was an alternative after the formal negotiation with the administration reached a deadlock.

“Backdoor negotiation is nothing negative, bad [or] evil. It is simply an alternative to negotiation in an open formal table,” Lim said in his president’s report during their general assembly on Oct. 18.

He added it was Dagohoy who called him for a negotiation without the presence of the union’s negotiating panel.

A deadlock is declared when the management and employee panels fail to agree on proposals during CBA negotiations, and could be a prelude to a strike.

In a consolidated statement sent to the Varsitarian, the newly elected set of union CBA negotiators said Lim compromised the rights and benefits of faculty members acquired from previous CBAs through his backdoor negotiation.

“Lim only has himself to blame. But the sad truth is he deceived the faculty members and up to the present remains remorseless about it and continue to cover up his sins to the faculty. There is no doubt [that] Lim’s backdoor negotiation will go down in the history of USTFU as the worst kind of negotiation where the rights and benefits of faculty members were sold out for nothing!” the negotiators said.

P150 million incentive Lim also clarified the P55-million deduction from the supposed P81.8-million faculty pay

hike supposed to come from the tuition increases under the existing previous CBA. He clarified that it actually took P150 million to finance the incentive in which a faculty member’s full load was reduced by 3 units to 21 units but was still paid for 24 units.

He said P20 million wasgiven to the professors, P30 million to associate professors, P50 million to assistant professors and another P50 million to instructors.

Lim said the USTFU Executive Board came up with the decision to take the cost of the salary increase from the tuition hike.

Charging the three-unit incentive to the 70-percent faculty share of tuition hikes deprived other faculty members and nonteaching academic staff of their rightful salary adjustments, the critics alleged.

In the union’s general assembly last year, then union vice president Rene Luis Tadle questioned why USTFU officials agreed to deduct P55 million from P81.8 million in tuition hike collections to pay for incentives to higher ranked professors whose loads were reduced due to the K to 12 transition.

By law, 70 percent of tuition hikes must go to salary and other benefits of all faculty members.

Lim also defended his decision to inhibit from the CBA negotiation panel as he did not want to get involved anymore in the dispute. “[If] you want to negotiate, [if] you think you are better negotiators [and] you can get more benefits for the faculty members, by all means I am all for that,” Lim said.

Lim inhibited from the 2016 to 2021 CBA talks in August after the elected negotiators contested his inclusion as chairman as he was not elected to be part of the panel.

Lawyer Jose Ngo Jr., Edilberto Gonzaga, Emerito Gonzales, Rebecca Adri and Michelle Desierto were elected members of the USTFU

Dr. George Lim addresses faculty members during the general assembly of the UST Faculty Union on Oct. 18.

PHOTO BY ENRICO MIGUEL S. SILVERIO CBA panel 2016-2021 last May 28.

Looming impeachment Lim addressed rumors about some faculty members allegedly seeking to unseat him as union president, asking if the impeachment was the majority’s desire or was propagated by “a noisy group.”

“I do not expect to be here forever. [I]f the majority wants me out, [I have] no issue [with that]. I would be happy to do that… I have done my part,” he said.

Last year, a signature campaign calling on USTFU officials to resign was launched

following the controversial outcome of the union’s negotiation with the administration.

Some faculty members also condemned the presence of some 20 security guards during their general assembly last Oct. 18 at the Medicine Auditorium.

They said the presence of the security guards during the assembly was a sort of “intimidation, threat and insult” to the teachers’ capability to behave well.

The recent general assembly also deviated from the traditional setup where the USTFU board was seated on the stage to discuss their agenda.

CSC, regents to meet Thomasian senatorial bets call for education reforms TWO THOMASIAN aspirants in the economics alumnus, and UST professor and Hilbay said the quality of education in on Students’ Code Senate for the 2019 midterm elections lawyer Angelo de Alban filed their certificates the country must be improved by reforming STUDENT leaders of the University are set to meet with the Council of Regents this November to discuss their draft of the proposed Students’ Code, whose passage has been delayed for 14 years now.

Central Student Council (CSC) President Francis Santos said UST Rector Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P. advised them on the possible comments of the University’s regents and deans during their presentation.

“He [said] we should take it into consideration who we are talking to. So if we’re talking to the Council of Regents, it would particularly revolve around the policies and moral values then sa Academic Senate we consider their perspective,” Santos said in a public discussion on Oct. 27.

The draft of the Students’ Code will advance to the Academic Senate, composed of the deans of the different faculties, colleges and institutes of UST once the Council of Regents approve of it before finally reaching the Rector’s desk for approval.

“We will come prepared. We are conducting researches especially on the academic policies of the University,” Santos said.

Central Board Speaker Rafael Arellano believed that the strategy to personally discuss their proposals with the deans and regents would expedite the passage of the code.

In a joint resolution, the CSC executive and central boards called for the creation of a Students’ Rights and Welfare Coalition, to consult students on the revision of the code’s provisions.

Arellano said they also plan to meet the administrators of different colleges, faculties and institutes to conduct public discussions and orient the students on the code.

Released last Oct. 17, the resolution, a copy of which was obtained by the Varsitarian, moved for the creation of legislative committees to review the provisions of the code.

The Central Board speaker will assign presidents of the local student councils to serve as committee members for the reassessment of the sections of the code, namely: Academic Rights, Access to Information, Due Process, Freedom of Expression and Right to Organize, General and Final Provisions, Miscellaneous Rights, Representation in Policy Making, Responsibilities of Students and Special Concerns.

CSC President Francis Santos said it was only apt for the CSC to publish the resolution as they should be held accountable for the code’s passage. “[M]ay mga provisions ang Code na baka hindi na rin akma sa panahon, so we need to look into it and rationalize everything, then consult the students along the way,” Santos told the Varsitarian.

The resolution also outlined the administrative role of the CSC executive board and central board in the renewed effort to secure the code’s passage.

Members of the Central Board were called to convene regularly on the second week of every month or when the speaker or Executive Board calls for a meeting.

Charter PAGE 5

vowed to improve the quality of education in the country should they be elected.

Former solicitor general Florin Hilbay, an

of candidacy (COC) before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last Oct. 16 and 17, respectively.

UST alumni Angelo de Alban (left) and Florin Hilbay (Right) will be running in the midterm elections in 2019. PHOTOS GRABBED FROM ALBAN AND HILBAY’S FACEBOOK PAGES.

the books and the training of teachers.

“The goal now is not just to get free education but to get free quality education and the best way to do that is by improving the training of our teachers and the quality of our books,” he told the Varsitarian.

The 1999 Bar topnotcher added that he wants to focus on the country’s problems on extrajudicial killings and disinformation.

Hilbay became the country’s top lawyer in 2015 when he was appointed by then president Benigno Aquino III. Prior to his appointment, he defended the Reproductive Health Law before the Supreme Court and handled the cases on the Disbursement Acceleration Program, Priority Development Assistance Fund, Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and Bangsamoro as a senior state solicitor.

He also became part of the legal team that defended the country’s rights to territory in 2016 over the disputed islands between the Philippines and China at the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal at the Hague in Netherlands.

As a professor, de Alban said he Senatorial PAGE 5

9 out of 10 UST grads pass boards for Kabataan at Ebanghelyo tungo sa kaayusan chemical technicians DAPAT taglayin ng mga kabataan ang salita

Usapang Uste

ng Diyos nang mabuo ang matiwasay na pagsasamahan sa ating mundo. Ayon ito kay Pope Paul VI nang bumisita siya sa Universidad noong ika-28 ng Nobyembre 1970.

Binigyang-diin niya na ang mga magaaral na nasa edad ng pagtuklas at kritisismo ay kinakailangan ng lipunan. Kaya, hinamon niya ang mga kabataan na tumulong sa kapwa sa gaano mang kapayak na paraan, at hanapin at mahalin ang pagiging malaya sa gitna ng pagiging responsable sa kapuwa.

Para sa kaniya, nakatutulong ang Simbahan na sagutin ang mga katanungan ukol sa buhay tuwing naipaliliwanang nating mga Katoliko ang ebanghelyo—ang natatanging sagot tungo sa total self-realization ng bawat tao, giit ng Santo Papa.

Si St. Pope Paul VI ang kauna-unahang Santo Papa na bumisita sa Filipinas at sa Unibersidad. Pormal siyang kinilalang santo nitong ika-14 ng Oktubre sa pangunguna ni Papa Si Pope Paul VI ay bumabati sa kaniyangpagbisita sa Unibersidad noong 1970. (PHOTO Francisco.

COURTESY: UST Digital Archives) Tomasino Siya Isang Tomasino ang kinikilala sa pagiging Music bilang cum laude. Nag-aral din siya ng mahabagin sa mga taong kinakapos sa pera masters sa Vocal Performance at Vocal Literature sa ngunit may angking talento sa musika. Siya si Eastman School of Music sa New York at nagkamit Maria Rachelle Gerodias na nagtayo ng Rachelle ng Professional Diploma in Operatic studies sa Gerodias Music Foundation Inc. na naglalayong Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. tulungan sa pamamagitan ng scholarship ang Nasa hanay rin siya ng mga award-winning mga underprivileged na musikero.

Usapang Uste PAGE 10 Nagtapos siya sa UST Conservatory of

THE UNIVERSITY recorded a 93.18-percent passing rate in the board examinations for chemical technicians, and a 74.29-percent passing rate for the separate licensure exams for chemists.

Forty one out of 44 UST examinees passed the chemical technician exam. Last year, all 21 examinees made the cut.

The University of the PhilippinesDiliman was hailed as the top-performing school after posting a 92.19-percent passing rate, or 59 out of 64 examinees.

The national passing rate rose to 45.05 percent, or 496 out of 1,101 examinees, from last year’s 44.02 percent or 526 passers out of 1,195 examinees.

UST’s passing rate in the licensure exams for chemists slightly dipped, with 26 passers out of 35 examinees, from last year’s 37 out of 49 examinees.

Technological University of the Philippines-Visayas was named the top performing after all 53 of its examinees passed.

The national passing rate rose to 87.32 percent, or 1,673 passers out of 1916 examinees, from last year’s 85.21 percent, or 720 out of 845 examinees.

Board PAGE 5

OCTOBER 3, 2018

Witness 3

DELIVER US FROM EVIL—WITHIN Philippine bishops to update guidelines on protection of minors FROM PAGE 1

commitment to implement them and not cover them up.”

“The present painful situation is a good occasion for us bishops to revisit and review the existing guidelines that we have for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults, and with renewed resolve and commitment to implement them and not cover them up,” his statement read.

In 2010, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI added sexual crimes committed by priests against minors under graviora delicta or the “more grave crimes” in the canonical procedure.

Naboya explained that cases of abuse on minors are irremediable and penalized by dismissal from the priesthood, citing Canon 1095.

In July of 2017, Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos, parish priest of St. John the Baptist Parish in Taytay, Rizal, was arrested for human trafficking after he was caught with a 13-year-old girl on the way to a motel in Marikina in an entrapment operation.

Antipolo Bishop Francisco de Leon relieved Lagarejos of his duties in the diocese and banned any form of communication other than to his counsel and brother-priests.

“Even as his guilt remains to be proven and the precepts of the Constitution grant him the presumption of innocence, the Diocese has taken every step to hold him answerable for the charges brought against him both before the Republic and before the Church,” the diocese’s statement read.

Cases involving victims who are 13 years old and below are considered “pedophilia,” “grave” and a “serious offense” under canon law.

Based on the CBCP’s guidelines, cases of clerical abuse are first discussed in an internal forum between the superior priest, the accused priest and the victim.

The case will elevated to an external forum where proper investigations will begin if the case is not resolved within the internal forum.

These cases are then sent to the Congregation on the Doctrine of Faith at the Vatican. The bishop waits for their decision on the penalties to be given to the accused priest.

The CBCP’s exhortation on the Pastoral Care and Protection of Minors, issued in 2016, states that “bishops will not pre-empt investigations by declaring innocence or pronouncing exoneration until after a thorough, impartial and credible evaluation of facts as established by competent evidence.”

