protest « Victor Villanueva

Posts tagged with protest

March 1, 2011

Youth protest against price hikes (February 28, 2011)

Some four to five hundred students from various schools and universities, and out of school youths from different communities in Metro Manila trooped to Mendiola this afternoon to demand that the government take action to protect the youth and the people from another wave of tuition hikes that’s happening alongside spiraling prices of basic commodities, public utilities and social services, from train fares to electricity rates. These are happening in the context of massive unemployment and poverty and stunted minimim wages.

Manila youth protest against tuition hikes and other price hikes

Kabataan Party-List Rep. Palatino at Manila youth rally

WHAT CAN THE PRESIDENT DO
The usual hecklers and Malacañang apologists claim that the President has no power to control prices, as these are at the mercy of “free market” forces. Remedial solutions, however, are well within the powers of the President. With regard to tuition increases, for example, the President only has to order the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education to exercise their regulatory powers and regulate the implementation of tuition hikes in schools and universities across the country, if not impose a moratorium altogether. The Price Act (Republic Act 7581) allows him to put a price cap on basic necessities. He can suspend the collection of VAT especially on oil products and electricity. He can order the audit of profits and stocks of oil companies to stop its overpricing (by as much as P8.00 per liter) by private profiteers. He can withdraw the implementation of fare hikes in Metro Manila’s mass transit railways, and the toll hikes in the highways as these are well within the regulatory powers of the Government on public utilities and services.

Truly, a government that willingly refuses to wield its police power to provide the people relief from the onslaught of price hikes has no business telling them they can’t expect any wage hike. With P404.00 a day as minimum wage in Metro Manila, how do you expect a family of six to survive when the cost of living for such a family in the capital is P957.00 a day? (Un-updated estimate of cost of living, might be beyond P1,000.00 today).

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October 6, 2010

Student protests against education budget cuts continue

More than a dozen members of the National Union of Students of the Philippines conducted a lightning rally inside the session hall of Batasang Pambansa to protest the proposed budget cuts of the Aquino administration against state universities and colleges. Outside Batasan, dozens more held a rally to urge Congress to reject the budget cuts, not only on state schools, but on other social services of the government, and rechannel non-productive yet monstrous spending on the military, on debt-servicing and on patronage dole-outs.

Students protest outside Congress against budget cuts

Kabataan Party-List Secretary General Vencer Crisostomo

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May 21, 2010

On Kabataan Partylist’s “unsightly” graffitis

A few days ago, an anonymous reader left a comment expressing disappointment over graffitis spray-painted across the city during the election campaign period by members of Kabataan Partylist. These are the graffitis that read “Edukasyon Karapatan!” and “Tutulan ang Tuition Increase!” among others. The comment also asked me to condemn such forms of expression and dissuade our members from executing them.

Like any other form of protest, from rallies to boycotts and walk-outs, graffitis are meant to defy prevailing conditions. They create disturbance precisely because they draw attention to social issues and call people to actively get involved in such protest campaigns, without having to go through mainstream and “legal” limitations.

Graffitis may be unsightly, but they were not meant to be beautiful in the first place. Its very aesthetic, which some have descibed to be “unsightly”, connotes stealth and speed precisely because it is illicit. Protest graffitis are not murals or paintings that take many hours to complete and costly paints and colors to beautify. Youth activists, or any activist for that matter, do not have such luxuries.

The illegality of graffiti is all but expected in a society where the people who rule implement various regulations that seeks (desperately) to maintain the status quo. In a country where such status quo means an impoverished majority, a majority unable to afford tertiary education, graffitis that affirm the people’s right to social services and human development are nothing more but forms of legitimate resistance to the ruling order. Illegal, of course, but definitely legitimate.

Worried about the cost of the paints the government will have to use to cover the graffitis? Why paint over them then? It will simply affirm the guilt and the responsibility on their part. What’s so repulsive with a bridge post or a wall that screams for the people’s right to education?

I will not discourage our members from freely expressing our calls and our slogans through graffitis. And even more, I encourage people to explore similar creative forms of protest. No apologies from us.

