Students from UST Faculty of Civil Law are to participate in all the games from basketball to–believe it or not–DoTA. The second weekend saw Thomasian law students play basketball and volleyball against teams from FEU, San Sebastian College-Recoletos, San Beda College-Alabang and DLSU. The day’s games were held at the Enrique Razon Sports Center of DLSU-Manila.

Women’s Basketball (versus Far Eastern University)

Men’s Basketball (versus San Sebastian College-Recoletos)

Women’s Volleyball (versus San Beda College-Alabang)

Men’s Volleyball (versus DLSU)

January 27, 2012. More than 40,000 students, faculty, staff, bishops and priests, guests and visitors converged at the UST open field today to mark the closing of the university’s whole-year Quadricentennial celebration. The event also served to usher in the Catholic university’s “fifth century.”

The main event was a communal singing of a medley of songs by all those in attendance dubbed “40 Thousand Voices.” Afterwards, the university staged a pyromusical display that bested its traditional Paskuhan fireworks. The rest of the night, they served free-flowing roasted meats (lechon manok, baboy, baka) for students and staff at different stations around campus. A concert with performing artists and other celebrities capped the night off. It was Thomasian extravagance and festivity at its finest.

These photos are mostly of my fellow law students who took part in the celebration.

Congratulations, UST!

Sample costumes from the Facebook page of Velada Tomasina

To close its celebration of its Quadricentennial, the University of Santo Tomas is holding a two-day festival (January 25-26) that hopes to recreate UST in the “perspective of the cultural milieu of old Manila at the turn of the 19th century” through “period costumes, songs, dances, poems and festivity.”

This, I think, is a great opportunity for us to appreciate the role of UST students in Philippine history. It was, after all, the period of Jose Rizal, Emilio Jacinto, Apolinario Mabini and Padre Jose Burgos. However, I am disturbed by the tendency of the administration and many students to regard this celebration as a mere pageantry of costumes and deodorized commemoration of whatever concept of grandeur they have of “old Manila,” devoid of any socio-political context of its times.

Truly, if we wished to genuinely recreate UST and Manila during the turn of the century, then we should be keenly aware that it was a period of massive poverty and colonial oppression. It was a period of revolution. UST was at the crossroads of student unrest. If we UST students were alive back then, we wouldn’t even be in UST. Not at a time when education was an exclusive privilege controlled by the Catholic Church, unless of course if we were sons and daughters from illustrado families. We were more likely to be sons and daughters of poor peasants and laborers, or Katipuneros ourselves. So why would we be wearing coats and maria claras this week? My point is, this tendency to highlight this celebration as just a perfumed gala of costumes is disturbing, but presents itself as a hopeful challenge for us.

UST–and the rest of the country–at the turn of UST’s “Neo-Centennial” finds itself in very similar social conditions from the UST at the turn of the century. History has proven that no matter how sheltered an institution will try to be, it can never insulate itself from the ebb and flow of the tide of its times. No matter how repressive administrators can be, they can never prevent the emergence of heroes. Imagine how the priests reacted to Jose Rizal and Emilio Jacinto. We are at a period when, still, only a handful of families and corporations control the government and our economy. We are at a period when inequalities in society, the gap between the wealthy few and the poor majority, are so profoundly pronounced. We are at a period where massive poverty still gripe Filipinos. Sure, it’s nice to commemorate the end of the Quadricentennial with costumes, if you are all into that kind of thing. But what better way to commemorate the beginning of UST’s fifth century than to relive the legacy of its proud heroes (which for a long time back then the Dominicans disowned, of course, but now proudly parade as Thomasians).

We are all Emilio Jacintos of our generation! Mabuhay ang mga Tomasino!

December 16, 2011. We were coaxed to dress up in Egyptian costumes that afternoon. Law students were assigned the “Flight of Israelites from Egypt” during the Paskuhan parade. Our pyramid float literally had to float because the wheels malfunctioned. We had to carry the “pyramid” on our shoulders. (I was telling the Israelites to carry the pyramid, they were the slaves after all, but they were busy crossing the parted “Red Sea” he he!) All’s well after the pleasant two-hour agony! Much thanks to students from the College of Fine Arts and Design for doing all our costumes and props and for parading with us.