It added that bishops must not allow the cleric involved in child abuse cases to leave the diocese, ensuring his availability during the investiation.

UST Faculty of Canon Law Dean Fr. Isaias Tiongco, O.P. said bishops should collaborate with civil authorities and not keep the case within the ecclesiastical forum alone.

Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias, a member of the CBCP’s National Tribunal of Appeals, stressed that there is a parallel justice system between the Church and the state.

“Kapag nagsabi ang biktima sa state, right niya ‘yon, at kapag tinanggap din ng estado ang kaso, dalawa na ngayon ang naghuhusga sa kasong maaaring iba ang desisyon ng simbahan at iba rin ang desisyon ng estado,” he told the Varsitarian.

The appeals tribunal, officially named as the National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal, is a 14-man team led by retired Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz that probes sexual abuse against minors and annulment cases of Catholic marriages.

Clericalism, formation and rehabilitation Tobias said one root of these abuses is “clericalism” or the mentality that the priest is a king.

“Clericalism, ‘yan ang dahilan kung bakit dapat maging mapagkumbaba ang mga pari, kasama ang mga obispo at relihiyoso,” he told the Varsitarian.

He said the CBCP should tackle the said issue in its next plenary session and added that cover-ups or reassigning priest-abusers to other dioceses should stop. “‘Kapag mayroong ganiyan, hindi na dapat

i-cover up. Kapag lumabas na sa external forum, wala nang magagawa. Hindi na puwede ang ginagawa noon. Nire-rehab na ngayon [at] inilalagay na malayo sa tao dahil [lumalabas] na risk danger na siya, parang hayop na nakawala na kahit sino kakagatin. ‘Yon ang mga ginagawa ng Simbahan ngayon: Wala

“The Philippine Church [leaders] have to brace themselves for any eventuality in the near future.

[T]here is a need to evaluate the local hierarchy’s mode and orientation in managing moral issues and crises involving the clergy.”

-Msgr. Manuel Gabriel kang parokya, nasa bahay ka lang ng obispo at nakatago ka lang dahil ikaw ay asong ulol [or] danger,” he said.

The prelate took a swipe at the media for allegedly wanting to humiliate the Catholic Church by looking only at the cases of sexual abuse in it and not toward other religions as well.

“Sa media, huwag niyo lang tingnan ang Katoliko dahil mayroon ding nangyayaring ganiyan sa ibang relihiyon. Kung hindi talaga mag-iingat, lalala ito kasi alam mo naman ang media gusto niyang ipahiya ang Simbahang Katolika. Maraming ganiyan na gustong ipahiya ang Simbahan dahil sa issue na ‘yan katulad ngayon sa nangyayari sa America, Canada at Australia,” he said.

He said, however, that the recent

Thousands flock to UST to view Padre Pio relic FROM PAGE 1

“The heart of Padre Pio, like that of Jesus, burned with a priestly way to save and not to condemn sinners. [T]the nature of God is not to condemn [but] to save,” he said.

David also called on priests and religious to draw inspiration from Padre Pio’s life and priestly ministry.

“Hilingin nating siya ang maging inspirasyon nating lahat upang manatiling maalab sa ating mga puso ang pag-ibig ni Kristo [at] ang pagsusumikap na manatiling tapat sa pag-ibig na ito sa kabila ng mga sugat na dulot ng ating karupukan at mga kataksilan,” he said.

During the send-off Mass, Fr. Louie Coronel, O.P., parish priest of Santisimo Rosario Parish in UST, said Padre Pio taught people how to remain faithful to God amid sufferings.

“What makes a saint is not what they felt

developments were only a challenge for the Church and its faithful.

“Parang ito ay pagsubok lang ng Simbahan na kailangan lang pagdaanan. Lalo pang lalakas ‘yan pagkatapos. Hindi natin maso-solve lahat pero kapag napag-uusapan ang mga kahinaan mas nagiging magaan sa atin,” Tobias added.

but how they made the act of faith, hope and love no matter how they felt. Pinilit pa rin niyang gumawa at manampalataya. We should not miss the chance to let God enter our hearts,” he said.

The UST Security Office estimated 100,000 devotees flocked to UST to venerate the heart relic.

The relic stayed in the University for an overnight public veneration until Tuesday morning. It was then brought to the Manila Cathedral. The relic will also be brought to Cebu and Davao.

Padre Pio was a Capuchin confessor known for his stigmata or the appearance of the wounds of Christ on his body, as well as for bilocation.

He was canonized by Pope St. John Paul II on June 16, 2002. E.D.V. ABOY and J.S. DE LA CRUZ

For Naboya, seminaries should be strict in accepting candidates to the priesthood, particularly those with “distorted sexual orientation or preference.”

“Those men with distorted sexual orientation or sexual preference, if not given due guidance, should not be accepted or even expelled in seminary formation,” he said.

Priests should also be “extra faithful” to live up their vows of celibacy and chastity, and stiffer penalties should be given to those who will be found guilty, whether in the canonical or legal procedures.

He added that both the abuser and the abused need psychological healing, and traced the cause of varying factors that lead priests to commit these abuses to family upbringing, community setting, media, friends and school.

The Catholic Church in the country offers renewal programs and spiritual retreats such as the John Mary Vianney Galilee Development and Retreat Center in Tagaytay that can accommodate around 45 priests, which also serves as a place for those who were defrocked due to sexual misconduct.

The center highlights its goal to “rehabilitation” by offering therapeutic and proactive programs.

The first aims to help priests who committed abuse while the latter focuses on the prevention.

Their “rehabilitation” services cost around P80,000 per priest, which includes his board and lodging to which his stay can last three to six months depending on the gravity of their violation.

The CBCP also had a short-lived program called “Assist Ministry” that aided priests who were convicted.

In 2002, the country’s bishops issued an apology for cases of clerical abuse titled “Hope in the Midst of Crisis,” where it admitted that over 200 out of 7,000 priests in the country had committed abuse or misconduct over the past 20 years. The priests were not named.

The release of the CBCP’s pastoral guidelines on sexual abuse or misconduct followed in 2003, a protocol to be used in addressing the said issue among members of the clergy.

In August of this year, a grand jury report in Philadelphia in the United States exposed more than 300 clergymen which were reported to have abused 1,000 children, which led to the resignation of Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl.

Thirty-four active and retired Chilean bishops have also offered their resignation following decades of cover-up on sexual abuse and destroying records.

In June 2018, Vatican ex-diplomat Msgr.

Carlo Capella was sentenced five years in prison after being convicted for child pornography offenses.

After being found guilty of concealing a sexual abuse by a priest, Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson also resigned in July of this year.

Combating clergy abuses What role should the lay people play in this crisis within the Church?

Msgr. Manuel Gabriel, executive secretary of the CBCP Committee on Basic Ecclesial Communities, said the laity must combat the clergy’s “varifold abuses” whenever they happen.

“The laity is what it takes to face the crisis head-on. They will have to combat the clergy’s varifold abuses wherever and however they occur.

They have to inspire their pastors to be servant leaders of the Gospel. The laity’s mission-driven life of faith will have to transform a new way of being Church, living communities of faith,” he said in an email to the Varsitarian.

Gabriel said the leadership of the Church in the country should evaluate how it is dealing with moral issues and crises.

“The Philippine Church [leaders] have to brace themselves for any eventuality in the near future. While the lay faithful might choose to deny that these scandals are not of alarming proportions in our midst, however, there is a need to evaluate the local hierarchy’s mode and orientation in managing moral issues and crises involving the clergy,” he said.

He admitted that many Catholics have “jumped out of the fold” after being “scandalized and betrayed by their shepherds.”

“They feel that the bishops’ staff failed to defend the young ewes from the attack of wolves in clerical garbs. Who protects them now when the ones who wield power are simply absolved when they abuse it? What happens to the fold when the very shepherds show no genuine accountability for the security and safety of their own flock?” he said. EUGENE DOMINIC V. ABOY, O.P., JOSELLE CZARINA S. DE LA CRUZ, KATRINA ISABEL C. GONZALES, BEATRIZ AVEGAYLE S. TIMBANG and CHRISTIAN DE LANO M. DEIPARINE

UST down in 2019 QS Asian ranking FROM PAGE 1

State-run University of the Philippines remained the top Philippine university in the QS Asian ranking, rising to 72nd place in 2019 from 75th in 2018.

Ateneo de Manila broke its three-year uptrend as it dropped to the 115th spot in 2019 from 95th in 2018. De La Salle University slipped to the 155th spot from 134th.

The University of San Carlos in Cebu retained its spot within the 301 to 350 range.

Silliman University dropped to the 451 to 500 bracket in the 2019 list from 351 to 400 in 2018.

Mapua University and Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology joined this year’s list, figuring in the 401 to 450 and 451 to 500 brackets, respectively.

The University received a five-star rating in terms of social responsibility, facilities, employability and inclusiveness, for an overall rating of four stars.

UST, Mapua University and Lyceum of the Philippines University (LPU) were the

only universities from the country with QS star ratings. Mapua University and LPU both received an overall three stars.

The National University of Singapore reclaimed its spot as the top university in the Asian ranking.

Nearly 500 universities were ranked from 17 countries in Asia. Hong Kong and China had the most schools in the top 10.

The QS ranking was based on universities’ academic reputation (30 percent), employer reputation (20 percent), faculty-student ratio (15 percent), citations per paper (10 percent), papers per faculty (10 percent), staff with doctorate degrees (5 percent), international faculty (2.5 percent), international students (2.5 percent), inbound exchange students (2.5 percent) and outbound exchange students (2.5 percent).

QS also introduced international research network as a new criterion for assessment in the QS Asian University Ranking 2019.

KEVIN A. ALABASO

4 Opinion

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Editorial

Duterte’s hollow Halloween yarn OCTOBER has passed and no revolution or uprising has taken place in the country, contrary to what the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has claimed to be a classic plot to oust President Duterte from power.

Called “Red October,” the outlandish plot is clearly Duterte’s way to celebrate Halloween at the expense of the universities.

Even as the wild claims of the AFP have failed to materialize, the military and its commander in chief have continued to mock themselves and subjected UST and other institutions to further humiliation by revising “Red October” to “White December” and resetting the uprising from October to December, when the Communist Party of the Philippines is supposedly set to mark its 50th year.

In its “Red October” conspiracy yarn, the AFP tagged UST and a number of universities in Metro Manila as breeding grounds of revolution where communist rebels had allegedly been recruiting students to join a grand plot to overthrow Duterte.

It has come as no surprise for the AFP to tag UST as one of these schools, as the University has shown support for the Lumad cultural communities of Mindanao, whose schools Duterte has threatened to bomb. Many UST students, faculty, and alumni had also joined mass protests commemorating the 46th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law last September 21. All of these protest actions were legitimate and exercises of democratic rights. They weren’t subversive.

It is appalling how the military made public the controversial list without presenting hard evidence.

Nor did it make the effort first to consult school administrators first, thereby exposing students of these institutions to danger to danger, much like those in drug lists of the government have been killed or clerics critical of government have been shot dead.

Clearly, the AFP in the administration of Rodrigo Duterte has a long way to go before it grasps the idea that activism does not automatically equate to communism—dissent is not destabilization.

Institutions and officials that shudder at and are shaken by criticism and dissent instead of being open to them and treating them constructively are clearly those who are insecure and weak; they are the forces of anti-democracy that are subverting the constitutional order.

And the AFP likewise should realize that it is its own commander in chief who’s fanned the red scare out of the communists he himself has resurrected.

Duterte has styled himself a socialist since the start: his costly programs of doubling the salaries of cops and the AFP and underwriting the full tuition of students in state colleges and universities are the reasons why the Train tax law has been passed, so that prices of commodities and services have skyrocketed, resulting in much public unrest.

