“The rollback?”

No action! I mean it’s pretty obvious. In fact we could have increased tuition this year because the approval of the board last year allowed for adjustment of tuition based on inflation… I really don’t know why they’re saying rollback when it’s not part of [President Arroyo’s] directive.

Tags: education, tuition increase, UP Centennial, UP President

Before I stepped into the UP College of Law, I’ve had quite an adequate number of warnings and advices from friends, acquaintances and brods who were already in law school or were already lawyers. After a week into school, even though I had expected everything, I am still overwhelmed. I am confronted with a day’s worth of readings and cases more than I ever read in one semester. The readings list for just one subject suggests that I will have to read more than I ever read in my four years as an undergraduate in BA Film. Not that my undergraduate course was readings-intensive in the first place. Nevertheless, I feel like I’m going to have to study like I’ve never studied before. I have been warned well. What I’m getting myself into isn’t a joke.

I’ve been enjoying it so far. Funny, or perhaps I’m speaking too soon, all the initial readings actually caught my interest. The thought of having a professional grasp of this field excites me in how I can pursue, well, romanticized as it sounds, the pursuit of truth and justice in things I believe in. I can’t yet quite adequately answer the question as to why I’m doing this, but it may be borne out of a personal feeling of frustration at a legal system that is largely at the hands of those with the economic and political capital, to protect the status quo. Finally, I thought. I’m going to learn how to engage controllers in a level where I shall not be dismissed as a mere young idealist who know nothing about laws and whatnot.

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Tags: blockmates, UP Law

June 04, 2008. As the Court of Appeals conducted a hearing for the combined writ of amparo and writ of habeas corpus to compel the Philippine Military to surface abducted UP students Karen Empeno & Sherlyn Cadapan, dozens of activists including relatives of the missing staged a picket outside the premises of the second highest court in the country.

I went to the picket and I also spoke in behalf of the University Student Council and the other concerned students of UP, where both Karen & Sherlyn come from. Bang and Lester were also there.

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Tags: Court of Appeals, enforced disappearances, Gloria Arroyo, justice, military, political dissent, political repression

It’s quite interesting how the start of the school season seems to be the signal for the administration to open the floodgates for the barrage of pro-administration propaganda. Suddenly, all sorts of tarpaulins harping the President’s so-called economic achievements and proclaiming empty slogans of prosperity have proliferated all across the metropolis, alongside posters bearing “Pilipinas kong mahal!” I was on the LRT 2 a few days back and I noticed how huge print ads have been set-up at the stations with large imposing pictures of the President and the words katarungan and ekonomiya beside her, in bold letters. These are, of course, in addition to the other pro-Arroyo print advertisements on national dailies and anti-militant advertisements on TV.

Also, in an effort to water down discontent and dissent among the people, the administration has been giving token dole-outs left and right, from electric bill subsidies, fertilizer subsidies, and scholarships. All of which are one-time, and of course temporary. Thus, the obvious motive for such is not to seek to change what’s inherently wrong in the prevailing order but is to simply quiet down and dupe the masses in a time where crises in basic commodities and social services have become unbearable, and in a time when such crises could spark another wave of anti-administration demonstrations.

No amount of bribes in the form of ultra-temporary financial reliefs nor rampant government propaganda will fool the people or solve their hunger and discontent. What we need are higher state subsidies and government regulation of basic industries and social services. Lest we forget, calls of accountability transparency amidst billion-peso corruption scandals are still being ignored.

What I’m also trying to say is that the proliferation of government propaganda at a time when millions of Filipino students are about to return and reconvene in schools across the country is a recognition of the power of the youth movement in social change.

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Tags: education, food shortage, Gloria Arroyo, Jun Lozada, propaganda, Youth Act Now, youth sector

I have a terrible backlog of entries that I have to publish before anything else, but I find this a little too good to pass.

I had just finished watching Goin’ Bulilit, a children’s gag show, on ABS-CBN. Part of tonight’s show was a spoof of a showbiz talk show where one of the kids impersonating John Lapus was interviewing another child actor impersonating President Gloria Arroyo.

President Arroyo is made to sit on an electric chair. The host explains that the chair would electrocute the President if she lies to John Lapus’ questions.

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Tags: ABS-CBN, Gloria Arroyo, Goin' Bulilit, Meralco, political satire, spoof

More than a week ago, I was present at a meeting of sorts with UP President Emerlinda Roman. Apparently, she wasn’t aware than I am a member of the incoming University Student Council and is presently the secretary general of the leading militant student alliance in the university. Because she thought she was speaking with like-minded students, students who thought like the administration, she went on talking very casually about her feelings towards militants and activists. I was thinking if I should’ve courteously disclosed my affiliations, but didn’t end up bothering to, because I sort of wanted her to just go on revealing things she wouldn’t normally say out loud.

She did admit a few things, among which her recognizing how difficult it is to defeat the militants in the student council elections. Because she thought we were all non-activists, she urged us students present to consolidate better in order to win against the activists in the elections. I was wiling to pass those, among other things, off, as I had expected such thoughts to come from her.

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Tags: campus issues, tuition increase, UP Administration, UP President

May 24, 2008. My parents picked me up from the Manila Domestic Airport, fresh from my 5 AM flight from Cebu City after the KASAMA sa UP National Council Meet. We were to proceed to my father’s office outing at Laiya Beach in San Juan, Batangas that day.

Because I was largely sleepless, I was asleep for most of the four-hour drive from Manila to San Juan, Batangas, only to be awaken when we were to eat breakfast at a fastfood restaurant.

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Tags: Batangas, beach, family, Laiya, San Juan, sea

May 22-23, 2008. The NC (National Council) Meet of KASAMA sa UP (Katipunan ng mga Sangguniang Mag-aaral sa UP) was held from May 22-23, 2008 at a training center in Pit-os, a mountainous and less urban area of Cebu City.

KASAMA sa UP is the broadest alliance of student councils in the University of the Philippine system, with member college student councils and university student councils from UP Baguio, UP Pampanga, UP Diliman, UP Manila, UP Losa Baños, UP Visayas and UP Mindanao.

The delegates first converged at the UP Cebu College campus morning of May 22 before proceeding to Pit-os on hired jeepneys. Since I wasn’t previously aware of the program, I was surprised that the venue wasn’t at UP Cebu itself. Instead the NC meet, as I’ve mentioned, was held at a training center in Cebu City’s Pit-os area, which was more or less half an hour from the city center.

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Tags: Cebu, Cebu City, KASAMA sa UP, UP Cebu