Not a Pozo-Negro

Students of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) have taken to the Internet to express anger over allusion that UST is obstructing a government flood-control project.

In his last State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Aquino said a Manila university he did not name turned down a proposal to build a catchment basin under its open fields.

UST netizens lamented that as the oldest existing university in Asia and the largest Catholic university in the world in terms of population, UST has so many fragile historic buildings that could be adversely affected by such a catchment project.

“They want to turn UST into a giant pozo-negro in utter disregard of the damage such a project would pose to our cultural heritage,” blogged Neptali Samson.

“Poor urban planning and not UST is to blame,” twitted AB political science graduate and law student with the handle jerican231.

UST’s student publication The Varsitarian said UST rejected the catchment project proposed by DPWH because “UST's open spaces and other buildings are also National Cultural Treasures as declared by the National Museum in 2010.” 

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Image by: Wikipilipinas