Editorial PAGE 5

FOUNDED JANUARY 16, 1928 CHRISTIAN DE LANO M. DEIPARINE Editor in Chief KLIMIER NICOLE B. ADRIANO Managing Editor LEXANNE O. GARCIA Associate Editor JULIA CLAIRE L. MEDINA News Editor MA. ANGELICA D. GARCIA Sports Editor ARIANNE AINE D. SUAREZ Special Reports LOUISE CLAIRE H. CRUZ Features Editor ELMER B. COLDORA Literary Editor LYON RICARDO III M. LOPEZ Circle Editor MICHAEL ANGELO M. REYES Chief Photographer News Kevin A. Alabaso, Sherwin Dane Zauro C. Haro Sports Ivan Ruiz L. Suing, Theresa Clare K. Tañas, Justin Robert Valencia Special Reports Lady Cherbette Agot Features Alyssa Carmina A. Gonzales Literary Karl Ben L. Arlegui, Hailord N. Lavarias Filipino Francis Agapitus E. Braganza, Joselle Czarina S. de la Cruz, Chris V. Gamoso Witness Eugene Dominic V. Aboy, O.P. Science and Technology Miguel Alejandro IV A. Herrera, Beatriz Avegayle S. Timbang Circle Katrina Isabel C. Gonzales Art Nikko A. Arbilo, Marie Kloi Ledesma, Nathaniel Jonas Rodrigo, Jury P. Salaya, Rica Mae V. Soriente Photography Deejae S. Dumlao, Hazel Grace S. Posadas, Enrico Miguel S. Silverio, Jose Miguel J. Sunglao, Mark Darius M. Sulit, Genielyn Rosario M. Soriano, Mary Jazmin D. Tabuena Editorial Assistant Jose Miguel S. del Rosario FELIPE F. SALVOSA II Assistant Publications Adviser JOSELITO B. ZULUETA Publications Adviser

Letters/comments/suggestions are welcome in the Varsitarian. Only letters with signatures and corresponding contact details will be entertained. Original manuscript contributions must be typewritten, double-spaced, on regular bond paper, and should include a signed certification bearing the author’s name, address, year and college. The identity of the writer may be withheld upon request. The editors will not be responsible for the loss of materials. Contributions must be sent to THE VARSITARIAN, Rm. 105, Tan Yan Kee Student Center, University of Santo Tomas, España, Manila.

Dangers of working in the media

THE GRUESOME murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was another bitter reminder of how media men are still killed in the line of duty – that is, for reporting the truth.

Khashoggi, in his last column for the Washington Post, called for an Arab world where the press and the people could freely write about issues without facing threats or censorship from their governments.

What was ironic and at the same time, unsurprising, was that he was murdered for the very same cause that he had been fighting for.

Jamal Khashoggi, upon entering the Saudi consulate, was strangled and his body dismembered.

The latest information as of writing was that his body was dissolved in acid.

His murder is one of the many cases of media-related killings, not only in the Arab region but in the whole world as well, counting of course, the Philippines.

This year, the Philippines ranked fifth for the second consecutive year in the 2018 Global Impunity Index for being among countries that fail to resolve cases of media killings.

Shameful as it already

Those in power attack the press because they are afraid of the bitter truth. And in doing so, they are exposed to the different kinds of dangers in doing their duty. is, we were joined by South Sudan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia –as if we find our country in the same turmoils or unrest as these countries do.

But maybe it’s high time to admit: we are no different from them, much less our leaders do, for the way journalists or those who report the truth are treated.

For one, impunity killings in this country have prevailed thanks to a foul-mouthed president whose words have fueled the fire of his supporters to subject journalists who report critically of him and the policies of his administration to intimidation, harrassment and even death threats.

Those in power attack the press because they are afraid of the bitter truth. And in doing so, they are exposed to the

different kinds of dangers in doing their duty.

The shallow and narrowminded would try to justify these murders as something normal, with others, including President Duterte, saying some journalists are killed because they are corrupt or biased.

But is killing in any form or manner, regardless of who he is or what he has done, normal in any humane society?

One would hope that politicians suffer the same fate as some journalists did for being “corrupt” but alas, that is not the case.

Perhaps the greatest reminder that the dangers of working in the media are true would be no less than the Maguindanao massacre

in 2009, where 32 out of the 58 killed were journalists.

On Nov. 23, the case will mark its 9th year, but convictions have yet to be given. Surely, there is no need for repetition of such event to wake up public sympathy for those murdered for speaking truth to power.

Some of the worst dangers to the media today take the form of such miscreants as Duterte, Mocha Uson, Sass Rogando Sasot, and others–who seem to do nothing but spew lies, confusion and hatred which results in the continued ignorance or mediocre and uncritical attitude of most Filipinos.

But those who tirelessly attempt to bring down the press as an institution should not mistake these dangers as a red light for journalists. As they say, no story is worth dying for. But media men have went beyond that mile before so that truth may come out. What would make them think that this would be any different?

Media-related killings are true, as they have happened and are happening. But should we let it continue? To those in power who have something to hide from their people, the answer is creeping, silent “Yes” that will allow this culture of impunity and silencing the messengers of truth to prevail.

Akomo’s head injury: Wake-up call for UAAP AS THE country’s premier collegiate tournament, the UAAP should be responsible for the safety and well-being of its student-athletes.

But the recent incident involving Growling Tiger Steve Akomo should show that despite many of the UAAP members having university hospitals and sports medicine programs, the league still has no established protocol on concussions.

On Sept. 22, Akomo was flagrantly fouled during UST’s game against the Adamson University Soaring Falcons.

After he was momentarily knocked down on the court, he was still allowed to finish the game and was able to suit up a week later in UST’s matchup against the Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles.

The Varsitarian later on confirmed that he had been confined at the UST Hospital due to blood clots in his cerebellum after he complained of headache during the Ateneo squareoff. It turred out he had been compelled to play even if he had a head injury because of the Adamson tiff.

The incident exposed the glaring absence of a protocol in the UAAP on concussions or head-related injuries. It had

Without protocols in place, concussions are more likely to be missed and untreated, which would result in longterm consequences. already been apparent in the first game that Akomo was badly hit and yet he was still allowed by UST and UAAP officials to finish the match and even play in the succeeding game which only aggravated his condition.

Sporting leagues across the world, including the United States’ National Basketball Association and National Collegiate Athletic Association, have long imposed strict measures on concussions.

While it is encouraging to know that the UAAP has offered to set ground rules for possible head injury cases, the fact remains that no action has been done up to this day.

It is appalling how Akomo

had to be the sacrificial lamb for the UAAP to realize that the league’s safety protocols have been lacking. What happened to him could have been avoided if only the league had any sense of urgency.

Because of the UAAP’s lackadaisical interest on safety matters, Akomo will be out of action from the UAAP indefinitely.

As part of reiterating its commitment to the health and security of the players, the UAAP should also address the careless opinions of their commentators who tend to downplay injury risks.

After Akomo went down, Christian Luanzon, a former Tiger himself, quickly dismissed the matter, saying

it was just part of the player’s “acting job.”

Luanzon might have forgotten the hazards of the game he once played.

Basketball is a contact sport and injuries cannot be simply brushed aside.

Though commentators have the right to express their opinions, they should also be sensitive enough to think twice before saying them.

Concussions are a serious matter and the possibility of having one is no joke.

Akomo’s case should be a lesson for other athletes, coaches, schools and the UAAP itself that the well-being of the players should be paramount.

Without protocols in place, concussions are more likely to be missed and untreated, which would result in long-term consequences.

Any injury, be it light or hard, should be carefully examined and medical treatments should be sought immediately to prevent further damage.

While the UAAP is concerned that mandatory sitouts might have a big impact on the schools’ standing in the league, they should remember that the players’ safety is a top priority.

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Wanted: UST arts and culture office THE UNIVERSITY prides itself as an institution that breeds National Artists but it is a shame that it does not have a cultural arm, an agency that promotes the artistic freedom of its students and formulate policies and programs to make arts and culture thrive in UST. Unlike the University of the Philippines’ Office for the Initiatives in Culture and the Arts and De La Salle University’s Culture and Arts Office, UST lacks a center to formulate rules, regulations and student-centered programs that will boost arts and culture.

How do we expect to have a culturally literate student body if we do not have an office that will make the arts and humanities thrive on campus?

A cultural office will cultivate in every Thomasian the significance of the humanities and the arts in self-enrichment and social and cultural development. There is clearly a necessity for an office to house or coordinate cultural organizations, regulate the activities of performing arts organizations, formulate cultural policies and programs, and sponsor and sustain them, The Office for Student Affairs (OSA), which has the mandate to regulate all student activities and

It is high-time for the University to create a cultural office that will bolster and inculcate in every Thomasian the power of art and the humanities. university organizations, is not a suitable regulating body for the performing arts and other cultural organizations.

OSA does not have the competence to screen the seasons and programs of performing arts and other cultural groups, much less to censor or veto them, as theater companies have complained.

OSA through the decades has expanded the purview of its authority to cover all campus groups, including studentmajor societies and Greekletter fraternities, succeeding in neither.

This schoolyear, for example, OSA has withdrawn its recognition of all fraternities, practically penalizing them for following OSA rules compared with

Aegus Juris, which, despite OSA suspension, managed to haze to death a neophyte.

In any case, theater companies and other performing arts groups hardly receive financial support from the OSA. Compared to the performing arts regime of other universities, many of them with hardly any track record in producing national artists, the UST theater and performing arts scene is woefully bland, even mediocre.

The lack of a cultural league is one of the reasons why we cannot produce excellent plays and A+ productions that we can truly call ours. It is ironic how we were able to hone outstanding theater actors but were never able to craft even a single notable play that is a product of Thomasian creativity.

UST officialdom invests millions in its varsity sports program and in medical education (the oldest and arguably the best in the country although the medicine school is not an “earning” school).

But there’s hardly any holistic program at the humanities, arts, and culture, when in fact, as the oldest university in Asia, UST is also the oldest liberal arts school and the oldest institution in the humanities. One could look at the state of disrepair and desuetude at the Conservatory of Music (a Center of Excellence in Music Education according to the Commission on Higher Education) to see how the UST administration prioritizes the arts and culture.

The neglect of the culture and the performing arts on campus is likewise in disconnect with UST’s target of producing “competent, committed, compassionate” Thomasians who are able to articulate their discipline, advocacy, and the Thomistic vision of Catholic education to reconcile faith and reason, religion and science, the sacred and the secular.

Human resources managers have observed that Dear Theodosia PAGE 10

Editorial: Duterte’s hallow Halloween yarn FROM PAGE 4

The AFP should realize that it is Duterte himself who has raised the communists from the dead when becoming president, he reunited with his mentor at Lyceum, communist leader Jose Maria Sison, and appointed members of the communist movement to key positions in government.

It is also Duterte who has toadied up to Communist China and committed the treason of allowing Beijing to basically invade Philippine territory and occupy and

militarize islands in the West Philippine Sea. So if there’s a communist conspiracy, it is hatched right there in Malacanang whose resident is literally a Peking duck!

One need only to take away the blinders off from one’s eyes that this alleged conspiracy to topple the Duterte government is a ploy to distract the public from the true concerns of the country: hyperinflation, erosion of the purchasing power of Filipinos, Beijing gaining ground in islands that lie within

Philippine’s economic zone, and the genocide sponsored and perpetrated by Duterte in his mad war against drugs.

The AFP must consider the real sovereign problem facing the nation: that its own commander in chief has basically allowed totalitarian and anti-democratic Communist China to successfully invade the Philippines and set up military facilities whose guns are trained at Filipinos themselves.

The commander in chief has committed high treason pure and simple.

Thomasian senatorial bets

Charter

aims to establish a comprehensive education code that would set out the rights and obligations of teachers, students, school administration and government.

“We need more laws to protect and champion their rights as well as adequate budget side by side with full government support both on the schools offering special education and the teacher education institutions that are offering proper training of teachers,” de Alban told the Varsitarian, where he was once a Special Reports writer.

De Alban said he will focus on education, health, agriculture and housing if he is elected.

