Sama-samang manindigan
Many of the STAND-UP candidates in the student council elections, including Mikas and I, went to the youth sector mobilization yesterday. It was a demonstration similar to the youth sector rally a few weeks ago. This rally was scheduled towards the end of February because it is during these times when school administrations across the country conduct ‘consultations’ regarding tuition hikes for the next academic year.
This time there were also more representatives from different schools and universities across Metro Manila from the University of the East in Manila and Caloocan, University of Santo Tomas, Far Eastern University, Centro Escolar University, University of the Philippines in Manila and Diliman, De La Salle Araneta University, Mapua Institute of Technology, Philippine Christian University, Philippine Normal University and Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
I am unsure how many UP Mass Comm students get to see this but that was obviously a small gesture of campaigning. Just as we’ve been harping in all our room to room campaigns, we do not view the issues and struggles in our college as isolated problems that we can solve by patchworking or by socialized tuition hikes. We view and try to solve them in congruence and as part of a larger education situation in the country.
Tuition hikes are a necessity. The tuition fees have not changed for more than a decade. Don’t demonize your schools and their administrators. Take your grievances to Congress — because it is “the larger education situation in the country”.
tuition hike, a necessity?! i beg to disagree. in these times of economic hardship, di naman ata just na magtaas ng matrikula. to think that the proceeds from these fee hikes don’t reall go to the improvement of facilities and the increase in teachers’ salary. nasa top 5,000 corporations pa itong mga private schools na ito dahil sa laki ng profit.
btw, tuition hikes happen annually sa karamihan ng mga private schools. i’m just correcting the erroneous claim that “The tuition fees have not changed for more than a decade,” unless you are referring to UP which is a very different case (since UP is a state u).
It’s a free market system. Schools that abuse their students pockets would lose it’s enrollees. But they don’t due to the competent quality of education they provide. People are willing to pay for it because of the cheaper alternatives would fall below standards. It’s called an “educational investment for a reason.”
Repetitive rhetoric and rallying won’t strengthen the arguments against tuition increase. It’s an inevitable fact. It’s better to focus attention on the real sources of the equity problem, like the STFAP bracketing, but then again, no bracketing system would ever be perfect without making it too complex.
In short, it’s no use wasting your energy and campaign strategy by motivating everyone to just rally. It’s futile, useless, and NOT HELPING ANYONE. The position paper of Dr. Diokno and my beloved Dr. Bautista is a more sensible sociological response to the ToFI. There’s no point in stopping people who can pay from paying more, but do something about people who will be gravely affected by it. That’s called heightening discourse and making compromise solutions. Something you can’t really come up with if you hit the streets shouting the same shit that we’ve heard since like October. So boring.
ingat bikoy, mahirap makipaglaban sa sistemang ito.
but that’s being done ever since. people always make it seem like rallying is the only thing ‘activists’ do. and it’s also for this reason why kabataan party is being launched and campaigned for congress.
Back to TOFI? Move on, that’s so last sem.
To everyone saying that the TOFI issue is passe:
come on, the elections are coming up. Any way for the banners to get shown in public would bolster the chance of certain party lists to get hold of seats in Congress. Rallying has the success rate of 1 in a million and its clear that success is not the only thing fueling the people who walk under the midday sun while chanting cliche slogans from the martial law era.
Celeni: that sort of stand wouldn’t excite enough people to vote. It’s always better to sensationalize and blow things out of proportion. :p
Bukas na yung Big Brother, ne. Excited na ko!
benj: I know. And that sort of attitude is also why I don’t bother (voting).
Interesting read on people’s thoughts regarding how Stand-UP upholds its excellence and unity as a party:
*spit sarcasm*
Celeni:
The whole “figuring out to make funds more efficient” strategy always falls short because of lack of follow through. It’s almost like doing nothing. And worse, it’s the silent type of nothing.
Joining rallies, now… that’s still doing nothing, but that’s a noisy nothing. haha. The “progressive” party in UPM luuuurvs to ask where the other party was during the rallies and mobilizations. Classic.
I was duped into going to a rally back in my freshman year.
Benj: At the very least the “silent nothing” means “something to do for social scientists”.
The lack of follow-through is already a leadership problem, so I guess the only constructive thing that comes with that is the entire “I told you so” vindictiveness.
Well, my run on the efficiency strategy is that new solutions will present new problems. So it becomes a never ending cycle.
At the end of the day, noisy nothings are just soooo… annoying.
And don’t worry about being duped in your freshie year. We all need experience to base our comments on.
Balita ko, may reunion party/concert ang STAND-UP ngayon sa Morato. Sayang, wala akong pambili ng tiket, hehe.
Good Evening, Bikoy
By some stroke of chance, I decided to check out your blog today! Without rally, no country can become a nation. Probably Happy Vergara is very rich guy that’s why is so tolerable for people like him to have an opinion like that. Education is a mus school is a gift. It’s something that teaches you so many things about yourself, not just intellectually but who you are as a person. If everybody has a chance to study that would be the best gift that you can give yourself or to anybody you care for.That’s why there should be no tuition fee hikes this is not the right timing.A lot of KIDS who are very smart and their economic status still in the the poverty range couldn’t longer afford to continue or pursue their dream at UP,how can this people survive? and how about the middle income earners somehow they would also be difficult on their part to send their kids at UP.And if you can see the budget that government allocated for education isn’t enough,and most of the taxpayers money (including deductions my salary) goes through national security of the country (military) that’s really pathetic actually.
I think since it’s election time:
Anyone WHO WON’T BE POSITIONING AGAINST
TUITION FEE does not deserve the support
of KABATAAN.
Period.
Yeah, no thanks.