The Varsitarian

BY UNCOVERING one of a cell’s basic mechanisms, humanity is saved from the perils of cancer.

This was how a Nobel laureate described his unique way to attain world peace in a speech during the second installment of the International Peace Foundation’s (IPF) Bridges: Dialogues Towards a Culture of Peace last April 7 at the UST Continuing Medical Education Auditorium.

Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, a 2004 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, stressed the significance of doing something constructive for the good of the people like having the initiative to discover treatments to society’s ailments rather than creating obstacles to hinder peace and progress.  read more »

THEY WERE the bolts and nuts responsible for holding UST’s general championship dynamo in place. Yet again, the Pontifical University is atop everybody else in the UAAP plateau, for the 10th straight year.

Ten MVPs and seven Rookies of the Year (ROY) led twenty-six Thomasian stalwarts who reaped individual honors in their respective disciplines, highlighting UST’s supremacy in eight of the 28 events up in the UAAP’s 15-sport calendar this season.

Pitching their towering contributions to the España republic’s unprecedented general championship “ten-peat” – the first in the league’s 70-year-old history – were MVPs Maclean Barraquias, Reno Roque, Jervy Cruz, Jose Miguel Cagalingan, Reygea Rosales, Nikki Manalo, Zayrah dela Cruz, Rose Ann dela Cruz, Kathleen Valenzuela, and Bernardita Mag-aso.  read more »

IT’S NOT only the grown-ups who know a thing or two about winning – and dominating.

Ditto with their college counterparts, the UST High School remained on top of the UAAP juniors’ general championship ladder for the second straight year, copping their 10th over-all plum in Season 70.

Backstopped by titular exploits in girls’ volleyball, boys’ athletics, taekwondo, and table tennis, the UST juniors registered an imposing 99-point total to overpower Ateneo De Manila High School and De La Salle-Zobel, which placed second and third with 83 and 69 points respectively.

“Desire is not enough,” UST Athletic Moderator Felix Silbor told the Varsitarian. “There were a lot of factors that we lack in so many aspects but the fact is that the players did their best and that is why we keep on winning though not consecutively.”  read more »

AFTER a year, against the same team and on the same court, the face-off still yielded the same result.

The UST Tigresses have yet to heal the wounds of a failed title campaign, stumbling before Far Eastern University for the second consecutive year, 55-52, in the Home and Away Invitational League (HAIL) finals last March 27 at the opponents’ home court.

“Remia (Buenacosa) had a leg injury while Marichu (Bacaro) was not feeling well” coach Peque Tan told the Varsitarian. “It was a big factor that two of my ace players were not playing 100 percent.”

UST trailed, 49-54, but Nikki Leonardo sank a crucial three-pointer off a screen from Buenacosa to push the España-based cagebelles to within a basket with 14.3 seconds remaining in the contest.

FEU standout Marilourd Borja then nailed a charity split, and the Tigresses’ next ball possession with just 2.1 ticks left went for naught as time expired.  read more »

AS IF CONQUERING Season 70 was not enough, the UST High School volleybelles headed into the 5th Shakey’s V-League tournament, with the same spunk befitting a UAAP champions.

The result? An immaculate 2-0 win-loss record early in the tournament which hinted of another promising off-season build-up for the black-gold-and-white lasses.

“We are really off to a good start,” coach Francis Vicente told the Varsitarian. “But it is still important for us to stay focused at all times because just like us every team out there has the capacity to win.”

True enough, an unsuspecting UST squad almost fell prey to a determined Batasan Hills National High School team, but stood its ground in the homestretch, carving out a hard-earned 25-17, 22-25, 25-23 squeaker last April 15 at The Arena in San Juan.  read more »

UST LADY Spikers coach August Santamaria is now in stable condition following a health scare last March 2.

The seasoned volleyball tactician, who engineered UST’s Season 69 title quest last year, suffered a partial stroke at the right side of his body after coming home from a meeting in Quezon City, as the Tiger Spikers were battling Far Eastern University in Game 3 of the men’s volleyball finals.  read more »

KUMALAT ang pula, dilaw, asul at berde na mga kislap ng fireworks display sa itim na kalangitan kasabay ng malalakas na putok. Namangha naman ang masasayang kasama kong nagsipagtapos sa makulay na palabas na ito sa himpapawid.

Mayroon ding kakaibang pagsabog na nagaganap sa aking damdamin. Sa bawat pagputok at panandaliang pag-ilaw ng langit, hindi mapigilan ang aking pagluha. Subalit hindi iyon mga luha ng kaligayahan na dulot ng pagtatapos sa kolehiyo, iyon ay mga patak ng pag-aalala kay Giselle. Sapagkat kung may bagay man na lubos na nakapagpapasaya sa kaniya, iyon ay ang makapanood ng mga paputok.  read more »

BILANG tagapagtaguyod ng kaunlaran at pagbabago, bahagi ng kultura at kasaysayan ng Unibersidad ang paglahok sa mga usapin hinggil sa makabagong teknolohiya. Isang magandang halimbawa nito ay ang pagsali ng pamantasan sa dalawang pambansang pagpupulong tungkol sa nuclear science.

Ginanap noong Pebrero 22-23, 1957 ang kauna-unahang Philippine Nuclear Science Conference sa Albertus Magnus Building. Pinangunahan ito ng Philippine Nuclear Research Conference and Training Committee, Philippine Physics Society at Civil Defense Administration (CDA). Tinalakay sa pagpupulong kung paano isusulong ng mga siyentista ang mapayapa at epektibong paggamit ng lakas-nukleyar sa Pilipinas.  read more »

LITERATURE and how it intersects with culture and other disciplines such as the sciences was the focus of “Inter/Sections: Crossroads and Crosscurrents in Literatures and Cultures,” a three-day national conference on literature organized by the UST Graduate School recently at the UST Thomas Aquinas Research Complex auditorium.

Quoting the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, UST Acting Rector, Fr. Rolando De la Rosa, O.P. said in his opening speech, “a turning wheel that causes no motion in other places is not part of a machine.”

He called on literary practitioners “to give literature its moral anchor,” to counteract the escapist and fantastic works that abound today.

Making those present aware of the power of the written word, the Rector urged writers to create an audience that “seeks meaning in the triviality of the present,” and to “convince everyone that there are absolutes.”  read more »

THE SOCIO-cultural disarray of Filipinos living abroad and their attempts to recompose their tattered lives as a means of survival are the focus of Ménage Filipinescas: A Play in Three Acts (UST Publishing House, 2008).

In the hands of Paulino Lim, Jr., an acclaimed fictionist and writer, the migrant Filipino phenomenon is presented not so much as a breaking down of old ways as the emergence of new relationships.  read more »