Posts tagged with campus issues

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June 6, 2010

On rules prescribed by the Catholic university of the Philippines

Upon enrollment at a law school of a Catholic university in Manila, I was made to sign a conforme prescribing the kind of conduct and discipline the university imposes on all its students.

At the onset, I was taken aback. Not only because I had come from a relatively more liberal environment in the University of the Philippines, but I simply found it repulsive that there are specific prohibitions on what I’ve always thought were personal and political rights.

I understand the concept of “academic freedom” on the side of educational institutions and that they are granted institutional liberty to define what to teach and how to teach concepts and even character and values, but when institutions use this liberty to invade the realm of personal conduct and even appearance in guise of character-building, I think it is wrong.

Aside from prescriptions on personal and inter-personal conduct, there are also vague prescriptions on political actions such as rallies and strikes. In the list of policy guidelines, it is noted that in order to achieve and maintain “peace and order,” students must refrain from “joining boycotts, assemblies, parades or marches, or other gatherings that tend to create unnecessary noise and/or disturbance.” Another provision desists students from “instigating or leading illegal strikes/rallies or similar concerted activities resulting in the stoppage or disruption of classes.”

These provisions virtually bans all rallies, because all rallies create “disturbance”. It is in the very nature of such demonstrations. These provisions were used consistently to suspend and expel student activists in the university.

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March 27, 2010

Our freedom and our rights were not won with diplomacy

Anuman ang sabihin ng mga kontra-aktibista, wala nang ibang magpapatunay sa kawastuhan ng linya at pamamaraaan na tinahak ng mga estudyanteng nag-protesta laban sa tuition hike kung hindi ang mismong pag-atras at pagsuko ng CHED (Commission on Higher Education) at ng PUP (Polytechnic University of the Philippines) administration sa kanilang maitim na balak, at ang hindi pagkakatuloy sa paga-apruba ng mga bagong bayarin sa UP (University of the Philippines) nang dahil sa kolektibong pagkilos ng mga kabataan. The campaigns wouldn’t have been successful any other way.

To be clear, Kabataan Partylist, together with its founding organizations like the National Union of Students of the Philippines and its student leaders, have long pursued lobbying for greater state subsidy for education and holding dialogues against any attempt to hike tuition and other fees. We have always been ever mindful and aware, however, that it is militant and collective action that is decisive in winning our democratic fights. The government never granted us our rights on a silver platter, after all, especially when it is equally determined to pursue its selfish agenda, without any genuine intention to listen to the demands of its constituents. True enough, students had to barricade Quezon Hall, bring down the gates of CHED’s main office and throw paint bombs at its glass doors for these offices to bow down to the democratic interests of the people they were supposed to serve.

Nais kong ibalik ang tanong sa mga kontra-aktibista. Ano ba ang sinasabi ninyong mas mapayapa at mas epektibong paraan na hindi namin ginawa? Ginawa niyo ba ito?

Napakabilis ng pagkondena ng mga kontra-aktibista sa “marahas” na paraan na ginawa ng mga estudyante. Nasaan ang inyong pagkondena sa tuition increase na kung tutuusin ay mas marahas dahil sa pagkakait nito ng magandang kinabukasan sa libo-libong kabataan? Ni hindi ko narinig ni nakita miski sa isang Facebook status message ang pagtutol ninyo dito.

Is it that easy to forget, that throughout history, the freedom of nations, the rights of the people were never won with mere diplomacy. All of them were fought for by the people through street protests and bloody revolutions.

Today, five student leaders of PUP remain detained under the custody of the police for charges of of “robbery” filed against them by the shamed PUP administration. These students were among the hundreds who tried to bring to the gates of CHED their dilapidated desks as a sign of protest against the state’s abandonment of education. Samantala, patuloy pa rin ang sistematikong pagnanakaw sa kaban ng bayan, ang pagakakait sa mamamayan ng karapatan sa serbisyong panlipunan, at ang pinakamadugas na magnanakaw ay nasa Malacanang.

(Students will still gather and hold a protest action on March 29, 2010 at the Board of Regents meeting of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines at a posh bayside hotel in Manila, to ensure that CHED and the PUP administration hold true to their word that they will not increase tuition in the nation’s largest state university.)

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March 21, 2010

2010 Mock Elections in the University of the Philippines

There is an ongoing mock elections happening in the University of the Philippines system this week till next. All UP students from units and campuses from UP Baguio to UP Mindanao are involved. Majority of the national university’s more than 50,000 students are expected to participate.

The project, entitled Botong Isko 2010 seeks to “unite students and the whole UP community for a clean, transparent, and honest elections, and to find out which candidates are favored by the Iskolar ng Bayan.” The endeavor also seeks to engage politicians in the issues of the youth, especially of UP students, and of the country summed up in UP students’ agenda for change.

