The Miguel Building Chronicles

On some days of the week, my schedule leaves me no choice but to stay in the Miguel Building from mid-morning to about four in the afternoon. Normally I am less than happy with this set up, but today I decided to stick around to talk to the different candidates who were doing the room-to-room campaign.

I had the opportunity to talk to Rocky de Castro (of Santugon) about her plans for encouraging sociocivic involvement in the College of Liberal Arts. The idea of involving DLSU students in long-term projects such as livelihood classes in different communities sounds feasible to some quarters, but it will take some serious thinking and organization to ensure that the programs will really address the needs of the communities, and not just be a repeat of one-off seminars. Rocky also mentioned her plans for better information dissemination in the college, as well as batch unity (especially for FAST 07). I do wonder just what will be the galvanizing forces needed for these aims to become a reality.

A few minutes later, I entered my classroom to find Tats, Erwin, Chantal, and Betti (all from Tapat) discussing platforms and projects with my classmates. Tats was enthusiastically talking about plans for a student leadership program, again targeted for FAST 07. Good thinking but again will need good planning and marketing to become truly useful to my batchmates. One of my classmates asked about the University Student Government. Apparently the Tapat candidates are pushing for the USG to promote a transparent, efficient government...though I do wish that our aspiring batch representatives had the opportunity to explain in detail what this would mean for the student body.

I got to also ask Betti about her slate's plans for sociocivic involvement in the CLA. Apparently Tapat's approach here is to increase student awareness by institutionalizing the Kamalayan forums. This would involve asking professors to give incentives for attending the forums, or promoting the activities more aggressively, in line with the upcoming 2010 elections. I said to Betti, "we're back to the voter's education issue we discussed in high school?" A worthy effort, but not something I can totally agree with either. Later, I found something about Kalinga CLA in the Tapat GPOA given to me. I didn't have the chance to ask what this project was all about.

Later in the day, the executive board candidates of Santugon did their spiel in our class. Lots of mentions of credentials, past projects and achivements, and as well as some upcoming plans: evaluations of policies (such as the impending enforcement of the dress code), justified food and drink prices, and preparations for the university centennial. It was good (and a little typical) of the candidates to mention all of this in a matter of a few minutes, but I do wish they had been ready with copies of their SPOA. Apparently it isn't time yet for the Q&A portion of the campaign, since the candidates made their exit in a hurry. The same goes also for the Tapat candidates who also did their campaign spiel some time later.

Comic moment of the day: Two members of the DLSU chorale also did a room to room spiel for their concert this weekend. When they appeared, one of my classmates said "Oh no!". However, when everyone caught on, we were all clapping and cheering them on as they "spoofed" the campaign RTR formula of the candidates. This means two things for me: firstly that the DLSU chorale is getting more creative with their marketing, and secondly, that both Tapat and Santugon have to revamp their campaign strategies if they even want to get the attention of the students.

Conversation for the day:
Classmate1: So who are you voting for?
Me: Ask me in two days. Basta, "chopseuy" na ang vote ko.
Classmate1: Chopseuy?
Me: Neither straight or deretso
Classmate2: No! Hey Kat, you should vote for (insert name of candidate here)
Me: And why?
Classmate 3: Ummm, he's nice?
Me: There are plenty of nice people. But why him?
Classmate2: Well...check the platform, Kat, it's all there.
Me: I get it, but the thing is that, why him for this position, and not someone else like his opponent? I want to hear what he's got to say about that platform.

Later, when I got back to my org's tambayan, some of the conversation turned to elections. It's disheartening to see that (partially out of disenchantment with politics) that some of my friends are not too eager to vote in the elections. An alumni friend mentioned the suggestion of another friend that involved encouraging our entire org supporting one particular party. To this my friend said, "no". Thanks, ate.

A freshman friend suggested that neither party should dominate the election "so that they can share ideas". Hey, this young man is on to something. I'd like to see more of this happening in the incoming SC.

One thing I wonder: do DLSU students really know the actual responsibilities and duties of each position in the SC? I'm not sure if it's an en masse case of amnesia, or a lack of information given by the SC over the years as to the actual organization and work in the student government. Maybe some voter's ed 101 for the DLSU student is in order.