UST Varsitariian does not speak for ALL UST students regarding RH bill

Please refer to the current editorial in Varsitarian,net: RH bill, Ateneo, and La Salle: Of lemons and cowards., which purports to display the official stand of the UST student and administration of UST regarding the Reproductive Health Act.

Who says religious fanaticism can be found in Muslim counties only? The Varsitarian, the official organ of the student body or the University of the Philippines, has lambasted professors of Lasalle and Ateneo for not kowtowing or blindly follwing the official stand of the Catholic bishops on the RH bill.

We are simply amazed and shocked at the stand of UST's official paper. We suspect that the editorial piece was written not by a student but by someone from the administration of UST. Regardsless who the suthor is, the piece smacks of mindless devotion and intolerance.


We call on the Varsitarian to offer a public apology.

Do UST and Corona have a mutually beneficial relationship?

I was looking for Amado 'Jake' Macasaet's column and the Google search engine somehow produced from the interrelationships between web sites, this gem http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2004/oct2004/124250.htm.

In this case, the Supreme Court, through its Third division, has set aside a Court of Appeals ruling,on October 18, 2044, UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS AND PRISCILLA TIONGCO CANICOSA, respondents.


Now, dont get us wrong. We only publish a fact that UST, which conferred on Corona a doctorate in law, without the requirements of a published dissertation, had a favorable decision penned by the Supreme Court justice, Renato Corona.

Further reading:

twitter.com elmarjay>

The Rappler.com piece on Chief Justice Corona

Flash! Here is the latest rappler.com entry on the Ph.D controversy:
Corona's Lecute enough for a PhD


Visit Rappler.com

I got my free copy of the local Philippine Daily Inquirer. It carried the following headline "UST: CJ earned Ph.D" which states that the Dominican Order founded University of Santo Tomas denied tit broke academic rule when it granted a Doctorate of Laws from the university.

It was a response to the rappler.com online article's claim that

1. Corona does NOT have a dissertation in the UST library.

2. Corona did NOT fulfill the five-year residency requirement.

So far, rappler.com has not received any official replies from UST Graduate School. It is worth noting that according to the Rappler.com,the Chief Justice does not have a dissetation. Instead. a mention of a Public Lecture was divulged:

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 that Corona’s doctoral dissertation was entitled “To Every One His Due: The Philippine Judiciary at the Forefront of Promoting Environmental Justice.”

Oh well, I have a PhD in Mathematics, which required both a dissertation and a public defense. What UST is doing may be all right for this institution, but from now on, a blot on it PhD in Law has been inked by its conferring of the PhD degree on Chief Justice Corona. UST prestige, whatever the school does, has been harmed and may be difficult to repair.

Further reading:

Inquirer news on Corona's Ph.D.

What UST has denied is that rules were broken to favor Corona. If it says that a written dissertation is NOT required, that is its call, not rappler not even this blogger's call. We call it a lapse of judgement.

Even the Chief Justice's undergraduate degree with honors is being questioned, but we stop from going further in this post.



We thank Rappler.com for pointing out the fact that Yes, a submitted dissertation is NOT an absolute requirement.


Click for a timeline of the trial.