Theories of a Brown Monkey
Even though I finished a degree in Philosophy in my Bachelor's, I'll still pursue it in the Graduate school and beyond because of love. I know, it's a corny reason, but love makes you corny, and loving wisdom makes me corny, so sue me.
Anywho, as the days pass and I grow older in this discipline, I realize the extent of my own stupidity. And realizing how big are these gaps, my appetite for knowledge is whetted all the more.
You see, the battle against ignorance and suffering is a life-long battle, and our only consolation, aside of course having the good life, is an ice-cold beer by the end of every week. Cheers.
Joseph Guillermo
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This (Corona’s earning a Summa Cum Laude for his PhD in UST) is not to say that UST stands alone in the chronicle of universities’ tale of ignominy . UP itself once granted doctoral degrees honoris causa to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and Imelda Marcos herself. Ateneo likewise was on the defensive when its own President of Board of Trustees read a speech plagiarized from Oprah for its sesquicentennial commencement exercises. The only name that has remained immaculate to date as far as academics is concerned is that of La Salle, thanks to its steadfast and unyielding adherence to the tradition which has made it an exemplar of excellence in the field of collegiate basketball.
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UST ‘breaks rules’ for CJ Corona
In a special graduation ceremony in April 2011 at the historic Puerta Real, University of Santo Tomas (UST) conferred on Chief Justice Renato Corona a doctorate in civil law, summa cum laude.
He was one of six graduates to garner top honors during ceremonies intended to commemorate the university’s quadricentennial.
Kneeling before the UST rector and wearing a black robe and bright red cape, Corona received a “ceremonial declaration” of the graduation, apart from his doctoral degree, from Fr. Rolando de la Rosa.
It was a proud moment for UST, the world’s largest Catholic university, as it celebrated its 400th anniversary. It was as well for Corona who was appointed to the highest post in the Supreme Court in May 2010.
“This great educational institution … the oldest existing university in Asia … has made it possible for me to realize my dream of appending the hard-earned degree of Doctor of Civil Law to my name,” Corona said in his valedictory address.
It was a welcome honor for the Chief Justice whose legitimacy was in doubt as he was appointed by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during a supposed ban on appointments in an election period. The Supreme Court, in a ruling, exempted itself from the ban.
[Corona will go on trial starting this month in the Senate impeachment court on eight charges, including betrayal of public trust as a result of his partiality in cases involving Arroyo, who is currently detained on charges of electoral sabotage, a nonbailable offense.]
But it turns out that UST may have broken its rules in granting Corona a doctorate in civil law and qualifying him for honor.
UST rules
First, UST requires a dissertation. Dissertation writing takes all of 15 units spread out in four courses.
Second, only students who complete a doctorate degree in five years are qualified to graduate with honors: “A student who has overstayed beyond the residency limit … will also be disqualified to graduate with honors.”
Corona does not have a dissertation. Neither did he fulfill the five-year residency requirement.
Wrong signal
This unusual practice may set a precedent in UST and send a wrong signal to students that rank and influence trump academic rigor.
The UST Graduate School did not reply to our questions and repeated requests for interviews. We sent our first set of questions on Oct. 3, 2010 and again on December 12. On that day, it asked for one more day of extension but did not get back to us.
Where’s the dissertation?
What started out as a routine request for Corona’s dissertation for a book on the Supreme Court that we were then finishing led to this story.
Our search, which began last July, yielded no results, except a public lecture the Chief Justice delivered in November 2010 at the UST Graduate School. The Varsitarian, the official student publication of UST, reported in April last year (2011) that Corona’s doctoral dissertation was titled “To Every One His Due: The Philippine Judiciary at the Forefront of Promoting Environmental Justice.”
Similarly, the Supreme Court website said the Chief Justice’s dissertation was on environmental law “which he defended and lectured on in a convocation attended by some 300 graduate school students, faculty members and experts.”
When we asked the UST Graduate School for access to Corona’s dissertation, it gave us a copy of the March issue of Ad Veritatem, its multidisciplinary research journal, wherein his lecture was published. For the full dissertation, it suggested that we ask the Chief Justice himself.
Neither does the UST Law library have a copy of the dissertation. It instead referred us to the same journal where “an article based on his dissertation is available.”
Similarly, the UST main library does not have Corona’s dissertation. It is standard for university libraries to have files of their students’ dissertations. Eight months after the graduation, Estrella Majuelo, the chief librarian, had not received the Chief Justice’s dissertation.
In July, we wrote Corona requesting access to his dissertation. His office did not respond despite our repeated calls.
The public lecture, also published last year in the Philippine Judicial Academy’s sourcebook on environmental rights and legal remedies, is unlike a dissertation.
Largely descriptive and explanatory, its main point is: “courts must administer environmental justice with the goal of giving what is due to each and every Filipino, even those who are yet unborn.”
Corona ended with a promise: “That is the commitment of the Supreme Court to you.”
‘It’s up to UST’
Pacifico Agabin, former dean of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law, said conferring doctorate degrees was completely up to the university. “The school is free to waive some requirements. Schools are given more freedom when it comes to graduate courses,” he said.
