Last December, the Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines approved the tuition increase that raised the standard tuition per unit from P300 to as much as P1,500 for incoming freshmen.

Months later at the beginning of a new academic year, only less than half of UPCAT (UP College Admission Test) passers showed up to enroll in the different UP units. In Los Banos and Mindanao, less than 17% of passers enrolled. In Diliman, the entire College of Social Work and Community Development has one freshman. In courses like BA Malikhaing Pagsulat, BA Araling Pilipino, and BA Filipino, none of the passers showed up to enroll. Thousands of the country’s best and brightest students as assessed by the UPCAT didn’t pursue their dreams of affordable college education in the country’s premiere state university for it has indeed become increasingly expensive, commercial and prohibitive. Can UP still claim to be the home of the country’s best and brightest?

As of a few weeks before the beginning of classes, only 5% of incoming freshmen were able to avail of full scholarship. The rest, including those who are applying for lower tuition had to pay the full amount while they wait without assurance of refunds. Some families had to resort to selling their valuables and engage in loans to be able to send their children to UP. And these stories are not made up. Freshmen have come up to share their stories. In a mobilization this morning, we had a handful of freshmen who haven’t even joined rallies before, who spoke up and shared their struggles.

To appease those who did enroll, the administration, in efforts to appear caring to the freshmen it has burdened with increased tuition, admitted them into the university’s insufficient dormitories–even those reserved for graduate students–displacing hundreds of upperclassmen.

These problems are not confined to UP. In Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute of Science & Technology, a public college, students face a staggering 600% increase in tuition. I don’t understand why some people insist that it is not the government’s policy to gradually abandon its funding for tertiary education institutions. And that it does not force them to generate their funds from their own scholars themselves.

Yesterday, I joined some of my brods in the Upsilon in a courtesy call with UP President Emerlinda Roman. Courtesies, chicken sandwich and other pleasantries aside, I finally heard from her own lips a fact we’ve always claimed–that it is indeed the UP administration’s increasing objective to generate its own income. As prescribed by our national government. As prescribed by foreign financial institutions. And has now manifested even more.

This day marks a year since UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan were adbucted by alleged members of the military in Bulacan. I went to a press conference in Palma Hall regarding the anniversary this morning. Listening to the two students’ mothers can be heart-wrenching. A group of UP students and visiting students from different countries in Asia, together with Karen and Sherlyn’s mother, went to a military base in Balanga, Bataan the day before. When the military men were asked if the two UP students were at the base, they neither denied nor affirmed the accusation.

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May 26, 2007. After our Rock City stop, we decided to pass by Ruby Falls, which was also on Lookout Mountain. By the time we got there, however, the lines were unbelievably long. It was Memorial Day, so it wasn’t very surprising. We decided against falling in line and just posed for some pictures then headed back to Metro Atlanta. We were thinking of passing by CNN, at last, but again, we didn’t make it to the last 5 PM tour. To make most of the day, we just went to Stone Mountain Park in the outskirts of Atlanta.

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May 26, 2007. It was a sunny Saturday. We left Loganville, Georgia with my aunt, her husband and their kids (my second cousins) at past nine in the morning. It took us a long four and a half hour drive north of Georgia to its border with Tennessee. It was our first long drive in the US.

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After visiting World of Coca-Cola, we walked all the way back to where we parked the car, across Pemberton Place and the Centennial Olympic Park.

Since my body clock hasn’t adjusted fully, I slept immediately after taking my seat in the car. By the time I woke up, we were in the middle of a large parking lot. We were at a Tanger outlet store in Locust Grove, Georgia. Outlet stores are well, where manufacturers, mostly of clothing apparels, sell their merchandise at lower costs than in malls, or in other countries, apparently for the reason that they sell it themselves, in their own turfs. And indeed, though clothes can still be quite pricey, designer labels can be bought cheaper in outlet stores than in malls, say, in the Philippines (though some of the clothes did have a “made in the Philippines” tag). This turned out to be just the first outlet store visit we made. By the end of our almost-three-week US trip, we would’ve gone through a handful of other outlet stores for the “bargain”.

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It’s been quite a while since I mentioned or wrote about Tisay here in my blog.

When my parents, my younger brother and I left for the US for a vacation weeks ago, we left our foster baby, Tisay, to our relatives in Bulacan. For three weeks, we weren’t able to see her, and vice versa. When we came back, she was expectedly a little disoriented. For an hour she was just staring at us, but soon enough, she was as noisy, as bratty yet as adorable as ever.

I wonder for how much longer she’s going to be with us. There’s even talk that we might be allowed to have her as our own. Who knows? [I took this photo of her on our way back home from spending Father’s Day in Amadeo, Cavite.]

May 25, 2007. After going through a brief tour of Georgia Aquarium, we were supposed to drop off CNN for the CNN studio tour a couple of bocks away. Unfortunately, it was past 5PM already, and the last studio tour was at 5PM. Instead of trying our luck, we just walked a few meters across a large pond with eccentric street performers to the World of Coca-Cola. At first I thought that was it and was surprised at how many people were there. It turned out to be World of Coke’s opening week, which explained the crowd. Even my aunt was surprised that there was a “new world”.

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We shot some materials for a recruitment AVP for UP Mass Communicators Organization late afternoon yesterday.

Despite the fact that I haven’t had the chance to spend as much time with them as before as when I was a freshman and when I was publicity director during second year, I still feel I belong. It’s a very nice cozy feeling. When I’m with my MCO orgmates, especially when so many get together in one place at one time, there’s barely a moment when I’m not all smiles or laughing heartily. It’s crazy.

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