The students epic: Rebuilding the university of the people through justice and accountabilityRonn Joshua C. BautistaCollege of Mass CommunicationUniversity of the Philippines - Diliman

From the moment each one of us takes the UPCAT, our journey as UP students will be one that is marked by defiance. For most of us who could not afford quality education in high school, the odds are already stacked against us in the UPCAT. For most of us whose families can barely make a living, we defy poverty every single day that we enter the classroom. For our fellow Iskolar ng Bayan in UP units in Tacloban and the Visayas, simply continuing their studies entails struggling with what remains of the region post-Yolanda. To our brothers and sisters in Mindanao, whose campus is effectively under the watch of state agents, defiance means going to class despite the encroaching presence of armed men known for abducting and butchering dissidents.Throughout its history, the Office of the Student Regent has articulated these struggles inside UPs highest policy-making body. And after countless battles, we have achieved victories that we will continue to hold on to.But history has proven that one-man struggles can only do so much. The Student Regent recognizes that he or she is only one out of 11 members inside the BOR, most of which do not necessarily represent any part of the UP community. Thus, it is crucial to support the Offices table battles with a united front among the students, faculty, staff, and residents.The OSR will continue to draw its strength from the 58,000-strong UP student body. Recognizing the limits of parliamentary battles inside the Board of Regents, the OSR will remain leading the fight outside the building of power that is Quezon Hall for nothing else but the united strength of the student body can endow the Student Regent power that can change the dynamics in the BOR.Coming from the media rather than a student council, this nominee has been endowed with opportunities to be objective and critical of UP politics. Journalists are trained to sniff out secrets that some would want to stay hidden and expose flaws in the system that are detrimental to the people. We are bound by a strict code of ethics to be public stewards and watchdogs. At this time when two presidencies are about to end President Benigno Aquino III and Alfredo Pascuals it is important now more than ever to have a Student Regent that possesses these qualities and dare to hold those in power accountable.Should this nominee be selected, the OSR shall foster unity in the following issues:Socialized Tuition and Other School Fees. We pride ourselves as products of some sort of Spartan training for intellectual elites, but academics are not the only arenas where scholars of the people are pitted against one another to survive and emerge with a degree. During enrolment season, we see ourselves vie for what little state subsidy UP has left. Through socialized tuition, we are made to prove ourselves as the poorest of the poor to receive what we all deserve free education.The numbers do not lie. Because of our sky-high tuition, only one in three Upcat passers are now enrolling in Up. The percentage of UpD passers who earn less than half a million is constantly decreasing from 59 percent in 2004 to 44 percent in 2014. And despite promises of democratizing access to the university, a record high of 7,000 out of 18,000 undergraduate students in Diliman were made to pay the full tuition rate on the first year of the new Socialized Tuition System.If we survive these initial tuition hindrances, we are then slammed with multiple obstacles such as miscellaneous fees, internet fees, cultural fees, and other fees that are dubious, exorbitant, and redundant that should have already been shouldered by the state. It is in this light that just two years after our fellow Iskolar ng Bayan from UP Manila lost her life struggling to stay in school, two more scholars of the people in other state universities claimed theirs because of similar obstacles to our right to education. We can no longer say that tragic experiences with socialized and exorbitant tuition are isolated cases. In fact, everyones struggles need to be heard and the OSR shall unite our common experiences. We will organize forums and roundtable discussions with each campus at a college level. To ensure maximum participation, we will go deeper and not only be restricted to consulting student councils but also partner with student organizations themselves. It is crucial for the CORE to collaborate with the most basic unit of student representation because the issue of exorbitant tuition pierces through all organization and parties. It is an issue that we are all affected in.At the end of the day, the OSR shall strive to unite the community in the most viable solution against socialized tuition and OSFs. We will continue the campaigns of past Student Regents and call to junk STS and all forms of OSFs.Students rights. UP Diliman was sucker punched this academic year when students entered their first day in class with the controversial Code of Student Conduct already approved. At a time when most of the student body were in vacation, the BOR railroaded the passage of the contested code which included organization, fraternity, and sorority restrictions and penalties for breaching the peace of the campus, among other things. But UP Diliman is not alone in their struggle with an unjust student code, other UP units also have contentious provisions in their own code of student conducts like UPLB which also imposes a one-year ban on freshies.In this light, the OSR shall initiate a review of all the student codes