������Ƶ was represented by Office of Public Affairs Director Assoc. Prof. Giovanna V. Fontanilla, Ph.D., APR, whose office primarily deals with media relations and prepares press releases on University activities and events for external media partners such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

After the awarding ceremony, Fontanilla was able to meet and talk to PDI President and Chief Executive Officer Alexandra Prieto-Romualdez,  Chief Operating Officer Rudyard S. Arbolado, Associate Publisher Juliet L. Javellana, Assistant Vice President for Corporate Affairs Connie Kalagayan, and Executive Editor Joseph Voltaire Contreras. The awarding ceremony was held on February 5, 2020 at the PDI head office in Makati. Also attending for UST were members of the Office of Public Affairs, Ms. Michaella O. Lagniton and Ms. Basilia A. Lanuza, who are both in-charge of media relations, events and special guests.

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Mr. Michael John M. Cortez (BSA 2015 Magna Cum Laude) bagged the illustrious Gold Medal Award, a recognition given to the top scorer in the CMA examination – Professional category. He is followed by Ms. Jo-Anne R. Etin (BSA 2017) who received the Silver Medal Award. Meanwhile, Ms. Cherica Joy A. Angeles (BSA 2019 Magna Cum Laude), Mr. Bill Julius L. Ocampo (BSA 2019 Magna Cum Laude and October 2019 CPA licensure examination 6th Place) and Mr. Justine Louie B. Santiago (BSA 2019 Magna Cum Laude and October 2019 CPA licensure examination 1st Place) earned the Student Certificate of Distinguished Performance Award, after they posted the second highest average score in the CMA examination – Student category.

The five awardees will fly to Atlanta, Georgia, USA in June 2020 to receive their respective recognitions.

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This year, the Community Service Day – Coastal Clean-Up and Nature Walk Activity was held at the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA) on January 25, 2020. The event commenced with an orientation by DENR-NCR Strategic Communication and Initiatives Service Officer Mr. Dexter Villa. It was followed by a short opening message by UST SIMBAHAYAN Community Development Office Director Prof. Arvin D. Eballo, Ed.D. After the brief program, the coastal clean up took place. It was participated in by 53 administrators, faculty, support staff, and an alumna of UST. With the joint efforts of Thomasian participants, a total of 89 sacks or 592 kilos of garbage were collected on that day. Following the coastal clean-up was the nature walk activity which featured various mangroves and eight other plant species in that 30-hectare land.  

By virtue of R.A. 11038 or the Expanded NIPAS Act of 2018, LPPCHEA is now considered part of the National Integrated Protected Areas System (R.A. 7586) and is currently called the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park (LPPWP).

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Identifying cultural heritage of Mabalacat City 

The City Government of Mabalacat City of Pampanga partners with UST Graduate School CCCPET to launch four modules of cultural mapping to gather the heritage resources for its nature and culture-based tourism promotion, development and conservation. 

The cultural mapping activity is supported by the local government represented by Councilor Win-Win Garbo, chairperson on tourism, culture, and arts. Instructors from Mabalacat City College and teachers of the Department of Education Mabalacat City Division serve as cultural mappers of the city. 

According to Mr. Arwin Paul Lingat, a UST Cultural Heritage Studies alumnus and the tourism officer of the city, the cultural mapping is part of the nine pillars of governance of Mayor Crisostomo Garbo, which is “Culture and Heritage Awareness.” The project will run from January to May 2020. 

Cultural mapping is a tool to identify the natural and cultural heritage resources of a specific locality for purposes of conservation and development. 

A key step in Leyte’s push for development

The third District of Leyte is a partner of the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School-Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment (USTGS-CCCPET) in conducting a Cultural Heritage Mapping of its five municipalities namely, Villaba, Leyte, San Isidro, Calubian, and Tabango.

The Local Government of the Province of Leyte appreciates Cultural Heritage Mapping as an important stage in the overall effort geared towards local development. During the first module, Congressman Ching Veloso reflects on how mapping the unique culture and distinct assets of each town will be fundamental to opening up various opportunities for development through tourism.  Mapping is also seen as a tool to address the urgent need to promote the district, which is known to be the “black hole” of Leyte as it is relatively unknown compared to its more popular neighbors such as Ormoc and Tacloban. Concretely, the mapping data will be used to develop the Master Plan for Leyte’s 3rd District. 

