I’m sorry I haven’t been updating a lot lately. It’s summer break, I know, but there seems to be an endless string of tasks for me. Whenever I have the time late at night to sit down and write, I get frustrated with the list of blog-backlog that I have to catch up on, I end up just sleeping altogether or do something else.

Being the head of the University Student Council’s (USC) main public information office can be toxic. It’s inspiring and amusing, everyone’s so fired up and eager to do well in their respective committees. Ang dami-dami na naming ginagawa–all of which I need to report, of course. It doesn’t help that the students and the country are facing a number of issues and campaigns this summer, hence the need for a USC that’s active in its campaigns and services even before our term formally begins in June. I seriously need to recruit volunteers to help me. Especially because I don’t think I’d have all the time in the world once I formally start studying at the College of Law. If you wish to lend me a hand as a volunteer, just email me.

Back to the graduation chronicles. After a hearty lunch and a brief rest time at home, the family and I went back to UP Diliman for the university graduation rites. It was in the middle of the afternoon. The graduates, well, everyone actually, had to sit under the torrid heat of the summer afternoon sun. It was quite an uncomfortable ordeal.

We, the graduating students of the University of the Philippines, are united in our call to hold accountable President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for her grave crimes against the people. As Iskolars ng Bayan, we are determined in upholding our historic and traditional roles as the nation’s scholars, inherently burdened with the duty of enjoining and taking part in our countrymen’s struggle in defending and upholding our democratic rights and interests.

Oddly, in the middle of the four-hour program, dark scary clouds hovered over the open-air ampitheater. Fortunately, it didn’t rain. That was such a welcome relief from the heat of the sun.

We, the youth of our country, have consistently been betrayed by the present leadership who has continuously implemented policies that has further made education and opportunity inaccessible to many Filipino youths.

We are firm in our resistance of attempts by the present administration with its vast propaganda machine to manipulate the youth’s collective consciousness to render us pessimistic and resigned to a prevailing leadership that continuously deceives the youth with empty promises.

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Tags: graduation, Quezon Hall, UP Diliman

Mass Comm graduates are fortunate enough to have their recognition rites and the university graduation rites fall within the same day, with ample time in between for a luncheon celebration. Graduates from other colleges in UP Diliman had theirs on separate days.

My family and I had to wake up really early last April 27, because we were repeatedly advised to arrive early at 7 AM because seats for guests were apparently limited, and that the college recognition rites were to start strictly at 8 AM. Wake up early we did, but the rites didn’t really start on time.

It was a relatively brief recognition rites. Everyone was called on stage together with their parents to receive their certificates of merit and rolled pieces of blank paper. There were the usual speeches and a couple of intermission numbers. One of which was an audio-visual presentation prepared by one of our batchmates. I appeared in the video, lying at the Sunken Garden musing at the sky.

I sort of got irked with what the college dean said in her speech, that as part of growing up we should become pragmatists instead of idealists. The guest speaker, Maryo de los Reyes, said something with the same thought, that we should always learn to work with the prevailing order and compromise. My goodness, what kind of uninspiring commencement speeches are these?

Anyway, the program ended a little more than an hour before noontime. My family proceeded to have lunch with my parents’ godparents at some buffet restaurant. I went in famished and I ended up eating too much. We even had to go home right after lunch before going back to UP for the university graduation rites because I had to spend some time in the toilet.

Tags: Cine Adarna, graduation, recognition rites, UP Diliman, UP Mass Comm

It’s been more than a week since I graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication with an undergraduate degree in Film & Audio-Visual Communication.

Sigh. It was a long, tiring day. Not to mention, quite hot, especially during the beginning of the university graduation rites at the Ampitheater behind Quezon Hall.

Tags: graduation, Quezon Hall, recognition rites, UP Diliman, UP Mass Comm

April 24, 2008. I went with a friend to this free string quartet concert at Philam Life Theater in Ermita, Manila a week ago. It was the first time I witnessed a live string quartet concert. The concert was by a quartet called Quatuor Diotima from France. There was quite a number of French expats in the theater, and because it was free-admission there were also all sorts of people, including nuns and even street children, which is a nice thing, for a concert of music traditionally associated with the wealthy.

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Tags: concert, Ermita, Manila, music, string music

April 23, 2008. A few days before graduation day, the college held a recognition rites practice. I took it as a time to reacquaint myself with my batchmates in college. I went around asking what they planned to do after graduation, among other such questions. I also volunteered to appear in the graduation AVP a batchmate of mine was making for the recognition rites. After the shoot, I had lunch with some college friends at Beach House.

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Tags: Beach House, graduation, Mass Comm friends, Sunken Garden, UP Diliman

April 21, 2008. One of our first public activities in the University Student Council (USC) was a unity candle-lighting event almost two weeks ago with member organizations of the League of Youth For the Environment (LYFE) in UP Diliman and some representatives from other schools.

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Tags: candle-lighting, environmental issues, Sunken Garden, University Student Council, UP Diliman

Do visit UPD-USC.net, the official website of the UP Diliman University Student Council (USC). I’ve been working on it the past weeks, as chairperson of the Mass Media Committee. I hope it becomes a venue for the USC to reach out to the students better, and for our constituents to get to know and get in touch with their USC with regards to various issues that they, the UP community, and the nation face.

Below is the USC statement regarding the rice crisis prepared by the University Student Council’s (USC) People’s Struggles Committee under Councilor Fudge Tajar with inputs and reports from other members of the USC.

The University Student Council believes that the present crisis on rice production demands for immediate, sustainable pro-people solutions. The government should immediately increase its support to the National Food Authority (NFA) in its procurement of palay, dismantle the rice cartels and impose a crack down on illegal acts of price manipulation, implement a moratorium on the land-use conversion of agricultural land, and increase its investment in the agricultural sector, all for the benefit our local farmers and the Filipino people.

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Tags: agriculture, cartel, IMF-World Bank, land reform, rice crisis, University Student Council, USC statements

Two Saturdays ago, to cap off my mother and my brother’s birthdays (which both fall within the same week), we went to Hacienda Escudero (formerly Villa Escudero) for a short day trip.

It was my first time at the estate-turned-tourist destination. It took us a almost four hours to drive down to San Pablo, Laguna / Tiaong, Quezon from Manila. We passed by the route crossing Batangas.

When we arrived at the place, we were toured briefly at the church-turned-museum. It looked familiar for me. No, not because I’ve seen it in the many postcards that it may have appeared in. It was after a few minutes when I realized this was where Wong Kar Wai shot parts of his film Days of Being Wild. Anyway the museum was basically a hogwash of various antiques and Escudero memorabilia, which I found quite interesting.

After the museum tour, we rode these carabao trolleys to the resort’s main recreation area, where we had lunch at the foot of a man-made dam with fresh water falling off the dam’s slope and streaming through our feet. If not for the heat of the midday sun, it would have been a very relaxing and refreshing lunch.

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Tags: Batangas, estates, family, farmers, Laguna, land reform, Quezon, resorts