The graduate faculty, he pointed out, could pass a resolution modifying its requirements. But it was not a “usual practice,” he said, and he was not aware if this had happened in UP.
We asked Antonio La Viña, a lawyer and dean of the Ateneo School of Government, to describe a dissertation.
He said that it was “a written study, with original ideas, backed up by citations, and of publishable quality. Most, but not all, universities require a public defense for a dissertation where the student faces a panel of academic experts who can examine him or her…”
Overstaying student
Corona told reporters after his graduation that he had worked on his doctoral degree for five years, attending classes whenever he could and spending much time on writing papers.
UST requires, as a general rule, that Ph.D. programs be completed in five years. The maximum residency is seven years.
However, in an interview in 2002, after he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he told Newsbreak that he was already working on his dissertation for his doctorate in civil law: “I am doing my dissertation already. By next semester, I will present it … After my doctorate in civil law, I plan to take a Ph.D. in history … by next March, 2003.”
At the time he was working on his dissertation, Corona was chief of staff of then President Arroyo. He enthused: “My classmates in UST are very young. They would ask: Why are you still studying? You’re already in the Cabinet. (I would reply) It’s because of my drive for academic excellence.”
This means that Corona started coursework on his Ph.D. in 2000 or 2001 since the total units required was 60. He graduated in 2011, about a decade later.
Clearly, he overstayed as a doctoral student and should not have qualified for honors.
It was unclear why Corona, knowing UST’s requirements, accepted the degree and the honors. Midas Marquez, Supreme Court spokesperson, did not respond to our questions.
This is not the first time that questions have been raised about Corona’s academic record. The book, “Shadow of Doubt: Probing the Supreme Court,” found that his claim that he graduated with honors from his Bachelor of Arts degree at the Ateneo University is not recorded in the university’s archives. With a report from Purple Romero, Contributor
Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net
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Seeing a No Grade status just reminded me I need to start working my publishable-quality paper on Post-Colonial Identity and Ricoeur. Dean Leo would be furious if I do a shitty work despite this gracious extension way way beyond the date of encoding, lol.
Anyhow, I’m done with my PAP mid-year conference paper, woohoo. See you in San Carlos Seminary this Oct. 22!
Photo reblogged from University of Santo Tomas with 30 notes
UST Architecture Students having a drawing class infront of Benavides Statue, taken while going to my office.:) :) P.S. The clock at the UST Main Bldg is currently being fixed.
I’m pretty sure I’ve overheard earlier two guys trying to find out a way to harness the lightning into the flux capacitor and going back to the future.
Source: vivasantotomas
Photo reblogged from I am impossible to find. with 2,643 notes
Masakit sa bangs diba?
Source: Wikipedia
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Blaming Schools for Wayward Graduates
By: Rev. Fr. Rolando V. De la Rosa, OP
Rector Magnificus, University of Santo Tomas
August 15 of the Quadricententennial Year
The controversy spawned by a visual art exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines has led to a sort of UST-bashing. Sadly, it came in the wake of the university’s Quadricentennial celebration.
Many people became interested in the exhibit only after television networks had featured it in their newscast. They practically ‘advertised’ it by focusing on a piece of ‘shock art’ that scandalized viewers. By identifying the whole exhibit with this piece, the other more worthy exhibitors were deprived of the recognition they deserved.
It is worth noting that the person who did this shock art piece did not graduate from UST. While attempting to render Marcel Duchamp’s pioneering but controversial art form, what he came up with is a collage that many people viewed as purely scatological, producing an effect similar to what was achieved earlier by Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, a photograph of a crucifix submerged in his own urine; or by Chris Ofili’s depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as a black woman surrounded by a collage of pornographic images and embellished with elephant dung.
Although the exhibitors were former students of UST, they never informed university authorities about their project. Nor did they bother to ask permission to mount it as ‘part of the Quadricentennial celebration of the university’. They did not even invite university authorities to watch their exhibit.
Right at the onset of the exhibit, the university, through the kindness of the CCP President, had posted a disclaimer at the site, clearly disowning it. Also, the university had already requested the CCP President to discontinue the exhibit even before a public outcry was raised against it.
Despite this, many people publicly fulminated against the university. One Catholic bishop even declared that he is ashamed of being a UST graduate and renounced his being one. (With the hasty imprudence with which he disowns his alma mater, I am tempted to say: ‘Good riddance.’)
Like human beings, a university had a good name to protect. And we who were educated in it have the obligation to safeguard its reputation, instead smearing it by our reckless actions, or condemning it at the slightest provocation. Media people seem to find a wicked delight in implicating UST in every scandal or controversy involving its former students and alumni. Suprisingly, they seldom do this to other universities whose graduates are among the most corrupt and inutile government officials this country has ever known.
Having said this let me correct the wrong presupposition that underlies the criticisms hurled at a school whenever its graduates stray. People often think of education as a production process, where inputs are transformed into outputs in a standard way. The exemplar of this idea of education is the factory where raw materials are turned into finished products through various processes. Thus, when the product is defective, the factory is blamed for it.