The Comelec opened the filing of COC for the 2019 midterm elections last Oct. 11 to 17.

Within the five-day filing period, 150 senatorial aspirants submitted their COC, a decline from the 172 aspirants who ran for a senatorial position in the 2016 polls.

The Students’ Code covers Thomasians’ rights and responsibilities in areas such as academics, freedom of expression, and organization and policy-making, among others.

Formerly known as the “Magna Carta of Student Rights,” the code’s name was changed to the UST Students’ Code in 2007 upon the request of the Academic Senate, Council of Regents, and the UST Board of Trustees who thought the term “magna carta” was too extreme.

In 2006, the CSC and the Central Board finalized the draft of the code during the term of former rector Fr. Ernesto Arceo, O.P. Arceo was ready to sign the Students’ Code but deliberations were disrupted when he resigned following a dispute over a P3-

FROM PAGE 2

Public office inexperience Hilbay and de Alban, who are both running for public office for the first time, said they are not discouraged despite their inexperience in politics.

“I’ve never run for any public office but I felt that there is a need to do it and so I decided to put my hand to the political reach,”

Hilbay said.

He added that it was a difficult decision to pursue public office because he was not part of any political clan.

For de Alban, this is an advantage as he is not yet influenced by the “rotten system.”

“I still keep my idealism intact. I am not too young to serve and I am not too old to be jaded that’s why I am in the best position right now to serve the public,” de Alban said.

He said he was urged to run due to the complaints of Filipinos on politicians which he described as “insensitive” and “callous” by being easily misled on the implementation of the Tax Reform and Inclusion (Train) law.

“I want to run for Senate so that the people will have ingenuine representation— someone who is qualified, competent and dedicated, ‘yong talagang mga galing sa kanila,” de Alban said.

Hilbay, on the other hand, was compelled by his peers who encouraged him to run.

“I think there is a need for me in the Senate [and] I think people need to have a wider range of choices and for quite some time now, some people have been egging me to run,” he said.

Comelec will review the list of candidates until Nov. 29 and the final list will be released in December. LADY CHERBETTE N. AGOT

FROM PAGE 2

Board

FROM PAGE 3

Down in electronics tech, eng’g UST was named the second top-performing school in the October 2018 licensure exams for electronics technicians, after posting a 97.70-percent passing rate.

Eighty-five out of 87 Thomasian examinees passed.

Last year, all 78 examinees made it to the cut.

Justin Allen Arciga of Holy Angel University in Pampanga topped this year’s electronics technician board exams with a score of 95 percent.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines-Sta. Mesa was this year’s top-performing school with a 98.30-percent passing rate, or 173 successful examinees out of 176.

The armed forces is the defender of the Filipino people, not a factory of fiction writers whose task is to invent horror stories so as to generate enough fear from the public and obscure the problems of the country and enable them to simmer down until the next unrest.

Sooner or later, this administration will collapse.

But it will not be from the result of an armed uprising as AFP claims, but from its own madcap messianic policies and programs that are destroying the country.

billion project to expand UST Hospital. Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P. succeeded him as rector.

Due to the sudden change in the University’s leadership, 2008 CSC president Angelo Cachero was forced to go back to square one with the Students’ Code.

The following year, CSC president Jeanne Luz Castillo submitted the charter to de la Rosa for final approval.

The code, however, seemed to have been forgotten in the year that followed. Then CSC president Leandro Santos II said in a previous Varsitarian report that the administration probably did not prioritize the Students’ Code “due to the Quadricentennial festivities.”

The Code last reached Dagohoy’s desk in 2015, during then CSC President Ina Vergara’s term. SHERWIN DANE ZAURO C. HARO The national passing rate declined to 81.66 percent, or 2,944 out of 3,605 examinees, from last year’s 89.50 percent, or 2,916 out of 3,258 examinees.

Meanwhile, UST’s passing rate in the electronics engineering licensure exams meanwhile dropped to 79.26 percent, or 107 out of 135 examinees, from last year’s 81.51 percent, or 97 out of 119 examinees.

University of the Philippines-Diliman was the top-performing school in the electronics engineering licensure exams with a passing rate of 98 percent.

This year’s national passing rate inched up to 49.49 percent or 2,326 out of 4,700 examinees, from last year’s 46.72 percent or 2,235 out of 4,784 examinees.

SHERWIN DANE ZAURO C. HARO

Opinion 5

Bobby Mañosa and Filipino architecture THERE is no question that visionary architect Francisco “Bobby” Manosa has long deserved being proclaimed National Artist for his significant contributions to the development of Philippine architecture.

Throughout his career, the proud UST alumnus has been outspoken in espousing vernacular architecture.

He has observed that various structures such as the Borobudur temple in Indonesia, the pagodas of Southeast Asia, the villas of Europe are identified with certain countries and specific cultures.

Thus, he carried the belief that local architecture must have an indigenous or vernacular structure that must represent local architecture idiom. Mañosa found that in the “bahay kubo,” as well as from various design

We need more people like Mañosa, not just in architecture but also in the other field of arts. Our artists must strive to contribute to the perpetuity of Filipino culture. motifs from Philippine cultural communities, such as the “salakot,” the vinta, and even the rice terraces of the Cordilleras.

As an architecture student, I would like to think that there is more to Manosa’s vernacular architecture.

Perhaps what we perceive is just the surface of what he really means, a crust of a much deeper layer of architecture. Or perhaps it is just his marketing tool, or he just means what he means.

The question on why there is no particular definition of Filipino architecture still remains today despite the many luminaries in the field. Does Filipino architecture even exist? There are too many questions at hand, especially for a young and inexperienced architecture enthusiast like myself.

But I do think that Filipino architecture should not be limited to using these indigenous symbols to link and represent our country.

Mañosa criticized the architecture in the Philippines as a culture that mimics, and we see the tangible evidence around us.

The kind of architecture that we have today is the result of a revolution boosted by the absorption of diverse inspirations. It developed from pre-colonial people, the Malays who migrated to these islands, continuing on to the Spanish and American colonial periods, and then to modern times. As a result, the Philippines has become an architectural melting-pot.

Thus, he carried the belief that local architecture must have an indigenous or vernacular structure that must represent a local architecture idiom. Mañosa found inspirations such as the “bahay kubo” designed with a deep understanding of our living conditions such as our climate, behavior of our people and the use of indigenous materials found locally from its environment -- as well as from various design motifs from Philippine cultural communities, such as the “salakot,” the vinta, bamboo, coconut, rattan, cogon, shell, adobe, even ash from the Pinatubo volcano eruption, and the rice terraces of the Cordilleras.

An excellent example for the application of his philosophy is in the Tahanang Pilipino, or commonly known as the Coconut Palace located in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex.

This beautiful structure is made of several types of Philippine hardwood, coconut shells, and an especially engineered coconut lumber apparently known as Imelda Madera. Each of the suites on the second floor is named after a specific region of the Philippines and displays some of the handicrafts these regions produce.

The roof is shaped like a traditional Filipino salakot, and its columns that can be seen at the facade are inverted coconut tree trunks -- indeed a clever architectural feature that not most artists would be able to think of.

As an aspiring architect, I want to follow Mañosa’s philosophy on promoting a genuine Philippine character.

As he is famously quoted, “Architecture must be true to itself, its land, and its people.”

CPA

FROM PAGE 1

rate, or 333 out of 362 examinees passing.

Accountancy Dean Patricia Empleo expressed pride over AMV graduates’ ability to consistently perform well in the licensure exams.

“If [Lahaira] didn’t top the boards, something must be wrong,” Patricia said in an interview with the Varsitarian.

Reyes was the fifth Thomasian who has topped the CPA licensure exams in the last ten years.

Alfonso Solomon

Magno topped the board exams last year, while Bren Cruz and Celaica Vibar shared the top spot in 2012.

Magna cum laude graduate Jhoanna Go also reigned supreme in 2008.

The University of the Philippines-Diliman remained the topperforming school in the CPA licensure exams this year, obtaining a 94.52-percent passing rate.

The national passing rate fell to 25.18 percent or 3,616 out of 14,358 examinees, from last year’s 30.45 percent or 4,511 out of 14,816 examinees.

SHERWIN DANE ZAURO C. HARO

6 Circle

Editor: Lyon Ricardo III M. Lopez

CTOBER 30, 2018

Thomasian artists mount exhibits in ManilArt 2018 ON THE 10TH year of the ManilArt on Oct. 17 to 21 at the SM Aura Premier in Taguig, Willfredo Offemaria Jr., an alumnus of the old College of Architecture and Fine Arts, reinvented religious iconography and gave it a contemporary edge in “Visita,” the featured exhibit of Artery Manila.

The exhibit drew from the Catholic Holy Week practice of the Visita Iglesia,” in which Filipinos would hold a pilgrimate and visit several churches.

“The challenging part here is trying to connect with the audience,” the artist, a Painting graduate, said. “If you’re not known or they can’t relate to your work, they will choose to ignore it.”

His work that stood out was a dimly lit pop-up chapel with a single kneeler and an image of Christ with a “What is your why?” written above it.

Meanwhile, UST fine arts alumnus Salvador Ching featured print works. specifically serigraph, or the stenciling method of printing ink through stencils and fabric.

Ching’s “Mood” was an orange-hued portrait of a Filipina with headphones.

Oliver Ramos, another Painting graduate, made his second appearance in the fair.

“My dream is for my art to have social relevance and tackle issues that are bypassed by society and [I think] this is a good start,” Ramos said.

His works were visual documentation of bicycle-riders weaving through streets.

Also among Thomasian artists who participated was fine arts graduate Melvin Culaba who exhibited “Social Pedia,” a 4

x 4 ft. painting of a toddler that critiqued people’s irresponsible use of the social media.

“People nowadays post or comment on social media to tease, to envy and to bully each other. They’re like children, they just accept all of the things they hear and see and these affect not only their emotions but also their personality,” Culaba said.

Architecture alumnus and pioneering glass sculptor Ramon Orlina enthralled the audience with his optical glass sculptures in his exhibit, “Apex.”

“Deeply Rooted” was a lavender crystal that mimicked the deep roots of a plant, while “Scaling the Summits” was a green glass apparently abstracting mountains.

Dominic Dubio, renowned for his paintings of 19th century Filipiniana, replicated his popular iconography but this time in brass sculptures in “Ligawan.”

Jordan-based artist Elmer Dumlao’s “Wisdom” was a mixed-media artwork depicting a woman and a lion’s thoughts bounded together.

Also featured in the art fair were UST artists CJ Tanedo, Flor Baradi, Ronna Manansala, Janos de la Cruz, and Roger San Miguel.

The country’s longest-running national art fair tackled the theme, “Ang ARTe ng Pilipinas,” and featured not only exhibits but the performing arts.

“We wanted to show the creativity of Filipinos through performances of other arts as well, such as music and spoken word poetry,” said festival director Teresa Rayos del Sol. KATRINA ISABEL C. GONZALES

This year’s ManilArt exhibit which ran from Oct. 17 to 21 featured the works of Thomasian artists such as Ramon Orlina and Wilfredo Offemaria Jr. PHOTOS BY MARK DARIUS M. SULIT

UST hails National Artist conferment on Mañosa “I am a Filipino and I love my country so I must help it. But it is not a one-man’s job so you and I must invent and exercise our culture into design.”

Francisco “Bobby” Mañosa National Artist for Architecture

The Coconut Palace (left) and the San Miguel Building (right). GRABBED FROM MANOSA.COM

FROM PAGE 1 being consistent, that is something we should cherish. The Filipino style of architecture was more or less, he was able to capture a distinct character that makes it relevant to the Filipinos,” he added.

As a tribute, Ventura said the college is preparing life size portraits of Mañosa and Thomasian National Artists for Architecture such as Leandro Locsin, Idelfonso Santos and Jose Maria Zaragoza to be displayed at the Beato Angelico Building.

The attempt to catch the Philippine psyche and to make the Filipinos acknowledge and recognize the beauty of their own has been Mañosa’s goal.