The project commenced in December 2019 with an orientation of stakeholders, including representatives from the Provincial Government, DOT Region 8, academic institutions, the different towns, and DepEd. CCCPET Director Assoc. Prof. Eric Zerrudo is training more than 70 mappers representing the five municipalities of this district. The project is ongoing and is set to finish by the second quarter of the 2020.

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Prof. Van Erp is a lay Dominican from the Netherlands. Aside from being a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, he also holds the Schillebeeckx Chair at Radbound University. He is also the organizer of the biennial Schillebeeckx Lectures in Leuven and Editor-in-Chief of Brill Research Perspective in Theology. 

In his presentation, Van Erp retraced the development of Schillebeeckx’s political theology to demonstrate the theological significance of civil authority and the political significance of ecclesial authority. He pointed out how Schillebeeckx puts forward the hypostatic union as a model for the Church, patterned on Jesus incarnation which actualized God’s love for humanity and validates human history. Thus, Church and civil authority are not static, but are developing historically towards more humanized institutions.

Van Erp said that for Schillebeeckx “the hierarchical structure of the Church was a historically contingent evolution and not a matter pertaining to the core of Christian faith.” As such, the Church’s current structure of authority may be based on historical, ideological, and theological reasons that might no longer represent our present worldview or theology. In light of this, he suggests adopting a form of “ecclesial democracy” as a new way of allowing the workings of the Spirit. 

However, ecclesial democracy cannot be the same as other democracies. Democratic reforms must be made within the ultimate eschatological goal of Christian faith, as a service for those within and outside the Church towards salvation. However, he warns that this may open the Church to the corrupting influence of ideologies, but it is a necessary danger that the Church cannot shy away from.

The panel of reactors was composed of Fr. Emmanuel I. Cruz, S.Th.D., Assoc. Prof. Joel C. Sagut, Ph.D., and Fr. Delfo Canceran, O.P., Ph.D. 

Fr. Cruz, a Filipino expert on Schillebeeckx from the Immaculate Conception Major Seminary in Bulacan, commended how Van Erp developed Schillebeeckx’s thoughts and discussed how the participation and contributions of both laity and clergy become concrete expressions of ecclesial democracy. Sagut of UST Ecclesiastical Faculties explored how Alasdair MacIntyre’s concept of proxy can give voice to the unheard sectors of the Church and become an avenue for ecclesial democracy. Canceran of De La Salle University, raised critical questions on the assumptions of Schillebeeckx’s political theology, showing how it remains open for discussion today. 

After the lecture, tokens and certificates were awarded by UST Theological Society President Br. Siddharta B. Chiong, O.P.

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Caliwan’s lecture was titled “Sharing of Good Practices in Teaching Accounting Courses.“  The other speakers were Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy Chairman Hon. Noe Quiñanola, who spoke about CPA licensure examination and professional development, and SGV Assurance Partner Mr. Jose Raoul Balisalisa, who discussed reporting standards for small entities. The South Cotabato forum is the third installment of the series of regional fora organized by the National Association of CPAs in Education, which aimed to bring to the provinces the members of the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy and deliver continuing professional development programs for CPAs.

In his lecture to the accounting teachers in the SOCCSKSARGEN Region, Caliwan enumerated the different roles of a teacher inside the classroom: trainer, facilitator, and an assessor. 

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Architects Austin Carl S. Equipaje and Maria Regina Victoria M. Polotan landed in the #4 and #9 places, respectively.

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Sawant, a well-known realist artist, has held solo and group shows in Mumbai and other parts of India. He also participated in international exhibitions such as those in Germany, United States of America (USA) and Australia. His works were also featured in art publications in the USA, Russia, and France.

During his talk to UST students, Sawant shared his recent illustrations that include the scenery overlooking the National Museum, a portrait of a Filipino man and sights in Europe and Asia. He continued with a demonstration of his painting process with the iconic UST Main Building as his subject. In the process and between layers of watercolor, he discussed thoughts and techniques on certain hand strokes, color values and bias to achieve a realistic effect. In much less than three hours, he was able to accomplish the illustration in almost full detail, which consequently astonished and inspired the audience.