First, we must realize that schooling is not something that is done to students, but as something that students essentially do for themselves. Students are the key factors in shaping educational outcomes. Also, education does not produce a tangible product that is easily measurable. You cannot judge the quality of a school simply by its graduates’ achievements. In fact, educational outcomes often result from a whole range of factors external to the school. Gone were the days when the school and the larger society complement each other in the task of education.
Today, what students learn in school competes with ideas or values prevalent in society. Schools would teach the value of sacrifice, discipline, and self-denial for the sake of long-term goals. But when they go home, television and movies enshrine immediate gratification.
Schools would teach the value of long hours of study but movies, the internet, and television provide an artificial substitute for intellectual stimulation. Schools would teach the achievement of excellence through painstaking effort and performance. But the movie world, politics, and businesses offer a short cut - Peter’s Principle which states: ‘An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.’
It is not surprising, therefore, that students, even before they graduate are already lured to conform with the values dominant in modern society. They develop an attachment to surfaces rather than roots, to collage rather than in-depth work, to a collapsed sense of time and space rather than a true appreciation of history and geography, to an addiction to success rather than dedication and devotion to truth.
Schools certainly want their graduates to embody the values and principles that make us truly human, but other societal forces push powerfully in the other direction. Blaming schools for every indiscretion of its alumni is to presume that it has full control over them. In fact, they don’t. Instead of finger-pointing, the government, the media, the family, and society as a whole, must help the school pergorm its function by creating a milieu conducive to learning and principled living.
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Re: Mideo Cruz
- Attorney: Anong opinyon mo dun sa CCP controversy Joseph?
- Ako: Carry lang sir, sumikat na siya, tapos may auction ng gawa niya sa Loyola House this year, kaya bad publicity is still good publicity. Kikitaan lang niya itong nangyari kasi yun naman purpose ng likha nya: Shock. Bakit po nyo natanong ser?
- Attorney: Lumapit kasi si Cruz sa akin para sa legal opinion at kung pede ko siya i-depensa sa korte, pero ayun inayawan ko.
- Ako: Huh, bakit? Matatalo ba?
- Attorney: Wala namang laban sa korte yung reklamo nila, covered ng artistic freedom yung gawa niya at therefore hindi saklaw ng offense against religious sentiment. Kaso, ayun nga, baka magalit lola ko kapag nirepresenta ko siya.
- Ako: Mananalo ka nga sa korte, sisigawan ka naman lagi sa bahay, pangit nga.
Interpretasyon at Lalim
- Estudyante: Bakit kaya si Piolo Pascual ang model sa Quadrimodial?
- Ako: Uh, sorry sa abala pero hindi na si Piolo Pascual yan. Natapos na kasi ang likha ng sining at namatay na si Piolo Pascual sa naturang likha, at ang pagkamatay niya dito ay nagbubukas at nagiimbita na sa iba't ibang interpretasyon. Sa madaling sabi, ayun nga, patay na si Piolo Pascual sa estatwang iyan.
- Estudyante: Uh... pero di ba si Hayden Kho ang original na model dapat diyan 'di ba kuya?
- Propesor: Aminin natin, hindi UST ang first choice natin. Ako UP ang gusto ko pasukan kaso hindi ako nakapasa, sa Ateneo naman masyadong mahal.
- Ako: Sir, ako STI ang first choice ko.
- Propesor: Special child ka kasi Joseph.
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Someone just got their ID Pass for his first International Philosophy Conference.
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Anonymous asked: shut up. you're just fucking jealous on how greatly influential pinoytumblr and its moderators are. as i see you're from UST, i see why you do not like the bill. you're mandated by the church. the cHURCH. stupid arguments. mag-aral ka, bugoy. para kang tanga.
My limited experience in debates and my rather extensive experience in message boards filled with trolls lead me to the following realizations:
1. If you made a nuanced post on your stand and your critic dissolves in telling you to shut up without qualifying why; most likely you made a tightly-pressed, logically-sound, scientifically-informed argument which of course, as expected, would frustrate the critic.
2. When your critic pathologizes the motives, background and intellectual foundations behind your stand without qualifying how it makes your stand invalid in the whole scheme of the discussion; the critic most likely a) sees the point of your argument, b) fails to determine how to invalidate the argument and then c) wishes it away by convincing himself that the message and the messenger is one and the same, even tho the message could stand alone.
3. The extent from which the critic fails to criticize the methodologies and sources in the arguments shows the intellectual pedigree of the critic, and if you are superior in terms of intellectual pedigree vis-a-vis your critic it is best to approach such critic with condensation. Case in point, this whole reply.
4. The anonymity of an asker only shows his insecurity with his intellectual pedigree vis-a-vis the intellectual pedigree of the askee.
Anyhow, this only shows na Tumblr famous na ako with my RH posts, haha.
~Logic, patience and wit.
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I am horrified, deeply scandalized, and saddened that one of the icons of Christianity and the Dominican Order is being used in such a casual manner by of all institutions a Catholic one, and of all intentions it is being done to earn a Guinness record, and worst, of all days we choose to do it on the holy and sublime start of Lent.
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