of each UP unit and propose a uniform and system-wide alternative that will junk previously contested restrictions and ensure the democratic rights of each university student, regardless of political affiliations, race, gender, and creed, are upheld.However, our rights are not only being trampled upon inside the university. Until today, UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan remain missing after being abducted by state elements nine years ago. Despite capturing Gen. Jovito Palparan, the military refuses to surface the two scholars even after overwhelming evidence, upheld by the courts, has proven their culpability.Moreover, three more scholars of the people are unjustly behind bars, Maricon Montajes, Gerald Salonga, and Guiller Cadano. For five years now, Film student Montajes case continues to languish in the countrys turtle-paced justice system despite only conducting a school project in Taysan, Batangas. Meanwhile, UP Pampanga alumni Salonga and Cadanos trumped up charges has yet to even formally begin but they remain in jail after being forcefully abducted from their homes early last year.Red-tagging continues to place our fellow Iskolar ng Bayan in grave danger and we can no longer let the states list of victims go any longer. Immediately, the OSR shall provide its full support to the cases of our persecuted students and force the university to help lobby for their freedoms. It is appalling that UP, who has the best lawyers and academics in the country, continues to remain silent while its students and alumni are tagged as enemies of the state.In the immediate short-term, we shall force the university to release statements calling for the freedom of its students, but in the long term, we shall work towards a university that will actively raise public support and lobby for the end of all human rights violations in the country.UPs Public Character. There can be no denying that UP is no longer just a university in the eyes of the people. In a desperate bid to augment our annual billions-worth budget deficit, the BOR has allowed the construction of resorts, call centers, posh restaurants, and malls inside our campuses. Lands that could have been used to build new laboratories, classrooms, or dormitories are instead given to businesses to reap billions of profits in exchange for a few million alms.Ironically, while the university opens itself up to these commercial establishments, it has self-righteously been kicking out its own vendors and residents from the little land that they have been occupying for generations. From the UP Manila Gab Caf concessionaires to the residents of the UP Diliman Arboretum, the BOR has stood idly by while members of the UP community are uprooted from their spaces in the university.As the largest stakeholder in UP, we shall rebuild the university of the people by fighting for the end of commercialization inside our campuses and upholding the rights of our manininda. The OSR will propose a policy that will suspend the approval of any new commercial establishment in UP and find legal remedies to abrogate the dubious and railroaded deals that have led to the demolition of our very own UP Integrated School in favor of an Ayala Mall along Katipunan Avenue.Furthermore, the OSR shall revisit the Master Development plan which poses multiple threats to the manininda community and draft a counter proposal that will guarantee that all of UPs thousands of hectares of land will only be utilized for public purposes.Sectoral unity. UP life is just not the same if there were no professors to guide us in our career and workers to assist us in our daily grind inside the university. Like us students, they, too face problems that threaten their very existence in UP.Our professors are denied their rightful promotions despite working day and night on their researches because of dubious standards imposed by university administrations. Aspiring teachers who have much to share with the community are forced to leave for better paying schools because the little state subsidy we receive from the government can only afford the university to pay its professors a few thousands a month.Meanwhile, our workers struggle for higher wages and security of tenure. Their bonuses are withheld and dangled above them through the use of divisive policies such as the SPMS. UP contractual employees on the other hand, are denied any kind of benefits like paid leaves, 13th month pays and access to the infirmary.Their defiance towards the universitys policies are no different than ours. Thus, the OSR will continue to strengthen its ties with the All UP Academic Employees Union and the All UP Workers Union and aid their proposals inside the BOR. Because they also make UP a significant population of the UP community, we will work with them in drafting proposals and policies that affect the universitys public character such as those mentioned above.We have a lot to do in the following year. The past five years have shown that the macroeconomic policies of the Aquino administration have a butterfly effect with the administration of UP President Pascual. Therefore, we need to counter our problems not only in the university level but also on a national scale. We will join mobilizations organized by progressive groups. We will add our voices in the calls for justice in various social issues. We will enlist the student body in alliances that will genuinely uphold the rights of the Filipino people.The time is ripe for us to defy everything that both the UP administration and the national government has piled in front of our dreams and aspirations. We need an OSR that will dare us to fight and dare us to win.