The Irate Spectator

I never realized that nosing around our Department secretary's desk would be rewarding but I found some interesting finds. One was a memo from the Planning and Development Office. Apparently, Fr. Rod Salazar is wondering aloud whether USC should increase its tuition seeing as other Universities in Cebu are either freezing any increase or, like University of the Visayas and University of Cebu, are actually lowering tuition for the next year. UC's Augustus Go was quite proud of this accomplishment that he ran a full page ad on Sun.Star. Fr. Rod ends his memo with a brief appeal to the Holy Spirit for guidance in this dilemma and the Admin sure is going to need it, torn as they are between the College Faculty Association's call for salary increases and the usually adamant students who don't want a tuition fee hike as well as the looming Financial Crisis that's already starting to creep into Cebu.

But the real jackpot find I got was the memo from the top guy Fr. President Dionisio Miranda, SVD, MA, STD himself. It said that the remaining Departments of the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and some Admin offices would be transferred to the Talamban Campus by the summer of 2009. That means the Departments of Political Science, Psychology, Economics, Sociology-Anthropology, Religious Education, History, Philosophy, Languages and Literature and Library Science are going to pack up and transfer to TC along with the Offices of the President, Vice Presidents for Academic Affairs, Administration and Finance, the Registrar, Admissions Human Resources, etc. In short, only Commerce and Law and the Research Offices will be left behind. This is HUGE!!

Understandably, reactions were quite strong. A classmate of mine cannot but help express her sentiments in the most effective manner available: a Friendster Bulletin. Our longtime law professor, the (in)famous Atty. Aresnio Tan went so far as to tell us that next year he would quit teaching as Talamban is too far away for him. Now that's a real bummer as the guy's an institution in the Political Science Department. It's been widely accepted that if you are one of the select few who pass his subjects then, and only then, can you really consider a career in law. Not that I have anything against our lower years but it wouldn't be fair if they didn't go through what we went through!! And then there were the whines of people who didn't want to switch dorms, the outright threat to shift to another course just to stay in the same campus, the calls for a petition against the transfer and there was one query addressed to me if the Student Council was consulted in this matter.

Personally, I'm quite undecided on how to take all of this. I always liked Talamban's laid back atmosphere and its wide open spaces as contrasted to the Main Campus where all the congestion and pollution of the city salute you when you step outside. But I can't deny that Talamban, for all the amazing development it's had in recent years, is still at some distance from civilization, or at least the kind of civilization we Main people gotten ourselves used to. And the traffic, don't get me started on the traffic. Not even the new flyover will soothe the massive hordes of vehicles
after the transfer. Then, the floods, the floods we were fortunate enough to avoid in first year when we had our Biology there in the first semster. We were lucky the weather wasn't rainy that time.

But no doubt I'm gonna miss Main. I'm gonna miss P. del Rosario, Junquera, Sanciangko and Pelaez. Looks like it's goodbye to Bernard Wrocklage, Theodore Buttenbruch, Ernest Hoerdemann and Albert van Gansewinkel and hello to Bunzel, Rigney and company. I'm gonna miss Angel Mae's where I've been having lunch for three years. No more riding the ferry for me too. But as the memo said, migration will be completed by summer of 2009. So it's time to say my goodbyes and accept the change that's in front of me. Wait a second, their leaving the Law Library at the Main?!