Last July 24, President Rodrigo Duterte gave his second State of the Nation Address (SONA). In front of over two thousand guests which included [key guests], Dutere delivered a two-hour long speech in English with some statements and stories in Tagalog and Bisaya. Although previous reports from Malacanan said that the SONA would last for…
Category: Opinion
Every now and then, I would see Facebook friends sharing a photo of a group of jejemons on my newsfeed, accompanied with the usual caption of ridicule and mockery. Jejemons are people who speak (30WwzZ mxzta n4 p0h,,,?) and dress (stereotypically in a bandana or a colorful cap, oversized shirts, and baggy shorts) a certain…
Practice what you preach
It’s election season again, and just as candidates and their political parties have started to mark their territories with tarpaulins, standees, and other campaign materials, so has the student body been able to witness various efforts at mudslinging, in hopes of tainting the other party’s name and reputation, as well as stories from students (and even faculty…
One death is one too many
Kian Loyd Delos Santos, a 17-year-old Grade 11 student, was killed in an Oplan Galugad police operation in Barangay 160, Caloocan City on August 16. His death sparked outcry—and rightly so—as a CCTV video surfaced showing two policemen wearing civilian clothes dragging Kian with a cloth over his head. This is a stark contrast from…
With just a single bullet to the head, all that a person ever knows, all that they ever value in their life, ends. It’s been a year since the war on drugs started, but the very causes of it, such as the systematic trade and supply chain of illegal drugs, have not been confidently identified by government…
A selfish generation
“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.” It’s the kind of quote you see accompanying vague, try-hard artsy pictures or posts on social media—overused, cheesy, and clichéd, maybe, but it doesn’t make it any less true. I had just finished my day’s work at my OJT in Makati, the downpour was fierce, and…
A challenge to the USG
This year’s University Student Government (USG) General Elections (GE) has seen an engaging campaign period–only that the publicity it received was mostly negative. Since the start of the election season, allegations of corruption resurfaced and new scandals emerged amid calls for abstention. In what was the second GE following the Special Elections (SE) held in…
Good design, bad design
Last May, I attended an international conference called User Experience Philippines (UXPH) 2017: Design For a Better Philippines. For two days, Bonifacio Global City was host to around a hundred different professionals coming from diverse fields, as developers, graphic designers, psychologists, marketers, and government officials all came together to talk about “UX” or “User Experience…
Preparing ourselves
For my business communication class, we had a mock interview to practice our communication skills. During the activity, I got a glimpse of the different resumes of my classmates and peers, and noticed that several of them were filled with lines and lines of the various co-curricular activities that we had participated in over the…
Our job as students
In one of my floating classes this term, my professor routinely gives us short quizzes to check if we’ve read the week’s assigned readings. These quizzes aren’t difficult; they’re made up of ten objective-type questions, and are checked right after we answer them—exchange with your seatmate, honesty system. I slowly got annoyed, however, when I…