The much-anticipated fireworks were okay, but not as impressive as last year’s. There goes our tuition burning in the sky ahoo!

An estimated hundred thousand (100,000) people trooped to UST campus in Sampaloc that night.

Our involvement with the issue of the Chief Justice’s impeachment must not degenerate into taking sides from among the warring political factions of the government, for we must remember that what truly matters is the people’s welfare. Beyond all the cacophony of this political circus, the truth remains that both contending ruling cliques have their own vested agenda. The Aquino and the Arroyo groups have taken advantage and exploited this feud in order to portray themselves as heroes and saints while neither of them genuinely address the basic pursuit of social justice in the country.

To take side with either bully of the schoolyard is not a choice, it is a false dichotomy.

On one hand, if we are truly for judicial integrity and independence, we should welcome the opportunity for the Chief Justice to defend himself against allegations of partiality in an impeachment trial. We should caution against those who portray the impeachment of the Chief Justice as an attack against the Judiciary as an institution and paint several personalities as martyrs. Impeachment per se is not a breach of judicial independence. Impeachment is a mechanism for Congress to fulfill its check and balance function as representatives of the people. It is not a mere surplusage in our Constitution. Our Supreme Court Justices, highly esteemed by some of us as they may be, are not infallible demigods who are immune from scrutiny and criticism, and they remain to be public officials who are accountable to the people.

We should also welcome the impeachment as a step in holding accountable the past administration of former President Arroyo, for it is undeniable that while the Chief Justice is in power, the integrity and impartiality of all Supreme Court decisions with regard the Chief Justice’s former principal, to whom he has served as chief of staff and legal counsel, will be put into question. Judging the pattern of decisions and opinions of the Chief Justice, indeed his impartiality is in doubt.

On the other hand, we should also caution our support for such pursuit of judicial integrity by refusing to throw all our weight behind the Aquino clique, for it is readily apparent that this is a machination to consolidate all branches of government at his disposal, after a consistent pattern of Supreme Court decisions that run against the present administration’s interests, the final straw being that of the decision regarding Hacienda Luisita. Removing an Arroyo-appointed Chief Justice opens the golden opportunity for President Aquino to install his own. In that regard, we should also remain vigilant in the common pursuit of a Supreme Court that is truly an independent entity capable of dispensing legal matters with fairness and justice.

At the end of the day, while we are being made to watch this political circus the prevailing fact remains, President Aquino has no clear program of action to resolve the root causes of massive poverty and injustice in the Philippines but a rehash the same old bankrupt economic framework and political policies of his predecessors, including former President Arroyo. All President Aquino has to show for, laudable as it may be, is a smokescreen of anti-corruption rhetoric. Such is merely a staged showdown between his administration and Arroyo’s which does not address the basic problems of the people. After all, in the final analysis, how different are the two cliques from each other?

* with reference to former President Arroyo’s infamous line in response to critics: “I’m tired of chasing the bullies around the schoolyard!”

Class president Aquino (yes, we have our own President Aquino in class) discusses our collective proposed schedule of exams. It usually doesn’t get approved or followed a hundred percent.

Earlier, Kabataan Party-List Rep. Mong Palatino gave a talk at a students rights forum in UST, hosted by the Central Student Council. That week, the student councils of UST launched its renewed campaign for the approval of the long-stalled “UST Students Code”.

What used to be two “working students” sections when we were freshmen is now one “working” class. From eight sections in our first year, we’re down to four. It appears to me like a systemic trimming down of number of students after first year. It probably is.

I wasn’t able to join this tradition last year, my first year in UST. I thought, I might as well join this year’s law freshmen.

After the passing-through ritual (and it did take three hours I think, since there are more than 13,000 freshmen in UST), there was a pep rally of sorts and a concert that lasted half the night.