BALITANG DILIMAN

UP Law celebrates 90th year

"Ang tunay na academic institution, ay lalong tumatalino, tumitinik, habang tumatanda." This was how University of the Philippines (UP) President Francisco Nemenzo greeted the UP College of Law in his speech during the opening rites of its 90th Founding Anniversary held at the Malcolm Theater of the UP Law Complex in Diliman, Quezon City last January 12.

Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide Jr. of the Supreme Court of the Philippines was the guest of honor during the affair. In his welcome remarks, Dean Raul Pangalangan of the UP College of Law related a historical background of the College and introduced the guest speaker. The dean said: "Today he [Davide] exemplifies the noblest ideals of our College, and embodies the UP dream: that children from simple families can lead extraordinary lives and change history."

In his speech, President Nemenzo referred to Davide as being "the most respected and perhaps the only credible figure in the government today."

The College also paid tribute to all UP Law alumni who have served either as Chief Justice or Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The honorees were: Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide Jr., Associate Justice Reynato S. Puno, retired Chief Justice Enrique M. Fernando, and former SC Justices Carolina Driño Aquino, Jose Campos, Serafin Cuevas, Emilio Gancayco, Ameurfina Herrera and Abraham Sarmiento.

In line with the celebration, the College launched two of its latest publications-Impeachment Q&A (A Primer on the Impeachment Trial) and the CLE (Continuing Legal Education) Journal. The affair was also highlighted by several other activities which included a Roundtable Discussion (and a forum on the Supreme Court ruling in Serrano vs. NLRC and Isetann), and the professorial chair lecture of Professor Patricia R.P. Salvador Daway. (LRL)

Ethnic Thursday nights with kontragapi in UP

Recognizing the dearth of events on Philippine ethnic and world music despite increasing public interest, the Kontemporaryong Gamelan Pilipino is organizing a series of weekly activities in a regular venue at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

Dubbed as "Ethnic Thursday Nights with Kontra-GaPi in UP" (ETHNIK - U.P.), the resident ethnic music and dance ensemble of the College of Arts and Letters popularly known as Kontra-GaPi founded and led by Art Studies professor and performing artist Edru Abraham, is presenting various activities at Quezon Hallevery Thursday at 5:30 pm.

All performances, workshops, demonstrations, lectures and interactions with Filipino and foreign world music exponents are free. For Thursdays, January 4, 11, 18 and 25, Kontra GaPi has scheduled hands-on introduction to indigenous instruments. Children will be given special individualized instruction.

The ensemble recently arrived from a critically acclaimed and well attended six-month concert tour of North America. Among the highlights were participation in the "Concert of Color" in Detroit, Michigan, the largest world music festival in North America and a series of engagements in Washington D.C. as the Philippine Embassy's cultural arm in Asia-Pacific Heritage affairs.

Announcing critical asian studies

As we approach the completion of our thirty-second year of publishing, the editors and board of directors of BCAS wish to announce that beginning in January 2001 the title of our quarterly journal will change from Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars to Critical Asian Studies.

The new name captures four different aspects of our endeavor: it acknowledges that the issues we wish to confront in the 21st century are critical; it highlights our continued commitment as activists and scholars to the search for critical perspectives on local, regional, and global change; it articulates our criticism of the status quo; and it signals our self-critical assessments of the ways in which our efforts affect the world in which we live.

The Bulletin was born out of the crisis of the Indochina Wars as an attempt to analyze U.S. policy in cold war Asia. Our goals explicitly included examining the intellectual approaches by which Asia was understood in the West and the ways in which reigning theoretical frameworks in universities and professional institutions excluded Asian aspirations and experiences. Those goals, spelled out in our original statement of purpose, remain central to our scholarship.

In part, our interest in domestic social change within Asian societies means learning from the work of scholars and activists in Asia, a goal we have held for many years but will stress more in the years ahead. The "Notes from the Field" section in the journal (and on our website: http://csf.colorado. edu/bcas/) contains information about contemporary political activism and social movements in Asia. This effort is part of our ongoing commitment to write and publish in the increasingly international, interdisciplinary field of Asian Studies. We continue to encourage creative work at the intersection of scholarship and activism. We draw inspiration from a variety of intellectual approaches: these include environmentalism, feminism, cultural analyses, human rights concepts, participatory development, political economy, studies of race and ethnicity, and movements for the rights of indigenous peoples. Thirty years ago, socialism provided powerful critiques of both capitalism and "traditional" Asian social organization. Those critiques raised valuable questions about power, exploitation, and oppression without providing sufficient answers, but the historical tradition of socialist thought remains a source of inspiration for some of us, together with newer analytical tools. We continue to debate various alternatives to global capitalism as it currently exists. We agree that attractive alternatives to contemporary systems would be based on social foundations of cooperation rather than competition and of use values as well as exchange values. The alternatives would also result in development that is human in a broad sense rather than narrowly defined in highly unequal economic terms. We remain committed to human rights, democracy, social justice, self-determination, and equality.

home | main