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April 3, 2010

The campaign for greater state subsidy continues

Friends and supporters of the "PUP 5" jubilantly welcomed the five student leaders as they were released from detention at the Manila Police District HQ

It’s been almost a week since the tuition-hike saga of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines concluded with the successful junking of the proposal. It was formalized at the meeting of the university’s Board of Regents last Monday, after weeks of relentless protests by militant students to stop the almost 2,000% rise in tuition. Last Monday, the police also released the five student leaders after the PUP administration dropped charges of “robbery” against them. They were detained after they tried to bring to the office of the government’s Commission on Higher Education (CHED) some of their dilapidated chairs as a sign of protest. The reconciliation of sorts with the university administration came after representatives of Kabataan Partylist and other student leaders from PUP met with the PUP President and demanded the release of their comrades. In the meeting, the PUP President conceded and eventually surrendered to the democratic interests of the students and committed to supporting the campaign for greater state subsidy for the largest state university in the country instead of imposing a tuition hike.

The developments in PUP highlight one thing, now that the university administration has taken the side of the students and the people. The trail of responsibility for the neglect of our state universities and colleges ends at the gates of Malacanang and Congress. It is through the proposals and policies of the government, with the prodding of its foreign multinational lenders, that funding and support for higher education in the country has been on the decline. Despite increasing enrollment in the country’s public colleges and universities, state funding for such institutions has been dwindling over the decades. This year, state universities will get P3 billion pesos less from 2009. The same trend can be seen in countries across the world, from Greece to the United States, as indebted governments bow to the policy dictates of multinational creditors.

The continued neglect of our country’s state universities, notwithstanding the victory at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, sets the context that makes it imperative for the scholars of the people, and the rest of us, to continue fighting for the people’s right to education.

Students from PUP Manila and the University of the Philippines marched together to Plaza Salamanca in Manila to pledge their continuing fight for greater state subsidy for education and other social services

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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 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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September 14, 2009

Lobbying through blogging

It was our simple “day-off” together. Some of my co-staff members and I, together with Congressman Mong, went to the opening day of the Cine Europa Film Festival in Shangri-la Mall. We caught the screening of Just Another Love Story, which contrary to its pleasant name, is actually dark and engaging Danish thriller film. Having watched it made me miss the days when almost all I did for school, as a film student in UP, was watch non-mainstream movies in class and write papers about them.

After the movie, we just had some snacks at the food court before parting ways.

Later that afternoon, I met up with some students from UP Manila who requested for an interview with regard to my opinion on lobbying through blogging and online social networking. Airah was also there to help me answer the queries. Our first answer was that, there’s no such thing as “lobbying through blogging.” At best, blogging is only a minor complement to a lobbying campaign in the largely traditional arena of Philippine politics. The primary force in the shaping of public policy is and should always be the mass movement. I conceded, however, that money and economic influence often contest this in the present style of politics that we have. But no matter how slick the grease is, once policy makers are confronted with “people power,” there’s little that can stop the tide of public pressure.

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August 21, 2009

Youth solon condemns violent dispersal of youth protest

Regardless if Malacanang grounds was a no-rally zone, the police clearly exceeded the necessary force to repel or to prevent any danger, real or apparent, that the students posed. Sure, the students may have risked being arrested, or blocked at the least, but they did not have to be confronted with rifles, contrary to well-settled rules of engagement, be dragged on asphalt, have their clothes ripped apart, and be be beaten up.

Kabataan Party-list Rep. Mong Palatino strongly condemns the violent dispersal of youth and student protesters who held a lightning rally in Mendiola earlier today.

Palatino said, “After insulting the public’s intelligence by spewing out ridiculous lies and alibis to justify Arroyo’s lavish dinners, authorities are now resorting to excessive force and violence to quell disgust over the administration’s gluttony amidst widespread crisis and poverty.”

“This is not right and downright unjust. Hindi natin puwedeng palagpasin ito. Hindi na nga makapagpaliwanag ng maayos ang pangulo sa publiko, ngayon naman halos patayin sa suntok, bugbog st sipa ang mga kabataang nagpoprotesta. Kung dati’y mga mamahaling dinner lang ang hindi natin masikmura, ngayon nadagdagan pa ang dahilan para lalo tayong masuklam sa administrasyong ito,” Palatino said.

The young solon said that he will file a resolution directing the House Committee on Human Rights to immediately conduct an investigation of the violent dispersal.

Palatino added that his office’s legal team is also studying filing legal charges against police authorities and members of the Presidential Security Group who clearly used excessive force and have violated their protocols of engagement, with news footage and photos as evidence.#

photos from the Associated Press (by Aaron Favila) and Reuters (by Romeo Ranoco)

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Victor Villanueva

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