Kabataan Partylist, which has college chapters in UP Diliman, campaigned on the first day of the mock elections, encouraging students to participate, recognizing the potential impact of an institutional victory among iskolars ng bayan in the premiere university in the country. UP students are perceived to be a legitimate representation of the Filipino youth, with students from all over the country. (“Perceived” because we have to remember that only a minority of voting-age Filipino youth are able to afford and attend college, and the University of the Philippines at that).

The daughter of presidential aspirant Manny Villar, Camille, also went college hopping in UP Diliman on first day, encouraging UP students to get involved, and of course vote for his father, an alumnus of the university himself. Supporters of Makabayan senatorial candidates Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza also made their rounds in the different colleges in campus.

In the next few days, other candidates will be trooping to UP to campaign and sway the votes of UP students. The victors in this mock election may well claim to have the vote of the iskolar ng bayan. As to whether or not it translates to an actual representation of the general sentiment of the Filipino youth, I do not know, but surely it reflects the votes of those among the best and the brightest youth of the country.

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March 20, 2010

PUP students protest proposed 2,000% tuition hike

Yesterday, hundreds of students of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila walked out of their classes to protest the proposed almost 2,000% tuition hike in the largest state university in the country. Agitated students threw out dilapidated armchairs and desks from the balconies and piled them up in front of the main arts building. They even set them up in flames to show their disgust at the school administration and the government for its neoliberal policy of abandoning tertiary education in the country.

The Polytechnic University of the Philippines offers the lowest tuition rate in the country at P12 per unit (around a quarter US dollar). This affordable rate has made PUP accessible to the 50,000 Filipino children it accommodates every year in its numerous campuses across the archipelago. Many of the students are children of ordinary wage earners, rank and file employees, overseas workers and peasants.

When the University of the Philippines administration planned to raise its tuition by 300% in late 2006, we were afraid it would set a precedent that other state universities would use to justify similar tuition hikes as prescribed by the government’s foreign lenders, which was one of the reasons we vehemently opposed the move.

We were right. State college EARIST (Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute of Science & Technology) increased its tuition a year later, using the UP situation as a justification. State universities have since then been imposing various dubiously-named fees as a result of budget cuts imposed by the government.

Overseas, foreign governments from Greece to the US are also cutting down on the budgets of their state universities and colleges and other social services in order to make do with decreasing government revenues and to accommodate gigantic debt payments to multinational lenders. Students have been confronting such attacks on their rights with forms of protests such as walk-outs. Students of state universities in California, for example, staged massive walk-outs last year, even going as far as barricading their schools in order to protest the budget cuts to be imposed by the state government.

Anti-student and pro-government formations have branded the PUP students as hooligans. The final message of the TV report on the protest, however, was succinct in addressing such accusations. “Mawasak na raw lahat ng gamit sa paaralan, huwag lang ang karapatan ng mamamayan sa edukasyon.” (In the first place, the chairs that were burned were those dilapidated ones that were already unusable). The students and the people have no other alternative but to fight for their rights.

Protests will continue throughout the next week leading to the March 29 PUP Board of Regents meeting that will decide on the tuition hike proposal. Let us support the campaign of the students of PUP. Let us join them in the streets as they fight for greater state subsidy for education. Ang laban nila ay hindi lang laban ng PUP, kung hindi laban ng lahat ng kabataan para sa karapatan sa edukasyon. Mabuhay ang mga iskolar ng bayan!

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March 19, 2010

On student council elections

The past month saw various student council election campaigns in campuses across the country. For some students and for those of us who have graduated, there is a tendency to dismiss student council elections in major universities as irrelevant child play. For me, though, and I’m not saying this just because I have always been involved in campus politics, I believe that student council elections are legitimate exercises of students democratic rights. It serves as a rehearsal for students of their part in the larger context of Philippine society. I also believe that the leadership of the student council is decisive and crucial in the formation of student mass movements against commercialization of education and campus repression.

In the University of the Philippines Diliman, the militant Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights – UP (STAND-UP) regained the leadership of the University Student Council, after two years of losing the Chairman position. The Alternative Students’ Alliance for Progress – Katipunan ng mga Progresibong Mag-aaral ng Bayan (ASAP-KATIPUNAN) in UP Manila similarly regained the leadership of their University Student Council after three years of losing. STAND-UP and ASAP-KATIPUNAN’s nationalist counterparts in the other UP campuses in UP Baguio, UP Tacloban, UP Miag-ao, UP Cebu and UP Mindanao also scored resounding victories. This is indeed a reaffirmation of the genuine leadership that nationalist and militant activists offer and the potency of militant and collective activism in challenging attacks to students’ rights and welfare and in engaging the different issues that plague the country.

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