The Roving eye

Media

Part of The Carolinian

Title: The Roving eye
Creator: Morales, Alberto C.
Language: English
Year: 1953
Rights
Fulltext: I i OR sticking our necks out re-religious mJ__ struction, we got a lusty kick in the pants from a UP miss who, in no uncertain terms, told us we deliberately misrepresented facts about Fr. Delaney's work at Diliman. All we said was the good Father is doing all right, only it doesn't end there. The point we wanted to drive home is the need of a thoroughly Christian education in private as well as in public schools. It is common knowledge there is an apparent lack of this in State U. Why she should be riled up over that is beyond us. Well, this is a free country and she is just as much entitled to her own opinion as we are. Enough is enough. Suffice it is to say that somebody reads us after all. And we're flattered. Let us behave, the FEATI TECH NEWS ed asks of his readers. In the presentation of candidates of a popularity contest sponsored by the school, there were wolf calls, whistles and even indecent exclamations. Some distorted minds would give excuse that these were all expressions of appre ciation of beauty. These were outward manifesta tions of undisciplined minds. If it should soothe the writer's conscience, we would like to state here that letting out wolf calls for a beautiful face or figure is a disease plaguing even the so-called higher echelons of society. Blame GI Joe for it. Although, as a nation of imitators of anything American, we should blame ourselves more. Like the common run of apers, we bungle the model through exaggeration. Essaying on hypocrisy, E. T. COCSON in the AGUSTINIAN MIRROR (Universidad de San Agus tin, Iloilo City) avers there are myriad types of hypocrites you would wish you did not know arithmetic at all. Day in, day out, you see them pretending to be unpretending in their parade of pretensions. There is the nobody who pretends to be somebody, a nothing who vainly attempts to be something. Then there are those who see themselves as the never-dying glories on the pedes tals of society... when they, in reality, are in bor rowed plumes. Indeed, there are all sorts of hypocrites it would be futile to type them adequately. 'But the worst of the lot is the society climber. In putting up a front, he sacrifices his self-respect for the oppor tunity of hobnobbing with the "400". The moment one loses his regard for himself, he's gone to the dogs. More exhortations. Let us be chaste, appeals P. L. Ronquillo of the PURISINIAN (Colegio de la Purisima Concepcion, Roxas City). It is deplor able that unbecoming and immodest conversation is very common in our country today. He who can relate the most shameless anecdote or make the coarsest witticism and lewdest play upon words is considered the best entertainer. These are not empty words. Read them once more, sleep on them, and then find out whether you count among those referred to by the author. If you are, it's never too late to change your moral perspective. Scandalous stories may make you the life of the party but where does that honestly get you? Yes, your listeners will enjoy every minute of it, but at whose expense? YOURS. Whoever scribbles Sour Notes in the BEDAN (SBC) certainly puts murder in his lines in de nouncing MIT's V. Nacario.. If you then insist on writing lies, Mr. Nacario — keep in mind that you never can reach nor lower RSG's stature (referring to Raul S. Gonzalez, a BEDAN columnist) — for lies and lice can always be exterminated by truth and soap, and you sure have a long bath to take before a mosquito would even dare perch on your skin. The inside story of the BEDAN-BUILDER battle of words is only partially known to us. It would be sheer folly, therefore, on our part to take sides. Besides, who wants to be at the receiving end of barbed, slimy backtalk? The pen has been, is being, and will be abused. That it should be used, however, as a tool of assuaging the hurt pride of a sensitive few is abuse with a capital A, parti cularly in a college paper. When a person acts to protect a right which is guaranteed him by the law he acts properly. When an association, institution, or group of per sons does the same, they are acting within the bounds of propriety. . . When the Church acts to uphold this lawful right (right to teach religion), it is acting in the same way that any other society would if placed in similar- danger. This is the LETRAN NEWS' refutation of the recent blasts of religious bigotry, fanaticism hurled at the Catholics in connection with the religious controversy currently raging. Some extremists (Continued on page 28) Page 8 THE CAROLINIAN Caroliniana (Continued from, page 2) (Continued from, page 8) bor, Okinawa. In our reunions then, I found out how deeply he loves San Carlos. He was always in contact with Caro linians and inquiring for developments at USC. Johnny Mercader who sometime during that period was editor of The Carolinian was his regular correspondent. Ben wangled a measly poem out of us which he sent to editor Johnny Mercader who had it printed as Ode to My Alma Mater in one of the 1948 issues of The Carolinian. We were outside of the Philippines, and we thought then that we could never be back again at USC. By the early part of 1949, we