Laguna « Victor Villanueva

Posts tagged with Laguna

April 19, 2011

UST Law students Leadership Training Seminar 2011 (Day 2)

April 12, 2011. (Another photo dump here, sorry, there’s more than 120 pictures). It was the second day of our LTS (leadership training seminar) in the the Forest Club resort in Bay, Laguna. The whole day was reserved for games and other team-building activities facilitated by the resort’s employees (the games are part of the package, together with the accommodations and all the meals). There were obstacle courses and other forms of races over tree trunks, bamboo poles, ropes and ponds.

I was supposed to participate in all the team-building games and activities but shamefully and clumsily injured myself during the very first game, so I ended up being everyone’s photographer instead.

Other than the games, there were also small-group planning conferences among the students, and talks by persons from the university administration. The end of the day was spent at the pool and over drinks (brought in by and with consent of the professors/advisers).

UST Law Students Ledership Training Seminar 2011 (Day 2)

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September 1, 2009

Hopping on LB

A few days ago, I went to UP Los Banos to attend a forum sponsored by a Buklod-UPLB, a student political alliance in campus. I found it odd at first because Buklod, is a “blue” party (which in terms of the spectrum of campus politics, is on the other side of the fence from where I stand), contesting student council seats from our colleagues in the militant Sakbayan. Nevertheless, I told them that appreciated that they invited someone like me, all the way from UP Diliman, to share my views, however different it may be from theirs.

The forum was about the 2010 elections and the youth’s participation in it. I was one of four panelists, others were from the Liberal Party (represented by ex-Congressman Neric Acosta), a media organization (I don’t remember which one exactly), and YouthVote Philippines.

What I said was nothing you wouldn’t have expected me to say. Among others, I said that all the hype about the youth participation in the 2010 elections is well and good. However, I stressed out that the youth’s participation goes well beyond 2010 and the elections. I encouraged everyone to sustain the heightened enthusiasm in participating in the elections and use it as the drive to participate in more democratic exercises in their school, in their communities, with other sectors of society, into the streets or wherever their passion drives them to. We cannot rely on the elections alone as the only means for effecting social change in a country plagued by systemic economic and class exploitation, especially because the elections is largely dominated by those who thrive on that kind of order.

I forget what the other speakers said. I think they all said the same thing, drumming up the same slogan of youth participation in the elections. Which is all well and good, as I’ve said.

Anyway, after the forum, I spent the rest of the day till much later into the night with my fraternity brods and our sorority sisters in Los Banos. It was actually just my third time in UPLB (the other two being just a grade school and a high school field trip to the botanical garden), and my first time to meet met most of my batchmates in Los Banos. This time I also got to go around the campus itself and the different places outside the gates. Needless to say, I had a great time and I’m looking forward to my next visit, hopefully a longer one. Soon.

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April 28, 2008

Family at Hacienda Escudero

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.