April 30, 2008. This was more than two weeks ago. Since I need to catch up on a long backlog, I’ll just re-post a ‘press release’ I wrote and sent to some newspapers and news networks. This was one of the first things I did as the student council’s official ‘media liaison’ or public information officer. Just a disclaimer, until then, I didn’t have any previous experience writing sending press releases, so I found this task problematic. But I’ve gotten the hang of it now, I guess.

The University Student Council (USC) of the University of the Philippines (UP) today held a press conference and forum at Vinzons Hall, the university’s main student union building, regarding the rice crisis the country is currently facing. Together with representatives from residents of the UP’s residential communities and transport groups in campus and a representative from the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), the student council demanded that the government take immediate, sustainable and pro-people solutions to the crisis.

According to its statement, the student council demanded that the government “increase its support to the National Food Authority (NFA) in its procurement of palay, dismantle the rice cartels and impose a crack down on illegal acts of price manipulation, implement a moratorium on the land-use conversion of agricultural land, and increase its investment in the agricultural sector.”

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Tags: Alcantara Hall, forum, press release, rice crisis, USC, Vinzons Hall

Do visit UPD-USC.net, the official website of the UP Diliman University Student Council (USC). I’ve been working on it the past weeks, as chairperson of the Mass Media Committee. I hope it becomes a venue for the USC to reach out to the students better, and for our constituents to get to know and get in touch with their USC with regards to various issues that they, the UP community, and the nation face.

Below is the USC statement regarding the rice crisis prepared by the University Student Council’s (USC) People’s Struggles Committee under Councilor Fudge Tajar with inputs and reports from other members of the USC.

The University Student Council believes that the present crisis on rice production demands for immediate, sustainable pro-people solutions. The government should immediately increase its support to the National Food Authority (NFA) in its procurement of palay, dismantle the rice cartels and impose a crack down on illegal acts of price manipulation, implement a moratorium on the land-use conversion of agricultural land, and increase its investment in the agricultural sector, all for the benefit our local farmers and the Filipino people.

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Tags: agriculture, cartel, IMF-World Bank, land reform, rice crisis, University Student Council, USC statements

It comes to me with slight surprise that there is little talk among students and bloggers with regards to the imminent shortage of rice in the country. I don’t know, perhaps, as a middle class concern, the pursuit of low-carb diets and the shortage of rice go hand-in-hand? Or perhaps since we all apparently have alternative sources of nutrition, rice shortage isn’t really a primary concern? Or because many of us can afford it at 40 pesos a kilo anyway? I don’t really know. But for the common Filipino who remains to be poor, rice is one of the cheapest foods that sustain his daily nutrition, especially for the many work of his (if any) that require intensive manual labor. Just the thought of rice at 40 or 50 pesos per kilo must be really alarming and terrifying. When shall it be alarming for the rest?

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Tags: agriculture, corruption, food shortage, Gloria Arroyo, land reform, political dissent, rice

March 14, 2008. Thousands of students from different universities in Metro Manila marched to Liwasang Bonifacio to continue the clamor for truth and accountability from the scandal-ridden Arroyo administration.

It was the Friday before Holy Week, many students were busy with exams and other final academic requirements for the semester. Despite the academic load and pressure on that day, around a hundred students and teachers from UP Diliman joined the youth rally at Liwasang Bonifacio.

A short program was held at the steps of Palma Hall before we all boarded hired jeepneys to Espana Avenue in Manila, from where we marched all the way through Quiapo until we crossed the Pasig River to Liwasang Bonifacio.

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Tags: Espana, Gloria Arroyo, Liwasang Bonifacio, Manila, Palma Hall, Philippine politics, political dissent, rally, UP Diliman, youth sector

Youth ACT Now! or Youth for Accountability and Truth Now is a newly-formed alliance of student councils, national youth and student organizations, community-based youth, young professionals, artists and prominent youth leaders and personalities.

Leading the list of about a hundred of its convenors are student councils and official student representatives from De La Salle University, University of the Philippines, Ateneo De Manila University, University of Santo Tomas, College of St. Benilde, and Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

It also has under its fold the largest and most active national youth and student organizations like the National Union of Students of the Phils. (with 700 student council-members), College Editors Guild of the Phils. (with 650 member publications), League of Filipino Students, Anakbayan, Student Christian Mov’t, and many more.

The formation of Youth ACT Now! marks the further strengthening of youth and student participation nationwide in the fight for truth, accountability and genuine change in government. Join us, Youth ACT now!

Visit www.YouthACTNow.com

During the campaign period, despite losing some hours of campaigning in campus, we kept ourselves involved in the brewing movements and the growing calls for the resignation or ouster of President Arroyo through the various marches and mobilizations that took place.

