There is a new optimism these days that the Philippines will finally shed off its image as the “sick man of Asia” because its economy is growing faster than most countries in the world¹, and it has just been given its first-ever investment grade rating which is expected to cause an upward trend of foreign investments to the country considering the slow and unstable recovery of advanced economies.²

  The University’s Marine Research Station in Maribago, Mactan hosted Dr. Michele Nishiguchi, from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM, and her doctoral advisee Ms. Neda Nourabadi, who collected bobtail squid species, Euprymna hyllebergi within the waters of Cebu and Bohol and sampled Vibrio fischeri, a bioluminescent bacterial symbiont found in the mantle of the said squid, from May 20 to June 1.

   The USC Marine Research Station has collaborated with Dr. Sarah Lemer, postdoctoral fellow from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and graduate student David Combosch, from 8 to 17 May 2013, in collecting bivalve species commonly known as pen or fan shells (Family Pinnidae), locally known as “tab” in  Cebu and Bohol to investigate its taxonomy, radiation and diversity, and to supply in DNA a phylogenetic revision of this family.

   The Carolinian Debate Society bested twenty-eight other college debating teams in the 1^st Inter Varsity debate tournament held at USC Downtown Campus from 23 to 25 May 2013.

   The latest addition to University of San Carlos Press publications, Canto Voice, a collection of short mock satiric verses by the late Cornelio Faigao, launches at the Waterfront Cebu City hotel in cooperation with the Freeman Lifestyle on Saturday, June 8, 2013, from 3 to 6pm, together with Linda Faigao-Hall’s The Female Heart and Other Plays published in the United States by NoPassport Press.

Political Science major student Sonny Boquecosa is the lone Carolinian who made it to the search for the 2013 Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines in Central Visayas.  He will join five other Region 7 awardees in the national search in which they will bid for a slot in the National Top 30 tilt.

After a year of implementation of Project 5. Pilot Technology Demonstration on Coral Reef Restoration in Boracay Island, Malay, Aklan, the DOST and USC turned over the project to the local government of Malay. This is one of the highlights during the culmination activities celebrating Boracay Days held at the Boracay Regency Hotel on 18 May 2013.

University of San Carlos Museum hosted last Tuesday, 21 May, a mini-conference between Kyoto University Museum and the Visayas Association of Museums and Galleries, Inc. (VAMGI), the sole aggrupation of museum curators and practitioners in Central Visayas. The meeting was held at the USC Board of Trustees conference room at Downtown Campus.