His personal style has eschewed foreign influence and encouraged Filipino architects to believe in one’s creativeness and to stop using alien cultures and designs.

Architect and historian Gerard Lico said Mañosa’s innovative use of indigenous materials has become his signature.

“He is in a constant search for new technologies and methodology to cast the status of indigenous building materials as a suitable material for contemporary construction and modern decoration,” Lico told the Varsitarian.

His father Manuel Mañosa, a former dean of the Faculty of Engineering, was the one who pushed him to take up architecture but his musical creativity still reflected in the playfulness of his designs and structures.

In his college days, he discovered his take on Filipino architecture, coming across a philosophy called “organic architecture” or the conceptualization of designs that were created in harmony with nature and physical conditions.

From this discovery, he established his design philosophy of sustainability and versatility of organic and local materials.

In an interview with the Varsitarian back in 2010, Mañosa said architecture is not about the tedious imitation of others’ work, but about imagination and innovation.

“This process of creation must strive to express who we are and define our unique place in this world,” he said.

For more than 50 years, Mañosa has endorsed Philippine architecture after seeing that Filipinos have become more interested in the architecture of other countries.

“I was so touched by all the distinct architectures of the world that I convinced myself on pursuing this Filipino

architecture. To do Filipino, I must know my country, and I have to believe in what my country can offier,” he added.

He is also known for injecting high ceilings, steep and sloping roofs, large windows and angular overhangs in his designs to accommodate the country’s tropical weather.

One example of this experiment was the Coconut Palace made of Philippine hardwood and coconut shells.

He once deviated from his typical architectural works and created playscape designs and Filipino-inspired toys such as the seasoned carnival Bigbang sa Alabang in Muntinlupa and Bobi trucks and tipaklong.

His other works are the San Miguel Building in Ortigas, the Shrine of Mary in Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), the St. Joseph Church in Las Piñas and the San Lorenzo Ruiz Monument in Manila.

In 2009, he was proclaimed a National Artist by former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but in 2013, he, along with four other recipients, was stripped of the title by the Supreme Court.

Ma. Rebecca Peñafiel, an associate professor of the College of Architecture, emphasized the influence of Mañosa on Filipino architects such as herself.

“Every time we design a building we think about reflecting our culture in the use of spaces, about providing cross ventilation, ensuring enough sunlight reaches the interiors, [and so on],” Peñafiel said. “This is because this is what he taught us.”

Last year, the UST’s Heritage Conservation Society-Youth Chapter organized “Visionary Comes Home: A Mañosa Beyond Architecture,” an exhibit solely dedicated to Mañosa’s work.

Mañosa received numerous awards and recognitions including the Knighthood of the Pontifical Order of St. Gregory in 1979, the Golden Award in the field of Architecture from the United Architects of the Philippines in 1989 and the Cultural Center of the Philippine’s (CCP) Award for the Arts in the field of Architecture in 2004.

The National Artists Award is the highest recognition given to an individual who has exhibited significant contributions to the Philippine art scene.

Inducted in 1972, this award is a joint recognition by the CCP and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). SHERWIN DANE ZAURO C. HARO and KATRINA ISABEL C. GONZALES

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Circle 7

Dingdong Fiel leads classical concert at Maybank INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed pianist Heliodoro “Dingdong” Fiel orchestrated a concert with Filipino classics and Kundiman repertoire in “Madly Filipina” on Oct. 21 at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in Taguig, Fiel, an alumnus of the Conservatory of Music, rounded up a cast of Thomasian musicians for the concert.

“I’m a collaborative musician – that’s what I do at UST,” Fiel told the Varsitarian. “A lot of you (UST musicians) guys are really talented, but there are certain people with certain strengths, and that’s what I found in this group.”

For a festive opening, the audience was serenaded with romantic songs such as Nicanor Abelardo’s “Bituing Marikit” and Constancio de Guzman’s “Pamaypay ng Manila.”

Music alumna Rachelle Gerodias rendered Francisco Santiago’s “Ano Kaya ang Kapalaran?” with piano accompaniment by former Music dean Raul Sunico.

Gerodias, with the Koro ng Unida and Kalilayan Folkloric Group. a dance troupe, also serenaded the crowd with a rousing verison of Nina Gilbert’s

“Pandangguhan.”

The concert ended with a rendition of De Guzman’s “Bayan Ko.” “I think it is especially important today to realize the cultural value of our music and to keep it alive in whatever way we can,” said Gerodias.

Rising pianist At the age of 13, Fiel started fiddling with the black and white keys of his piano out of sheer curiosity.

He decided to pursue Bachelor of Music in Performance major in Piano in UST. Fiel showed his exemplary skill in music when he won the first prizes at the UST Etude Competition in 2002, UST Mozart/Haydn Sonata Competition, and UST Beethoven/Schubert Sonata Competition in 2003.

Under Sinagtala Label, he was given a chance to record the album, “Souvenirs de Filipinas,” which featured the music of “Father of Kundiman Art Song” Francisco Santiago.

In 2007, he graduated magna cum laude and received the Rector’s Award for Academic Excellence and the Benavides Award for Outstanding Achievement. He was honed by former Conservatory dean Erlinda Fule.

To further widen his musical excellence, he acquired his Master’s degree in Piano Performance and Piano Accompaniment at the Honschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, Germany in 2009. His mentor was German rector Rolf Arens and German pianist Karl Kammerlander.

Fiel wrote musical scores for the French silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” Greek silent film “The Greek Miracle” and Spanish film “Pilar Guerra.”

He performed in different countries such as Spain, Japan, China and Italy.

In 2012, he was the musical director of “Forbidden Broadway,” a Broadway production featuring influential singers such as Lea Salonga, Nyoy Volante and Jett Pangan.

“I’d like to think [that] everything is interconnected,” said Fiel. “For instance, rock music essentially came from classical technique or forms… there’s no idea that sprouted from nothing.”

Fiel garnered music awards locally and internationally, such as the 2005 Ernesto Lejano Award, 2006 Piano Teacher’s Guild of the Philippines, Mozart Piano Concerto Competition, and 2008 Eivissa International Piano Competition in Spain. LYON RICARDO III M. LOPEZ

Heliodoro “Dingdong” Fiel leads a classical concert at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater with Thomasian musicians last Oct. 21.

PHOTOS BY DEEJAE S. DUMLAO

UST alum best cinematographer in 2018 QCinema festival

The centuries-old image of the Our Lady of La Naval is paraded during the grand procession last Oct. Oct. 14.

PHOTO BY HAZEL GRACE S. POSADAS Neil Daza, a UST alumnus, bags the Best Cinematography award for his film “Oda sa Wala” in this year’s QCinema festival PHOTO BY DEEJAE S. DUMLAO

VETERAN cinematographer Neil Daza won the “Best Cinematography” for the film “Oda sa Wala” in the QCinema International Film Festival (QCinema) last Oct. 26 at Novotel in Araneta, Quezon City.

The film, directed and written

by Dwaine Baltazar, revolves around Sonya (played by Marietta “Pokwang” Subong), an old maid whose life withers away like the corpses she handles in her family’s funeral parlor. Her life changes when the parlor receives a mysterious corpse that brings luck into her life for a while.

In designing the movie’s photography, Daza said he got his inspiration from the melancholic and haunting atmosphere of funeral parlors.

“The over-all feeling of dusk; it’s that time of day when the colors slowly start to fade and the sunlight slowly disappears,” said Daza in an interview with the Varsitarian.

Daza, alumnus of the old College of Architecture and

Fine Arts, also bagged the best cinematography award in the 2018 Cinemalaya last Aug. 12 for the movie “Kung Paano Hinihintay ang Dapithapon.”

Daza said he was pleased with the results of his work despite a limited budget and tight schedule for shooting.

“It mixes in terms of genre, there isn’t a specific category; some [scenes] are silent while others are filled with life and drama, so you really can see the extremes of the movie,” he said.

“Oda sa Wala” also clinched five other awards in QCinema, best picture, best screenplay, best director and best actress.

QCinema is the official film festival of the Quezon City government.

Daza’s other notable films are “Nabubulok” and “Ghost Bride” (both 2017), ““Etiquette for Mistresses” (2015), “Bwaya” (2014), “Dekada ’70” (2002), and “Yamashita: The Tiger’s Treasure” (2001). KATRINA ISABEL C. GONZALES

Shun materialism, La Naval devotees told CUBAO Bishop Honesto Ongtioco called on devotees to end materialism and strengthen family ties through the rosary, in a Mass for the feast of Our Lady of La Naval de Manila at Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City.

“Kung minsan kasi, [a]ng yaman ng tao ay binabase natin sa materyal na bagay pero inuulit ng ating Mahal na Ina, ang tunay na yaman ng tao ay matatagpuan, makikita [at] matutuklasan sa paglapit niya sa Diyos. [D] ahil ang nagpapayaman sa tao ay ang kaniyang relasyon [at] pakikipag-ugnayan sa Diyos,” Ongtioco said in his homily.

Ongtioco called for the preservation of the tradition of praying the rosary as a family.

“Marami tayong krisis sa ating bansa, sa ating pamilya, sa mundo, heto ang paraan — panalangin, pagrorosaryo para sa pamilya at pagrorosaryo sa pamilya. [H]indi nakukuha sa pagbilis ng pagdarasal. Pray the rosary with great devotion, slowly meditate on the mystery,” he said.

Ongtioco said people should draw inspiration from the Blessed Mother’s obedience and humility amid challenges against faith.

“Tularan ang kababaang loob, ang disposisyon ni Maria sa kaniyang pag-angking sa anumang plano ng Diyos, [k]apag marunong tayong magtiwala, [at] nagbibigay tayo ng daan para sa kaniyang plano, tiyak na bibiyayaan tayo,” he said.

During the enthronement rites last Oct. 4, Fr. Roger Quirao, prior of the Santo Domingo Convent, urged the devotees to strive for holiness by emulating the Blessed Mother’s simplicity “Mary is the very model of life we should live. Her holiness is still remembered here. She renounced her own personal gain and she grew more by means of her small gestures of kindness and love,” he said in his homily.

Echoing the Holy Father, Quirao said holiness is not found in “complex ideologies” but in living a simple lifestyle.

Quirao challenged the devotees to follow Mary’s readiness to help those in need.

“Let’s hope that through our prayers and the Blessed Mother’s intercession, we may experience a change in each of our lives and in our faith,” he said in Filipino.

A grand, two-hour procession of the centuries-old image of Our Lady of La Naval, along with Dominican saints, followed the Mass.

The oldest ivory carving in the Philippines, the image of Our Lady of La Naval was a gift to the Dominicans from a Chinese artisan in 1593.

The procession, which gathered around 50,000 devotees this year, honors the Marian intercession for the victory of Filipino and Spanish troops over Protestant Dutch invaders in 1646. EUGENE DOMINIC V. ABOY, O.P. and JOSELLE CZARINA S. DE LA CRUZ

8 Literary

Editor: Elmer B. Coldora

OCTOBER 3, 2018

Thomasian writers win in 68th Palanca awards

By HAILORD N. LAVARIAS | Photos by HAZEL GRACE S. POSADAS

Journalism alumna Iza Maria Reyes receives her prize for bagging third place for the sanaysay category.

UST Literature faculty member Paul Castillo receives his award for winning the grand prize for the Tula category.

PAUL CASTILLO, a faculty member of the Department of Literature of the Faculty of Arts and Letters and a resident fellow of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (CCWLS), led Thomasian winners in the 68th Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature last Oct. 5 at the Peninsula Manila in Makati.

Castillo won the grand prize for Tula (poetry in Filipino) for Luna’t Lunas, a 12-poem collection on medicinal and hallucination-inducing plants.

Castillo said winning the Palanca was a “validation” for a budding writer

like him.

He said his winning collection was inspired by the pharmaceutical properties of plants. “[My fiancée and I] went to Lucban and we saw these plants that are said to be hallucinatory…the kalampunay,” he said. “I wrote my poetics out of that.

