Staircase Wit Archives

Apr122017 by No Comments

‘Genuine’ service

Perspectives

IT'S that time of the year again. Few weeks from now, people we barely know will greet us—all smiles—in the hallways of the campus as they shake our hands. Our ears will get tired listening to mudslingings, wittily crafted slogans and speeches, recycled platforms, and promises that may never see their actualizations. But as they speak, we hear the voices in our heads. They don’t differ much from the previous ones. Much to our dismay, politics in the University is reduced to mere lip service and a bullet in résumés. Being called “event organizers” leaves a bad taste in the mouths of some student leaders, but as their constituents, we have yet to see them embody the core values of the University—competence, commitment, and compassion—in their leadership and genuinely address...

Great Expectations

Perspectives

GRADUATING. Saying the word makes me anxious. Seven months from now, I will leave the halls of St. Raymund de Peñafort Building hoping that whatever I learned in college will lead me somewhere. I am one of the many who had to leave home and move to the city because our parents thought that studying in the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas would ensure us quality education and render us employable. My stay in the Faculty of Arts and Letters (AB) is significant as it is an integral part of my becoming. But as the first semester of my last year in college draws near to its close, I start to evaluate things. Truth be told, I do not think the education I am receiving meets my expectations. While the Faculty boasts the improvements in the system and the awards and ...

RePRESSed

Perspectives

TO SILENCE the campus press is to silence the student body. Last month, the Philippine Collegian, the student publication of the University of the Philippines (UP)-Diliman, sought the help of the publications in the University of Santo Tomas (UST) to uphold campus press freedom following the attacks against campus press in the recent days. The Philippine Collegian was prohibited from printing its first issue for this academic year due to UP’s complicated procurement process. Meanwhile, there are plans to dismantle the college publications in the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and replace them with a centralized publication. Data from the College Editors Guild of the Philippines showed that there were more than 800 cases of campus press freedom violations from 2010 to 20...