Monday, September 17, 2007

Ending Campus Violence

ANTO COMETA

Official statement released by the Student Council of the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations with reference to a recent incident concerning an undergraduate student who died due to a fraternity related occurrence.


LET US PUT AN END TO CAMPUS VIOLENCE

The UP SOLAIR studentry sympathizes with the bereaved family and friends of Chris Mendez, an NCPAG senior who died last week due to a fraternity hazing incident. We also extend our prayers for the speedy delivery of justice to Chris and to the many others who have become victims of these fraternity-related incidents.

This issue awakens us to the fact that putting an end to campus brutality may remain an elusive goal for the members of the UP community. Fateful incidents such as these tarnish the much-celebrated academic and social reputation of our University. Many forms of physical abuse occurring everywhere in our campus counter the premises of academic freedom which we have selflessly fought for and sustained throughout the years.

We in UP SOLAIR condemn all forms of campus violence. We recognize this issue as an organizational malady that needs to be acted upon. While student councils, student organizations, fraternities and sororities continue to provide a staunch support in promoting the University's academic and social thrusts, we are, at the same time, endowed with the responsibility of ensuring the rights and welfare of the students.

We therefore urge the administration to address the need for institutional reforms to break the traditional inhumane practices employed by some organizations and to safeguard the students' rights to a safe and student-friendly campus.

Every member of the UP community is asked to remain vigilant. Collective effort should be observed in order to systematically eradicate violent incidents in our campus. It is about time that we set our self-gaining interests aside and promote solidarity and respect for one another.

For in the end, we will never be judged by our individual contributions but by our conscience.

Let us help make campus violence a history. . . NOW!!!!!


UP SOLAIR Student Council
University of the Philippines - Diliman
September 4, 2007

Friday, September 7, 2007

The Drinking Bender after the Midterm Exam

ANTO COMETA

Results from the midterm exam in IR 201 were already out. I didn’t know that until Cathe text messaged stating that Dr. Bach Macaraya was already distributing the midterm papers in class. At the time she informed me, I was on my way to UP SOLAIR. I was with my drunk dad whom I asked to drive me to school. We were stuck in heavy traffic at Philcoa. After receiving that text from Cathe I was a bit uneasy and wanted the car to fly in order to get to UP SOLAIR in an instant. I received a text message again but this time it was from Jef. He asked if I would like to go out after class with Pau, Bam and Gracey to celebrate Pau’s recent break up with her boyfriend.

When I arrived at the school I immediately went to the classroom. Obviously I was late and it was so evident because there was a group reporting in front and the class for some reason was so quiet although the topic of the report was very mind stimulating – “Strategic Choice of Multi National Companies”. When I entered the class everyone looked at me as if they saw an extra terrestrial life form entering earth. I immediately sat down and looked at Cathe who was seated across - smirking. I was seated beside one of the reporters, Mani. It’s a pseudonym I invented since I don’t want to disclose his real identity because he’s an established person in his field. After a couple of minutes I received a text message, it was from Cathe. She was asking me how it feels to be seated with Mani – the person we were so irritated with since day 1 of that particular class. I smiled and replied “feels like heaven”.

After 40 minutes, the uneasiness got worse not because I was seated beside Mani (actually he was so nice to me and even offered chocolates, which I didn’t refuse, well, at first I did but he was insistent so I did get some) but mainly because the people beside me were looking at their papers. I snapped. So I asked Mani if we could have a 10-minute break before they start their next topic. In order to get the attention and relay the request to their group mate who was currently reporting, he interrupted the lecture and said, “break daw” the reporter replied “huh, ano, break? break na tayo? It got the attention of our professor and told the class to have a fifteen-minute break. Before I proceeded to have the break, I approached Dr. Macaraya and asked for my paper. I was quite nervous to see the grade that he gave. When he handed over the paper, the foremost thing I noticed were remarks in red. I thought those were terrible comments, but when I looked closely, the remarks stated “ok” and some very critical points that he thought I should have covered and discussed in my paper. When I flipped the last page, it was a relief for me, I got 1.75.

I took my break with two of my “council of elders” (Bossing Jess and Cathe – peace mga friends!) together with Elo. We went to the hut beside the pond inside the school and smoked. We were discussing some things which were mostly not related to industrial relations. We lost track of the time - since we were laughing our hearts out because of some jokes and stuff that Cathe and Elo did while Mani and his group mates were reporting. When we went back to the classroom, the reporter in front was already discussing the conclusion. It was very embarrassing - it was really evident that we didn’t want to pay attention to their report.

After the class, we went to Tree House (a restaurant along Matalino St. which is within our village). We ordered the good stuff – red wine, although the brand of the wine is cheap, nonetheless it’s still the good stuff. All of us were there except Pau. Pau went home after their class but according to Jef she was already on her way to join us. Around 10pm, after we had dinner and a couple of (or several) bottles of wine which made almost everyone tipsy except for Gracie (she never really drinks alcohol, she prefers the Chuckie chocolate drink over alcohol) who just had a glass of wine because we forced her, Pau arrived. She immediately ordered a bottle of beer and briefly discussed their break up, no details though. After an hour then came the “MU” (the label is so childlike – well I don’t know how to label their ongoing relationship). We talked to the guy to make him feel comfortable. Well to start with, the situation is already uncomfortable since he was introduced to the friends of the girl she’s courting, not to mention that all of us had this look as if we wanted to tie him up at the chair he’s currently sitting with a shotgun pointed at his head (or was it just me and Bam - biro lang 'to) and make him confess if his motive is just to fornicate with our friend. Nonetheless we made him feel comfy since we love our friend (hehe - seriously, but not the intimate type).

It was already midnight when Pau and the MU decided to go ahead. We stayed there for several minutes to discuss our personal assessments about the guy. Me, Bossing Jess and Bam had the same view about the guy – he’s just for that thing. Well, as if we can do something about it (if ever yun nga) but Cathe was quite worried after hearing our assessment, so she text messaged Pau to be careful (hmmm…) and be sound on her decisions. The exchange of views and the worrying didn’t stop even after the restaurant closed so we went to a nearby canteen selling baka soup – Tangkoy’s, that’s along Kalayaan Avenue near Tree House. By the way, their baka soup was one of the best that I tasted. Even though I’m so tipsy or scatterbrained I could still discern Cathe’s anxiety. The discussion continued while eating (or sipping) baka soup. When I looked at Cathe I noticed that her MP3 headphones were soaked in the soup. So I stood up and removed the headphones from the soup. Cathe just stared at me. After finishing our soups we decided to go home since all of us are quite exhausted and to an extent drunk (and the discussions were going nowhere).

I really don't know what happened to the rest after I entered Jef's car, all I know was that it was another ecstatic day for me, thanks to the wine... and friends of course.