Castillo added his poetry on plants’ medicinal properties were also inspired by his mother. Castillo’s literary promise had been prefigured five years ago when, as a BSE-AB Sociology student, he won first prize for tula in the Ustetika literary contest

Former Varsitarian writer Chuck Smith poses for a photo with his award for third place in the essay category.

of the Varsitarian and afterward, the Rector’s Literary Award in 2013.

Meanwhile, journalism alumni Iza Maria Reyes and Chuck Smith won third place for sanaysay and essay, respectively.

Reyes’ winning work, “Hindi Ako Dalisay,” is a personal essay in which she tackled the social pressures she felt when she became pregnant right after graduation. She explained people judged her “without first knowing my story.”

“Don’t be afraid to write your own life stories, because for me, it is your responsibility to let other people

hear your story,” she added. “They (readers) will get to realize and learn something from what you will write.”

Chuck Smith, former Features and News writer of the Varsitarian, won for “Origin Story,” a personal essay in Filipino about growing up believing that he was a son of a “bold star,”as actors in sex flicks in the 1970’s and 1980’s were known. The piece also discusses his experience as an entertainment journalist.

Meanwhile two former fellows of the UST National Writer’s Workshop were also recognized, Ronnie Baticulon and Francis Paolo Quina.

Baticulon, a 2007 fellow, won second place in the Essay category for his work, “Some Days You Can’t Save Them All,” a piece that is based on his experiences as a neurosurgery resident at the Philippine General Hospital.

Quina, a 2016 fellow, won second prize in Short Story for “Pigs,” about a young man who is bullied both at home and in school; he finds refuge in his drawings and his older brother’s stories about life as a butcher.

The judges for Short Story were Susan Lara, Rica Bolipata-Santos and CCWLS associate director Ralph Galan.

Avenida In the rustic terminal, he is waiting but not wanting to go, hoping that every arriving bus doesn’t carry the sign leading to Avenida.

Not that he hates the place, he just knows Avenida too well— not much about its notoriety, or the queer but inviting trades— but because as soon as it welcomes him, he knows he has to depart from it, unguided, finding himself lost in its lights, every time.

This he feels not from fear, but from difference— of the abundance of being the province gives, and the denial of the city to grant the same.

But despite this, he continues to convince himself of the need to repeatedly travel to it— although the city needs him less than he does— living in the dream of choosing the future, and recognizing the long wait for a good one.

Now, as soon as the dreaded vehicle arrives, he just needs to believe that leaving is the only way to go back again. HAILORD N. LAVARIAS

Writers Romulo Baquiran, Jr., Vijae Alquisola and Allan Popa tackle the ethical responsibilities in writing during the 14th Creative Writing Workshop last Oct. 27. PHOTO BY MICHAEL ANGELO M. REYES

Poets, fictionists tackle ethical responsibility in UST creative writing workshop SOME OF the country’s top poets and fictionists tackled ethical responsibility in writing about mental health and other sensitive topics during the 14th Creative Writing Workshop held at the Tan Yan Kee Student Center last Oct. 27-28.

Poet Vijae Alquisola said authors have an ethical responsibility in representing people dealing with mental health issues.

“Creative writing is not merely an expression of the author. Even if you have a first-hand experience, always consider yourself as an outsider because the danger to misrepresent the issue is always there,” he said.

Joselito de los Reyes, chairman of the UST Department of Literature, urged young writers to research when writing about personal traumas. “[A] creative writer is perceived as someone who just make their own stories.

Let’s change that because we are doing tremendous research especially if it is a sensitive topic,” Reyes said.

Poet Allan Popa urged writers to create “new metaphors” in their writings.

“Maybe it is the metaphors of your milieu that might give dynamics on how we can understand the modern way of living,” Popa said.

Another poet, Mookie KatigbakLacuesta, also emphasized the need for “youthful exuberance” in writing.

“The older you get, the harder you write. That’s why you, guys, should be observant on your experiences and just keep on writing while you still can,” Lacuesta said.

Other panelists in the workshop were Chuckberry Pascual and Beverly Siy (katha); Paolo Melendez and Susan Lara (fiction); Allan Pastrana and Ned Parfan (poetry); and Romulo Baquiran, Jr. (tula).

This year’s 16 fellows were Joseph Verallo, Aleia Anies, Melissa Mendiola and Isabel Pine (fiction); Sofia Navarro, Nicole Abesamis, Ryan Veluz and Ivan Gentolizo (katha); Celine Garcia, Leigh Disdo, Vivien Leynes and Christian Claridad (poetry); and Philip Jamilla, Jefson Felix, John Orpilla and Hailord Lavarias (tula).

KARL BEN L. ARLEGUI

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Sci-Tech 9

Funding woes seen in new healthcare program THOMASIAN doctors commended the passage of the Universal Healthcare Bill in Senate but warned of major challenges ahead.

The Senate passed the measure on Oct. 10 with 14 senators voting in favor of the bill, while the House of Representatives passed its version back in 2017.

A bicameral conference committee would still reconcile the two versions.

UST alumnus Dr. Anthony Leachon, the independent director of Philhealth, said the government could not only depend on several institutions for the sustainability of the program.

“The government will face huge challenges in the deployment of resources [and] sustainable funds for universal healthcare which can’t be fully dependent on Pagcor, DSWD, PCSO and premiums from Philhealth,” he told the Varsitarian in an interview.

The government initially plans to fund the project with P100 billion annually, but Leachon projected that its cost would amount to about P250 billion to “achieve the universal healthcare’s goals.”

He stressed that if the bill became a law, it would need massive support from other departments of the government, with local government unit heads leading its implementation.

The biggest problem would be poor execution of the measure and the unwanted meddling of politicians in managing resources, he noted.

Dr. Benjamin Quito, a cardiologist from UST, expressed doubts as well if the proposed budget would be enough to cover the rising population.”l “I am not sure if that [would be enough]. Only Filipinos in developed areas gain access to what is ideal in terms of health care,” he told the Varsitarian in an interview.

Quito said the passage of the bill would allow Filipinos to have “access to basic and most complicated procedures necessary for a better quality of life.”

He lamented how the present healthcare system of the country is restrictive as not everyone could afford the cost.

“I see a lot of our countrymen forego their opportunity to have the proper treatment.

For example, an emergency coronary angiogram with angioplasty would be life-saving in a patient with a life-threatening heart attack, but not all consent to avail of this treatment due to the cost,” Quito told the Varsitarian.

He added that hypertensive and heart failure patients fail to take their medications because of the expensive cost.

The bill seeks to register all Filipinos into a National Health Security Program, which replaces PhilHealth or the National Health Insurance Program.

Under the National Health Security Program, the membership will be either contributory or for those who can pay for their health premiums; or non-contributory or for senior citizens and the poor who would be shouldered by the government.

Funding Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, a UST alumnus, has reportedly said that a major source of funds for the government’s flagship health program would come from sin taxes from cigarettes.

Sin tax is an excise tax imposed on cigarettes, gambling,

Doctors from the UST Hospital allay concerns over the funding and implementation of the government’s Universal Healthcare program.

FILE PHOTO alcohol and other things that may cause moral or medical harm.

Along with other Sin Tax Coalition members, Leachon lobbies for an initial increase of P30 to P60 in sin taxes to be able to fund the healthcare program, then on to an annual 9-percent increase.

Budget from sin tax incremental revenue stood at P111 billion for 2017 alone, and should the government double the taxes, the revenue would reach P200 billion, ex-Health secretary Paulyn Ubial noted in a talk in UST last year.

“The sin tax right now [of tobacco] is about less than P25 [and] one pack is about P50. If we double the tax, the cigarette will cost around P75 and we will get an additional P100 billion in the budget,” she explained.

Quito said increasing sin tax for additional budget on the healthcare program could also discourage cigarette smokers and said he hopes the budget would reach the right places.

“I hope that when the bill becomes a law, physicians would have the autonomy to decide what is best for their patients. I hope that the funds would be put to the proper hands, free of corruption,” he said.

Dr. Anita Sangalang, an obstetrics gynecologist and assistant professor at the UST Faculty of Pharmacy, stressed the important

role of the government in realizing a successful universal health care in the country, with the bill as a start.

“As [the bill says], it is making healthcare accessibility equal to all Filipinos… [I]t will require a very efficient health care system [by the government] for it to run smoothly,” she told the Varsitarian.

Healthcare for the indigenous Quito claimed that the country’s health care system would often forget the indigenous groups located in remote areas.

“Most of the country’s health budget I think is allocated in developed areas. Filipinos in developed areas gain access to what is ideal in terms of health care. Health professionals often forget our indigenous brothers and sisters in the mountain,” he said.

Leachon said under the bill, the “poor and those in the GIDA (Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas)” would have access to health care, with a transition time of five to 10 years before the goals of universal healthcare could be realized.

The bill seeks to link referrals and health care services in Funding PAGE 10

Folk medicine can boost healthcare in PH – ethnopharmacist

Pablo delivers her talk on the traditional medicinal plants and practices of I’wak tribe of Nueva Viscaya.

PHOTO BY MARK DARIUS M. SULIT

A UST researcher on folk medicine said gumamela, an antirheumatic plant used by various indigenous groups as traditional medicine, should be included as among the sources for medical development.

Carol Pablo, a researcher and associate professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy, cited in her research the use of: (1) Gumamela for boil or pigsa, (2) Homalomena philippinensisor Payau, an antirheumatic ointment extracted from the root of the plant and (3) unnamed plant that is used for womb cleansing, which generally has properties that induce abortion.

“They use medicinal herbs because of its availability and their location, [where] the country’s healthcare system does not reach them,” she told the Varsitarian.

Pablo said the country’s indigenous groups had unique and different systems of practicing traditional herbal medicine. Some of the common procedures they followed to prepare the herbs were pulverization, poultice preparation, decoction, and infusion.

Poultice is a pasty preparation of plants for external application. It is applied to skin while hot for a considerable amount of time to treat inflamed body parts, while decoction and infusion are used to prepare drinkable remedies.

Gumamela petals are holed in the middle, placed on the boil’s “eye” and applied until the petal starts to dry. The Payau is also used as

bandage for wounds.

“Many don’t realize that most of the [herbal plants] can actually be found in the kitchen,” Pablo said.

Besides the uncommon plants, three of the most important and frequently used plants of the indigenous group of I’waks in Nueva Viscaya are (1) guava, (2) calamansi and (3) tangan or castor oil plant which is commonly used for burns and wounds, she noted.

Save and preserve Pablo explained that indigenous medical knowledge was the source of drug discovery, but their practices were only known and passed down to succeeding generations through word-ofmouth and were forgotten due to modernization, forest degradation and other activities.

“Government and research institution should support and encourage more scientific tests to complement the use of the alternative and herbal medicine, that are upheld by the longest time the indigenous groups use it,” she said.

“Militarization which destroys the environment, forces the [indigenous groups] to evacuate as well.

According to the University of the Philippines National Health Institute, six out of 10 Filipinos die without ever seeing a doctor due to financial constraints.

Researcher PAGE 10

Mental health law prompts psychotrauma clinic upgrade PLANS are underway to upgrade facilities and services of the UST Psychotrauma Clinic to accommodate more people with the passage of a new mental health law.

The clinic also aims to constantly monitor therapies, interventions and assessment tools that are empiricallyproven or endorsed by the World Health Organization, Rodel Canlas, a psychologist and counsellor in UST Psychotrauma Clinic told the Varsitarian.

“The Psychotrauma Clinic will continue to provide free counseling services and continue partnership with local organizations in delivering mental health services such as group interventions, lectures, seminar-workshops and trainings in the community level,” he said.

Last June 21, President Duterte signed

the Philippine Mental Health Law or Republic Act 11036, a right-based law that guarantees every person’s right to mental health care.

According to the Philippine Council for Mental Health Research and Development, there is only one mental health professional for every 250,000 service users.

