Of Destabilizers and Naked Runners

Yesterday, August 27, 2005, Philippine Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez made a comment about the students coming from my university. Choice bits of the article are as follows (emphasis mine):

THIS time Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has picked on the University of the Philippines school system, saying it mainly produces militant protesters and fraternity men and women who run around the campus naked.

“That school breeds the destabilizers that haunt the country year after year. They are acting as if they are the only ones who know how to run the country,” Gonzalez told the Inquirer yesterday.

[...]

“I doff my hat to them because they initiate the running of naked people... That’s also one kind of culture that they develop there,” he said, noting that women had begun to join the naked run as well which is held in December.

“Maybe we are going in that direction... there are now women running naked. I will not be surprised if they will go to school with only their books, nothing more,” he said.

[...]

He said this was not the way the students should repay the government for giving them a world-class education.

“They should consider the fact that the state is the one paying for their schooling. Why fight the state? Why try to bring it down. I think some degree of gratitude should be there also,” he said.

He noted that UP had always been known as a “cradle of leadership” but he was worried that with the way some students there were acting, some serious questions would be raised about the “kind of leaders we will have in the future.”

But he said he was “not degrading UP per se,” but was only questioning the kind of students that came from it.

The naked runners quote is attributed to the annual event of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity wherein they run naked around the campus as homage to the Oblation, which is symbolic of the youth offering themselves to serve the country. Some of you may remember me talking about this last year.

In any case, UP students did not take that news article sitting down. Today, the University Student Council decided to hold an impromptu rally in cooperation with the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity, who agreed to hold a mini-oblation run. Consider it a little kiss-my-ass to Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez. :|

There's another lovely little article to accompany that.

ANGERED over a statement by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez last week when he claimed that the University of the Philippines bred "destabilizers and naked runners," members of a fraternity did just that on Monday -- run around the campus in Diliman, Quezon City without their clothes on.

GOD I love my school.

What's even more brilliant is that, despite me being stoutly politically apathetic and actually having French class, I was able to be at that rally-slash-naked-run, right front and center. :| I never actually learn--being in news-worthy events means being in front of news crew. :|

I have the photos to prove it too. :P

( Of course, all of these photos have to be work-safe and viewable by everyone. )