UP Ibalon Bicol: UP’s bizarre nude runs spill over university belt

UP’s bizarre nude runs spill over university belt

3/05/2009 | Posted by mesiamd | Edit Post

What was once a prank of running nude in the UP Diliman had morphed into a spectacle of genital display among other students in the University belt in Manila. Elevated from a raunchy tradition by the Alpha Phi Omega (APO) fraternity to dramatize “protests” against school issues like tuition fee increases or government corruption, members of the same fraternity staged another nude run in public streets.

The event has the usual draw of crowds--- giggling watchers and cajoling voyeurs as male students excitedly bare their skin, interrupting commerce and vehicular traffic. The disruptive display of private body parts has caught the ire of Senator Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel who sees zero value in the immature behavior.

Airing his disapproval to the Senate Education Committee and demanding for an investigation, Sen. Pimentel asserted, "Sanction the parties responsible, including the university authorities for their failure to exercise their duty to see to it that the laws and the rules of this country may prevail... What redeeming social value does displaying the male genitals to prurient or innocent audience, young and old, pose to justify it?" GMANewsTV (03/04/09; 03/05/99 Balagtas-See, A)

For the overwhelming majority, Pimentel can rightly remind individuals and school authorities of laws against lascivious public exhibitions. There are boundaries of decency that Filipinos must uphold even if students and their teachers imagine they are the naked patriots, "mga hubad na bayani"--- the emblematic reincarnations of the statue guarding the entrance of UP.

Organized shedding off of clothes is hardly an affair that one can be proud of. The “Oblation Run” has become embarrassingly vulgar. Many innocent children have been exposed to body parts better wrapped in garments. Yet even UP, the cream of the country’s universities, finds nudity exhilarating. For its frequency, the bizarre exhibitions come like a recurrent lewd joke devoid of meaningful significance.

At the end of the 100th year of the state university, close to a hundred Upians in Diliman bare themselves as an “offering” to their alma mater. Similar controversial naked runs have been staged in different UP campuses and in schools where the APO fraternity has its members. (Photo Credit: Justin Jovellanos) =0=

RELATED BLOGS: "The Oblation Run: a risque prank becomes a raunchy protest" Posted by mesiamd at 6/20/2008; "Nudity in UP Campus" Posted by mesiamd at 12/18/2008

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Labels: Alpha Phi Omega, APO, apocalypse, Education, fraternity, moral values, morality, nude, nudity, oblation run, Totie Mesia, University, UP

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UP’s bizarre nude runs spill over university belt

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