The Boy From the FrontPage

By: shanz
Peace Studies’ 6th Regional Peace Forum Started with a touch!
06 Dec. 2007- the 6th Regional Peace Forum was finally realized after it was postponed in its first schedule that was supposed to be last November 22, 2007, due to the formation of typhoon Mina.
The change in schedule of such forum, also changes its venue due to unavailability of the first prospect holding place. Instead of B.U amphitheater, it was brought to South Ocean Villa, which was a better and more comfortable place for the said activity.
Anyway, I had better news than describing how the venue works with the activity. The program started at 1:30 in the afternoon and it was cold inside the hall and participants seem to be sleepy because of the time and atmosphere, but it was a different story when B.U President, Dr. Fay Lea Patria M. Lauraya gave her heartwarming welcome address. She began her message with the story of the boy in a FRONT PAGE OF a NEWSPAPER who was wearing an all white clothes and lying on his mother’s arms, and that 18 year old boy was a massacre survivor in the U.S when he was just about 4 years old. The crime was done in front of his very young and innocent eyes.” Dr. Fay Lea Patria M. Lauraya narrated. That boy then migrated here in the Philippines after the incident happened. And when the boy reaches his age of 18, he was published in the daily newspaper INQUIRER. He was the boy that Dr. Lauraya was telling about, the boy who committed suicide who was lying in his mother’s arms after killing his 12 other classmates who wears all white clothes when he died. That was the effect of violence in an eye of a young innocent child
That message of the president touches the heart of the participants and guests on the said venue, even her self seems to be affected by her delivered message. On her torment eyes during her welcome address. Maybe it is not how she delivers her speech, because we all know how excellent Madam President is when it comes to Public Speaking, but we can see the moral lesson of that real story of her that jives with the theme of the 6th Regional Peace Forum which is Perspective on Children Affected by Armed Conflict.
Dr. Lauraya also tells Dr.Rosemarie Ty Frias, our beloved DEAN and Dr. Herbert B. Rosana, Chairman of the Peace Studies Department, that the students must feel their life in the University’s as one of the Universities Responsibilities. She also thanks the Peace Odyssey for being one instrument for realizing the 6th Regional Peace Forum.