Under the Philippine Mental Health Law, patients with mental illness would no longer be called patients but “service users.”

Since the law seeks to increase the mental health support system and professionals from nationwide to the barangay or community level, the clinic’s services will not be limited inside UST but will include barangays as well, Cayubit said.

“It (Psychotrauma Clinic) will be

responsive to the deinstitutionalization component of the Mental Health Law— transitioning mental health services from the usual institutional facilities down to the community-based setting,” he said.

He also added that the clinic would continue to conduct researches on the cases that they handle such as adult and child trauma, anxiety and depression to contribute to the existing studies on psychological trauma and related conditions in the Philippines.

Stigma Filipinos still have “a very strong denial” when it comes to being comfortable with mental health concerns, said Risa Hontiveros, the principal author of the Philippine Mental Health Law, during a mental health forum at the UST Medicine

Auditorium last Oct. 16.

“Ginagamit ‘yong mga salitang baliw or abnormal as insults, ‘dadalhin kita sa mental’, o ‘ipasok na ‘yan sa Mandaluyong’, in reference to what is now the central institution for mental health,” she said.

She stressed that Filipinos should stop associating stigma to service users which could also demean those who work hard to help the latter.

Hontiveros said that there is also a “sore need” for mental health professionals in the Philippines.

“It is very important to remove smartshaming. We should not embrace a culture of willful ignorance and instead replace it with one that is open to knowledge and understanding,” she added.

Counseling PAGE 10

10 Limelight

OCTOBER 30, 2018

TOMAS U. SANTOS BY NATHANAEL JONAS SJ. RODRIGO

ADVENTURES WITH TIMMY B BY RICA MAE V. SORIENTE

CACA BY JURY P. SALAYA

Dear Theodosia

FROM PAGE 5

while UST applicants bring with them credible diplomas, they’re poor at communication skills.

This is the result of the abolition of Speech and Drama from the curriculum and the lack of incentives for students to develop their communication, artistic, and performing skills on campus.

It is high-time for the University to create a cultural office that will bolster and inculcate in every Thomasian the power of art and the humanities. We students must demand what we need – a center that will discover talent, invest on potential and provide avenues for creative works.

The student body deserves a full-fledged cultural office that has credible administrators who can effectively help young talents and provide spaces for cultural and artistic enrichment.

It’s time for the UST administration to come up with a cultural arm that will provide a healthy environment for the breeding of the next generations of National Artists.

Athletics FROM PAGE 11

“Naging lesson sa’min ‘yong pagkatalo last season kaya ngayon, gagawin namin ang lahat para umangat ulit kami,” the sports and wellness management senior said.

The Male Tracksters’ last UAAP championship run was in 2002. They have a total of eight titles in the men’s division.

UAAP athletics action will start on Nov. 28 to Dec. 2 at the Vermosa Sports Hub in Cavite. T.C.K. TAÑAS

Funding

FROM PAGE 9

cities and provinces nationwide, and put more hospital beds, equipment and hospitals in distant areas.

It also seeks to improve the current doctor-to-patient ratio, which is one doctor to 33,000 patients as recorded by the Department of Health.

Former Kabayan partylist representative Harry Roque Jr. authored the Lower House’s version of the measure, while Sen. JV Ejercito authored the Senate version, as chairman of the Health and Demography committee.

BEATRIZ AVEGAYLE S. TIMBANG AND MIGUEL ALEJANDRO IV A. HERRERA

Shuttlers

Usapang Uste

contributed to their downfall.

UST came up short against UP and Adamson, finishing 2-3 in the respective matches. “’Yon ang isa sa pinakaproblema ng players ko, hindi nila naha-handle ‘yong pressure. Nandoon na pero kinukulang pa,” the two-year tactician said.

The Male Shuttlers will miss the services of Yabut and Barrios next year after exhausting their playing years.

sopranos sa Filipinas na nagbunga sa mga parangal tulad ng unang gantimpala sa Civic Morning Musicals Vocal Competition sa Syracuse, New York at Best Female Classical Performer sa Aliw Awards Hall of Fame.

Kabilang rin siya sa “Ten Outstanding Young Men” at “The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service.” Naging kinatawan siya ng Filipinas sa National Symphony Orchestra sa Beijing para sa 2009 AsiaEurope Culture and Arts Festival.

Noong Oktubre 2010, ginanapan niya ang lead role ng Il Barbiere di Siviglia sa Daegu International Opera Festival 2010 sa South Korea. Siya ang unang Filipina na nagtanghal sa Daegu Opera House.

Nakuha niya ang parangal na The Outstanding Thomasian Alumni (Total) Awardee noong 2011.

FROM PAGE 11

Slight improvement In women’s play, the rookieladen Lady Shuttlers improved from their winless Season 80 campaign and downed UE, 5-0, to gain sixth place this year.

“Na-meet naman nila ang expectations ko kasi ang gusto ko lang naman ay matalo namin ang UE paraat least umangat kami ng isa kasi the rest of the teams, talagang established na sila,” Ormilla said.

Despite the slight improvement, Ormilla lamented the team’s lack of will to win and determination.

“Ineexpect ko sana next year mas mag-improve pa sila kasi bata pa naman ‘yong mga players and mayroom for improvement pa,” he said.

JUSTIN ROBERT VALENCIA

Researcher FROM PAGE 11

In 1997, former president Fidel Ramos institutionalized the use of alternative and traditional or the Republic Act 8423, also known as Traditional and Alternative Medicine Act of 1997. It sought to accelerate the development of traditional and alternative health-care in the Philippines, to provide an effective and affordable health care option considering the approximately 110 indigenous communities, like the Aetas in Bataan, Higoanon tribe in Misamis Oriental and Lumads from Mindanao.

Pablo encouraged more people from the academe, especially those who came from ethnic groups, to further propagate the study.

Pablo’s research covers the medicinal practices of Higaonon tribe in Misamis Oriental, Aetas in Hermosa, Bataan and I’waks tribe in Nueva Viscaya. MIGUEL ALEJANDRO IV A HERRERA

FROM PAGE 2

Tomasalitaan Muthalà—Old Tagalog (pangngalan) alapaap, ulap; scattered thin clouds Sa ibabaw ng mga muthalà nakatago ang mga ipinangakong bituin na aabutin alang-alang sa iyong mga ngiti. CHRIS V. GAMOSO may ulat mula kay JOSELLE CZARINA S. DELA CRUZ Mga Sanggunian: Total Awards 2011 Diksyunaryong Jose Villa Panganiban The Varsitarian. Tomo 42 Blg. 33.

December 4, 1970. p. 2.

Counseling FROM PAGE 9

Hontiveros also explained that the Philippine Mental Health Law would provide an annual budget that would support psychosocial services in schools and establishment of small facilities by the local government units.

“Strengthening mental health at the community level through the implementation of the law is towards the better recovery of people with mental health concerns, who are part of the community,” she said.

Preventive suicide, safe spaces Marc Reyes, a psychologist and associate professor from the College of Science, told the Varsitarian that students and faculty members should try to talk about suicide cases and their

possible preventions, but should not just be reactive towards such incidents.

“We need to talk about suicide, but the problem is [that] students tend to be just reactive towards it.

They only focus on the incident, not on the problem itself. After the incident, wala na,” he said.

He also noted that checking one’s genealogy or family history and acknowledging mental health concerns would be crucial as it could aware the person on the possibility of having severe mental disorders, or one which could lead to suicide.

Renz Argao, supervising psychologist of the UST Psychotrauma Clinic, said it would be helpful if faculties establish “safe spaces” in classrooms so students would be comfortable to learn, and such could prevent stress and anxiety build-up.

“Safe spaces are spaces where

students can be who they are, say the [thoughts] they want to say, to uplift mental health,” said Argao during the mental health forum in UST. Four out of 10 Thomasian service users could be symptomatic of conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety and depression, the clinic’s records showed.

More females were reported to experience mental health concerns. As per the clinic, this could be because females would be more vulnerable to abuses, more susceptible to conditions that could lead to an actual disorder, and they simply were more likely to seek personal or professional help.

This year, the number of clients served by the Psychotrauma Clinic is more than 2,000. MIGUEL ALEJANDRO IV. HERRERA

Editor: Ma. Angelica D. Garcia

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Sports 11

UST Paddlers rule UAAP table tennis THE UST Lady Paddlers ended an 11-year title drought while the Tiger Paddlers reclaimed the title they lost last year in the UAAP Season 81 table tennis tournament at the UP College of Human Kinetics gym in Diliman last Oct. 15.

The Lady Paddlers ended a two-year dry spell after defeating four-time defending champion De La Salle University in Game 2, 3-2, for the title.

With the match tied at 2-all, Lady Paddler Shaeena Ronquillo escaped La Salle’s Jhona Marie Go, 11-5, 6-11, 11-8, 9-11, 11-6, to seal the deal for UST. “We decided not to follow the lineup of La Salle anymore at naging matapang na lang silang lahat. They exerted effort in every game to claim the crown,” UST coach Lorinda Wadjad told the Varsitarian.

In men’s play, the Tiger Paddlers dethroned defending champion National University (NU) in Game 1, 3-2, before sweeping Game 2, 3-0.

The Danhill MonaresSean Sabay duo outlasted NU’s Harold Celeridad and Franz

Mogol, 9-11, 11-7, 11-5, 4-11, 118, to claim the championship and cap their undefeated campaign.

“Masaya sa pakiramdam dahil sa wakas naibalik na ang korona sa Espana. I built up their confidence para maging matapang sila sa last match.

Nakita ko talaga na sabik na manalo lahat ng players,” Tiger Paddlers head coach Jackson Que said.

Team captains Paul Que and Kathrina Tempiatura took home the Most Valuable Player awards in the men’s and women’s division, respectively.

Tiger Paddler John Michael Castro bagged the Rookie of the Year award in the men’s division.

The Lady Paddlers will miss the services of Tempiatura while Que has one more playing year but is still undecided if he will suit up for the Tiger Paddlers next season.

The Tiger Paddlers and the women’s team have the most number of UAAP titles with 27 and 13, respectively. IVAN RUIZ L. SUING and THERESA CLARE K. TAÑAS

Lady Paddler Kathleen Tempiatura receives the ball during the Lady Paddlers’ game against the University of the Philippines.

PHOTO BY JOSE MIGUEL J. SUNGLAO

Top pole vaulter skips UAAP athletics tourney

Ronjon Redoble

THE UST Male Tracksters’ shot at redemption in the upcoming UAAP season will be without top pole vaulter EJ Obiena.

Obiena, who was also sidelined last year after suffering a left anterior crucial ligament injury, opted to skip the tournament this season due to personal reasons. He is a sure-fire gold medalist for the Male Tracksters in the pole vault category.

“EJ is a one-man team and a potential goldmedalist but due to unexpected situations, he won’t make it this season,” UST Tracksters head coach Emmanuel Calipes told the Varsitarian, saying there are things they could not handle.

Last year, the Male Tracksters slipped to fifth place with only two silver and two bronze medals.

It was the first time since 2010 that the men’s team failed to secure a podium finish.

The Male Tracksters were runners-up to defending champion Far Eastern University (FEU) in six of the last eight years.

The Male Tracksters will now lean on the performances of veteran players Kevin Capangpangan, Jhon Lloyd Lamaclamac, Ronjon Redoble, Andre Bardos, rookies Erick John Villasan, Ronnelle Marquez, Karry Paelmao and Johnrey Magallanes.

Calipes added that the Male Tracksters’ roster this season consists of multi-event athletes who will help them take advantage of the UAAP pointing system.

“Last year kasi the team lacked manpower so nag-struggle kami maka-earn ng points and every individual score is important dahil iyon ang basehan ng overall team points,” he said.

Calipes also listed FEU, the University of the East and the University of the Philippines as

constant hurdles in the Male Tracksters’ UAAP campaign.

The Male Tracksters started training in April to get their bodies in tiptop shape just in time for the competition.