February 22. The entire day, aside from delivering the usual campaign line in the rooms, we invited people to the march around the academic oval in support of Jun Lozada who was to arrive that afternoon in the UP College of Law. By afternoon almost five hundred students joined our bulk behind the law students. By the time the march ended at Malcolm Hall, the crowd had swelled to around a thousand.

February 23. Together with Youth ACT Now, we held another protest march in Quezon Hall which was exclusively covered by Ms. Korina Sanchez of ABS-CBN. Prior to the march, I was also interviewed by Zen Hernandez in Vinzons Hall for a story regarding the ouster campaign on the internet.

Later that afternoon, we proceeded to the Church of the Risen Lord, still in UP, for an interfaith candle-lighting protest, still with regards to the corruption scandal hounding the administration of President Arroyo.

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The first part of the rally’s program was filled with speeches and cultural presentations from various religious groups and sectors condemning the rampant corruption and immorality in government perpetuated by President Arroyo, her family and their cohorts. It was quite surprising, perhaps it’s because we are used to the idea of religion being an agent of pacification, that many of the religious people were quite strong in their words and gestures. There were probably a hundred or so seminarians too who took the lead in some of the chants that the crowd shouted throughout the day.

One of the priests even made side comments against his fellow priest for being an “Archbishop of Malacanang” for spinning the meaning of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines call for “collective action” to mean as collective action through prayer alone instead. Actually, I heard that certain archbishop from Northern Luzon on radio that morning, in his bid to keep people from joining the rally.

Representatives from students and educators also spoke in front of the crowd to condemn the President and her family and call for her ouster. As I’ve said earlier, one social cost, one social service that is hit hard with the effects of brazen corruption in this administration is the education sector, to which the government has continually implemented policies that commercialize the system and its orientation.

I was actually surprised, too, that the ouster calls also came from law students and professors, and lawyers themselves from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines. I always thought they would take the more tame call of resignation.

There were also bands that played music to the crowd that afternoon. One of which was Brownman Revival. They even sang Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up, which actually serves as the theme song of our militant alliance in UP (STAND-UP). It certainly roused STAND-UP members in the crowd.

The program went on till the sun has set. Joey de Venecia III, one of the whistle-blowers in this scandal that involves the President and her cohorts, also spoke passionately in front of the crowd that night.

I left Ayala just before the program ended. Let this not be the last manifestation of the people’s outrage! Tuloy-tuloy na ‘to.

Honestly, even though I wanted to go to the Makati rally, I felt quite lazy to make the trip all the way to Ayala from UP Diliman.

I was at Jollibee Katipunan that time with a friend for lunch. And you know what? Something hit me that made me make the trip and rally after all. I couldn’t stomach the thought that part of the 39 pesos I paid for a sulit meal will go to the pockets of the few greedy individuals in the administration with the value added tax that we all pay.

Noong kay Erap nga, jueteng pay-offs lang. If I was at the least only concerned with myself, wala pa akong pakialam d’yan, hindi naman ako naghu-jueteng, wala siyang ninanakaw sa ‘kin. Pero nag-EDSA na ang tao. Etong pinaggagawa nina Gloria and her cohorts, everyone’s going to be paying for them for decades to come.

Ewan ko lang sa iba, kung paano nila nasisikmura na tila nagbabayad tayong lahat ng tributo sa isang royal family na nakatira sa isang palasyo sa Maynila. Sa bawat cheeseburger meal, sa bawat sigarilyo, sa bawat ballpen, imbes na tustusan ang matinding pangangailangan ng mga public hospital, public schools, maging ng UP, napupunta sa mga German bank accounts ng ilang tao. Shet talaga. ‘Di ko masikmura.

We have to realize the long-term social cost of this brazen corruption. I really don’t understand why people keep falling into the trap of government propaganda. It gets pretty tiring. I don’t know what to think of people who have kept following the same “trabaho-hindi-gulo” line all these years. They have condoned the long-term cost of severe corruption with the short-term cost of “political instability.” Ang galing talaga ng spin ng mga propagandists nila. Marami namang nagpapauto at nananahimik na lang.

Hindi rallies and political instability ang nagpapahirap sa Pilipino. Sa mga bilyun-bilyong pisong kinukurakot ng ilan sa adminstration, marami na sanang pinoy ang nagka-bahay, ang nakapag-aral hindi lang sa elementary at high school, pati sa college. Maraming pinoy na sana ang mabubuhay nang maginhawa sa kinabukasan.

Still, “Dissent without action is consent.”