Lanterns go Green

For the annual UP lantern parade, the message was care for the environment
RECURRING DRIZZLES did little to dampen the festive spirits of the students, professors, staff and spectators who participated in the University of the Philippines’ annual Lantern Parade last Dec. 18.

The tradition dates back to December 1922, when the first informal parade took place in what was then the UP main campus along Padre Faura. In 1934, UP president Jorge Bocobo institutionalized the event as an annual affair.

This year’s theme— “Kapaskuhan, Kalikasan, Kinabukasan”—was a call to action for environmental conservation, a call made louder and more urgent because of Typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng.”

The parade was led by the UP ROTC Symphonic Band and the UP Corps of Cadets.

The Center for Women’s Studies carried a train of rainbow-hued cloth, and posters promoting the advancement of women’s rights.

The College of Architecture with a towering bee in a garden of bright plastic flowers and the College of Arts and Letters paraded a burning white candle atop a dioramic flooded earth.

The Asian Institute of Tourism paid homage to nature with “PanagBEEnga,” a bee structured out of paper and fresh flowers. It was a concept adapted from Baguio’s Panagbenga Festival.

The School of Library and Information Science showed a flora specimen; the College of Education, a tree rooted in books, bearing “fruits” of environment-friendly practices; and the National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development, a myriad of aquatic animals, fronted by a whale shark capable of shaking its paper mache head.