In October, the Male Tracksters finished at third place in the 2018 University Games in Dumaguete and collected three gold medals in the men’s division.

With roughly one month left before the tournament, Calipes is confident of his team’s chances of a podium finish.

“We are focusing more on the maturity of the players which they have already. We’re just here to help them peak on the right time,” Calipes said.

Team captain Capangpangan also said the team is more determined to compete this season after slipping to fifth place last year.

Athletics PAGE 10

Woodpushers settle for 5th in UAAP chess THE UST Woodpushers ended their UAAP Season 81 campaign at fifth place at the UST Quadricentennial Pavilion last Oct. 28.

Both teams finished with 25 points apiece. Last year, the men’s team salvaged fourth while the women’s team placed fifth.

The Female Woodpushers succumbed to the Adamson University, 1-3, while the National University dominated the Male Woodpushers, 4-0.

Team captain Highzzy Manaloto gave UST its lone win after outsmarting Adamson’s Bonalyn Ornido in Board 1.

“Nagkachance kaming makathird place noong last two games, kaso ang problema hindi na-sustain ‘yong level of play,” UST head coach Ronald Dableo told the Varsitarian.

Female Woodpushers Cyamir Villanueva, May Ann Alcantara and Charlotte Paez all bowed down to their respective foes.

In men’s play, Male Woodpushers Jerlyn Villanueva, Brylle Vinluan, AJ Almodal and Venz Kwan all yielded to their respective opponents.

“Bumigay ‘yong mga inaasahan namin na si Vinluan at Almodal. Sila ‘yong bumuhat sa team noong first round kaso hindi na naka-score sa last three games,” Dableo said.

Kwan bagged the bronze medal on Board 6 in the men’s division while Manaloto captured the gold medal on Board 2 in the women’s division.

The women’s team will miss the services of Manaloto and Villanueva next season after exhausting their playing years. JUSTIN ROBERT VALENCIA

Lone win drops UST shuttlers to 6th spot

By JUSTIN ROBERT VALENCIA

THE UST Golden Shuttlers crashed to sixth place in the UAAP Season 81 badminton tournament with an identical 1-5 win-loss record at the Rizal Memorial Sport Complex last Sept. 24 to Oct. 12.

The National University (NU) took home the UAAP title for the fifth-straight year.

The University of the Philippines (UP) and the Ateneo de Manila University secured the second and third places, respectively.

The Male Shuttlers’ top-tier players John Paul Yabut, Kristian Barrios, Juan Miguel Santiago, Josh Olin Defensor and Russel Enriquez failed to win simultaneously to secure team-tie victories.

Barrios and Santiago won their games against De La Salle University and the Adamson University, but Yabut and the tandem of Defensor and Enriquez faltered against their respective foes.

Yabut was victorious gainst Ateneo and UP, but the two doubles’ pair of UST played below the expectations and lost in their respective games.

The Male Shuttlers’ only win was a 5-0 demolition of the winless University of the East (UE).

Head coach RJ Ormilla said the Male Shuttlers’ inability to keep their momentum in close matches The Golden Shuttlers finishes 6th place in the 81st season of the UAAP with a 1-5 Shuttlers PAGE 10

win-loss recrod last Sept. 24 to Oct. 12. PHOTO BY JOSE MIGUEL J. SUNGLAO

Male Fencers look to end 6-year title drought THE UST Male Fencers are seeking to redeem themselves this Season 81 following four-straight finals losses against the University of the East (UE).

UST and UE have faced each other for the UAAP championship on five occasions since Season 76, but the Male Fencers fell short each time.

Last Season 80, the Male Fencers ended the tournament at second place with a 2-3-2 gold-silver-bronze medal tally while UE bagged the championship title for the sixth-straight year.

But the road to another finals appearance will not be easy for the Male Fencers after losing key veterans Noelito

Jose, Matthew Domantay, Vonn Pascua, Michael Duterte and Gian Aribe to graduation.

UST fencing sabre coach Ricardo Fuenzalida said the Male Fencers have a long way to the championship with a lineup of mostly rookies.

“Binago namin ang style ng training dahil first time na halos lahat ng maglalaro ay rookies. Biinago namin ang approach sa fencing para mas maka-adapt sila,” Fuenzalida told the Varistarian in an interview.

With the UAAP fencing tournament moved to November, Fuenzalida and the rest of the Male Fencers’ coach staff

doubled the team’s training efforts and focused on its physical conditioning.

Aside from UE, Fuenzalida sees the De La Salle University, University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University as obstacles for a possible return to the finals.

With Jose exhausting his playing years, senior Edcel Dizon will take over as the new team captain.

UST is the second-winningest team in the UAAP with three titles, next to UE. UAAP fencing action will begin on Nov. 22 to 25 at the Victoria Sports Complex in Quezon City.IVAN RUIZ L. SUING

Sports

OCTOBER 30, 2018

UST dominates UAAP sands Arbasto

THE UST Lady Spikers made history bagging their third-straight UAAP beach volleyball crown, while the Tiger Spikers reclaimed the title they lost last season as the tournament came to a cross last Oct. 7.

Four-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) Sisi Rondina and Season 80 Rookie of the Year Baby Love Barbon whipped De La Salle University’s Michelle Morente and Tin Tiamzon in Game 2 of the finals, 21-7, 21-16, to secure the title and cap their undefeated run at the SM Sands by the Bay. UST became the first team in UAAP beach volleyball history to win three-consecutive championships in the women’s division.

The Lady Spikers also has the most tournament titles with six.

Leading 9-8 in the second set of Game 2, UST ignited a 12-8 blitz, capped

by Rondina’s drop shot for the win.

“Wala naman masyadong naging pressure kasi sa simula pa lang, La Salle na talaga ang pinaghandaan naming team,” UST head coach Paul Jan Doloiras told the Varsitarian.

Requinton Rondina finished her last beach volleyball game for UST with 16 points while Barbon added 13 markers.

Rondina also bagged her fourth beach volleyball title and MVP award in five years with four different partners.

She first won the championship with Rica Rivera in 2014, Jem Gutierrez in 2016 and Season 79 Rookie of the Year Caitlyn Viray in 2017.

“Alam kong puwedeng makuha ng La Salle ‘yong pagkakataon na mag-champion and ayaw ko namang umalis at ibigay na lang ng ganoon,” Rondina said.

Rondina added it was a bittersweet celebration,

knowing her journey on the UAAP sand court has ended. She finished her career undefeated in 19 games since 2016.

“Ganoon talaga, may katapusan talaga. Kung puwede lang na maglaro pa ako for UST, why not, ‘di ba? Pero wala eh, may limit talaga pero masaya ako kasi nakuha ko ang goal ko this year na mag-champion ulit, bonus na lang ‘yong sweep and ‘yong mga awards,” she said.

In men’s play, the Tiger Spikers redeemed themselves from last year’s heartbreak after sweeping the Far Eastern University Tamaraws in Game 1, 21-14, 21-16, before escaping in Game 2, 21-13, 22-24, 15-10.

Season 80 Rookie of the Year Jaron Requinton’s down-the-line kill in the deciding set sealed the title for UST. “Nandoon kasi ‘yong willingness nilang dalawa na manalo at gusto talaga nilang mag-champion kaya tinrabaho nila ng mabuti at ‘yon ang nagdala sa kanila,” Doloiras said.

Requinton exploded with a game-high 33 points while men’s MVP Anthony Arbasto added 11 markers in his last UAAP beach volleyball game.

The Tiger Spikers are now tied with the National University as the winningest team in the UAAP with four championships.

IVAN RUIZ L. SUING

Rondina

Barbon

Tracksters bag 21 gold medals in Unigames UST RULED the 23rd Philippine University Games (Unigames) with its tracksters winning 21 gold medals in the athletics competition in Dumaguete City from Oct. 22 to 28.

Female Tracksters Rosnani Pamaybay and Karen Janario ruled the 100 and 200-meter dash events, respectively, while reigning UAAP Most Valuable Player Louielyn Pamatian outlasted her opponents in the 400-meter dash and 800-meter run.

Janario and Jessa Jarder conquered the 100 and 400-meter hurdles events, respectively.

Jianne Calis topped the 1500 and 3000-meter run events while Jhanine Mansueto dominated the 5000-meter run.

Alyssa Andrade and Elvy Villagoniza nabbed the top spots in the long and triple jump events, respectively, while Luz Delfin (shotput), Aira Teodisio (discus) and Efrelyn Democer (javelin) also struck gold in the throwing events.

The Female Tracksters also emerged on top in the relay events.

In men’s play, Male Trackster Andre Bardos secured the gold medal in the 400-meter dash event.

Bardos then joined Ronelle Marquez, Eric John Villasan and John Carlo Mariano for another gold in the 4x200-meter relay and the classical relay events, respectively.

“Magandang stepping stone ito kasi maganda ang conditioning nila with one month to go sa UAAP pero hindi pa nila naaabot ang peak nila,” UST Tracksters head coach Manny Calipes told the Varsitarian in a phone interview.

The Golden Tigresses notched their third-straight championship after fending off the National University (NU) Lady Bulldogs in the finals, 23-25, 25-19, 25-19, 25-16.

“Hindi kami na-intimidate sa NU noong nanalo sila sa first set kasi kilala naman namin galaw namin. Sinabi ko sa mga bata na bigyan nila ng magandang exit si Sisi (Rondina) kasi last Unigames na niya ito,” Golden Tigresses assistant

coach Yani Fernandez said.

The Tiger Spikers were Unigames champions anew after surviving the College of Saint Benilde Blazers in a 25-23, 20-25, 25-21, 20-25, 17-15 thriller.

Setter Tim Tajanlangit’s drop shot in the deciding set iced the Tiger Spikers’ second-straight crown.

The beach volleyball tandem of Baby Love Barbon and Genesa Eslapor dethroned defending champion University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos Lady Rams, 21-12, 21-12, to nab gold.

“Last year, biglaan lang ‘yong pagsali namin, pero ngayon, pinaghandaan talaga namin ito, kahit wala si Rondina, nag-step up naman ‘yong dalawa bata,” UST beach volleyball head coach said.

In men’s play, UST’s Efraem Dimaculangan and Rancel Varga took home gold after pounding the Rizal Technological University in the finals, 21-15, 21-12. IVAN RUIZ L. SUING and JUSTIN ROBERT VALENCIA

Resurgent Salinggawi eyes cheerdance title THE UST Salinggawi Dance Troupe has added a fourth pyramid base for greater stability as it embarks on another hunt for UAAP cheerdance title on Nov. 17.

The group, holder of eight league titles, is hoping to end an 11-year title drought with better stunts and a more polished execution, said coach Mark Chaiwalla, whose team f inished second last season.

“I really tr y to upgrade element per element kasi hindi ko naman hahayaan na may weak element sa routine,” he told the Varsitarian.

Salinggawi came second to the last in the stunts with only 65 points. It placed fourth with 83 points in pyramid, a weakness

Chaiwalla hopes to address by adding a four base compared to the usual three.

“We improved all the elements na mababa ‘yong scores namin dati at ‘yong mga strong elements naman, we made them stronger this year,” the 27-year-old mentor said.

But the team, he said, would not veer away from its strengh — the dance element.

In Season 80, Salinggawi outperformed all the schools in the dance categor y with 340.5 points, 3.5 points higher than defending champion Adamson University Pep Squad.

“Syempre hindi namin hahayaang dance troupe kami pero hindi kami mag-na-number

one sa dance, that is our greatest strength,” Chaiwalla said.

Last March, the squad bagged its f irst coed title in the 13th National Cheerleading Championships (NCC), while claiming their second-straight diadem in the all-girls cheer division.

Salinggawi will be the third to perform in the competition on Nov. 17 at the Mall of Asia Arena.

UST is still tied with the University of the Philippines with the most number of UAAP cheerdance titles at eight.

Salinggawi is also the only team to capture f ive-consecutive titles in UAAP cheerdance histor y. IVAN RUIZ L. SUING and JUSTIN ROBERT VALENCIA