had to quit our stint with the USATS as Chief Radio Operator, so that from that time on, we thought we could not see Ben anymore, for we went home to Cebu ostensibly to resume our very-much delayed studies. And we thought we won t hear from Ben anymore and his usual musings about San Carlos, for he was steady with his doughboys at Okinawa. But through Filo, his brother, who was by that time a law undergraduate at San Carlos when we re-enrolled, we kept posted on the goings-on of Ben, the gogetter and the charmer. It was Filo who told us that Ben, after getting tired of the biting winds of barren Okinawa, asked to be discharged from the U. S. Army at the "zone of the interior". He got what he wanted. From a separation center in the United States, he proceeded to look for Dr. Wallingsford, his mater nal grandfather who is living in Missouri. The reunion must have been tear-filling. And Ben did not waste time loafing around in a country new to his eyes and perspectives. He availed himself of the G-l Bill of Rights and tried to resume his Medicine Course at a college in Missouri. But he was human too; and although he was quite absorbed with his medical books (for that time, Ben already meant business), he was only but human in look ing around making friends. Social creature that Ben is, he could not help but be popular with his classmates and neigh bors. It did not take him long to fix his eyes on a pretty Missourian coed. He was betrothed to her before long. But then, at the eve of his wedding, he received Army Orders to report at once to an Army Center, thus leaving everything again behind. In camp, they were geared to' move at any moment s notice, for somewhere. When the Army Transport which took them aboard was already churn ing the broad waters of the Pacific, that was only then that he knew they were proceeding to Korea and its battlefields. Hawaii, Wake, Midway, Japan, and finally, Korea and fight! The rest of what he went through will consume pages. But anyway, we cannot tell it ourselves even if we want to. For gregarious and showy as Ben was in the past, he did not give us any inkling of whatever deeds he performed in com bat. The U. S. Army must have ingrained in him indelible lessons in secrecy discipline, even if he could already have told about his doings without violating regulations. Or he just did not have a chance at all to reveal to us any of his doings below the 38th parallel due to the limited time he had with us when last we saw him. He arrived Cebu City on a Wednesday and had to leave the following Sunday. But we were able to bring him even condemn the Church's stand as something that smacks of dictatorship. Since when has it become undemocratic for a majority to insist upon its constitutional rights? A certain LeRoy of the CENTRAL ECHO (Cen tral Philippine College, Iloilo City) campus news paper treats of the fiesta evil in the Menckenese manner. There is no country so bedeviled by fiestas as ours is. The idea is to have a big splurge today and starve tomorrow. We, Filipinos, by sheer force of habit induced by centuries of per nicious Iberian influence, fiesta-away our time and substance and fool ourselves that we are a happy people. We're not digging up any bone of contention with LeRoy but, if we may say so, fiestas also have their merits. Take, for instance, their spiritual values. What are fiestas primarily held for? To honor patron saints. How about the biggest of 'em all — the Philippines' International Fair? Here is a very effective means of selling our country to foreigners. Believe us, it's going to have farreaching results in boosting our foreign commerce and tourist trade. True, making the rounds of the Fair sure bums a hole in your pocket. But let it burn. It's worth it anyhow. As a matter of fact, we are now right in the heart of the World Fair... our Roving Eye feast. ing on the many eye-filling exhibits displayed in the various pavilions and booths... to mention nothing of the wimminl Ah ... the Eye is a sucker for a better face and an hour-glass figure. But be fore we continue gabbing, we just hate mixing pleasure with work. Tsk, tsk, tsk........ So, g'bye now. around for a look-see on the sights of present-day San Carlos and the evolution it went through from the time he left it in 1941. Impressed, he was, and happy to be under the roof of his Alma Mater again. He thought everything physical in San Carlos has changed. But then he met Dr. Protasio Solon, an old friend, on the corridors; and with the most cor dial handshakes he took and the open smiles he was offered by nearly everybody, whether acquaintance or non-acquaintance, while he with his flashy-uniform was walking with us through the corridors and lobbies new to him, he knew inside of him that he was "home" again. We introduced him to the Rev. Fr. Carda, USC Secretary General, who must have marveled at the enthusiasm of a former student absent for about a dozen years, but still feel ing that San Carlos is still his "old home", even if that alum nus knows that by Fate and circumstance of his calling, he won’t be able to go back to it again, ever. And with Ben gone, we can't help but emote that wonder ful truth lodging in every Carolinian heart: "Once a Carolinian, always a Carolinian." Page 28 THE CAROLINIAN