The watercolor artist was invited to the University by the College of Architecture with the help of artist Ms. Sarah Liusun-Ongsun, co-facilitated by the College of Architecture Dean Rodolfo P. Ventura and faculty member Ar. Artemio D. Garcia. The UST lecture-workshop was part of Sawant’s  five-day watercolor workshop tour in Metro Manila.

Other than visiting UST, Sawanti also held an atmospheric landscape watercolor workshop during the Art Fair 2020 in SM Megamall, Ortigas; and a five-day Plein Air Watercolor Demonstration and Workshop in Manila.

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With this question in mind, Institute of Information and Computing Sciences faculty member Asst. Prof. Mylene J. Domingo pursued with unparalleled vigor her study resulting in a research paper that bagged the Best Paper award in the 2020 2nd International Conference on Big Data Engineering and Technology (BDET 2020) and the 2020 International Conference on Frontiers of Computers and Communication Engineering (FCCE2O20) held on January 4, 2020 at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 

Considered as a premier conference in the field, the BDET and FCCE provide a highly competitive forum for reporting the latest developments in the research and application of Big Data Engineering and Technology and Frontiers of Computers and Communication Engineering. 

In Domingo’s study titled “Fuzzy Rule Based Inference System in Patient Diagnosis of Breast Tumor in Fine Needle Aspiration,” it was revealed that: “Fuzzy logic has an accuracy of 96.93%, sensitivity and specificity of 97.06%. Thus, fuzzy logic is good for predicting the class of breast tumor.” Domingo further explained that the “Mamdani fuzzy inference method is used in the development of the fuzzy model, and the rules are generated based on the experts’ domain. The value of each selected attribute is then inputted in the Rule Viewer to determine the class of breast cancer tumor using CRISP input.”

Domingo, who once served as Institute Secretary of IICS, teaches Data Analytics and Programming. She holds a Master’s Degree in Information Technology and has conducted research studies in the field of Data Mining.

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Gracing the historical event was the Ambassador of the United States to the Philippines His Excellency Sung Y. Kim, the Undersecretary for Defense Policy Ricardo David, Jr., PVAO Veterans Memorial and Historical Division Chief BGen. Restituto L. Aguilar, and UST Secretary-General Rev. Fr. Jesús M. Miranda, Jr., O.P. 

UST played a critical role during World War II, from 1942 to 1945, being the largest internment camp in the Philippines. It would be remembered that around 4,000 internees, of which almost 3,000 were Americans, were liberated from the Santo Tomas Internment Camp by American Forces beginning February 3, 1945.  Captain Manuel Colayco, a UST faculty member, was killed while guiding the liberators in their entrance to the University.

At the UST commemoration rites, after a silent drill by the members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine Marines Drum and Bugle Team was the wreath-laying ceremony, and entrance of colors. Opening remarks were delivered by UST Secretary-General Rev. Fr. Miranda, Ambassador Kim and Defense Undersecretary David delivered messages while American internee Leslie Ann Murray of the Filipino-American Memorial Endowment (FAME), Inc., and the youngest son of Captain Manuel Colayco, Francisco Colayco, gave their reminiscences. 

Sergeant Jose Quilatan, Jr., oldest veteran leader in the Philippines, and members of the Colayco family were also present.

Prior to the rites, the veterans were given a historical tour of the Main Building by respected historian and UST faculty member Assoc. Prof. Augusto de Viana, Ph.D.

In the afternoon of the same day, research studies on the end of the World War II in the Philippines were presented by four researchers from the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts, and Humanities headed by Assoc. Prof. Maria Alexandra Iñigo-Chua, Ph.D., namely: Assoc. Prof. Archie B. Resos, Ph.D.; Assoc. Prof. Augusto de Viana, Ph.D.; Ar. Assoc Prof. Leah P. de la Rosa, Ph.D.; and Ar. Asst Prof. Felicisimo A. Tejuco, Jr.

In previous milestone years, the University of Santo Tomas hosted the 50th, 60th, and 70th commemoration activities within its historic campus. Then US Ambassador John Negroponte and then President Fidel Ramos attended the 50th anniversary event, while then US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone Jr., graced the 60th anniversary of the liberation. For the 70th anniversary at UST, the Bay Area Civilian Ex-Prisoners of War (BACEPOW) were in attendance.

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