Diliman Videos of the Week Continued: A U.P. Alumnus Rages vs. U.P. Mindanao Students' Rage vs. the Distorted Priorities of the Outgoing Roman Administration (Videos 5 to 7)

Editor's note: In Video No. 5, we see an irate U.P. alumnus berating U.P. students for exercising their academic freedom to express dissent (not to mention their constitutional rights of free speech) over the policies of the Outgoing Administration of U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman, and those of U.P. Mindanao Chancellor Gilda C. Rivero, including their mutual decision to participate in a testimonial ceremony for President Roman on that day (February 4, 2011) at U.P. Mindanao at a cost of PhP 100,000.00 to the Filipino taxpayer. These videos are courtesy of the U.P. Mindanao University Student Council.

The alumnus, who was an invited guest at the testimonial ceremony, boasts of once being a First Quarter Storm activist who braved water cannons, bullets and truncheons in the Marcos era. He now says that U.P. Mindanao students have no right to oppose the failure of the administrations of Outgoing U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman and U.P. Mindanao Chancellor Gilda C. Rivero in terms of carrying out their responsible stewardships of the U.P. System and U.P. Mindanao, respectively. The alumnus even dictates upon the students to travel all the way to Congress in Quezon City from Mindanao to protest (rather than in U.P. Mindanao) because of a solitary placard that said that spending for the military should be channeled to education. However the alumnus also admitted that the students' complaint that PhP 100,000.00 was spent for the testimonial ceremony of outgoing U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman was valid.

In Video No. 6, and with blood pressures rising on both sides, the U.P. alumnus demands that the students show respect for the U.P. Alumni who were participating in the event. He invoked seniority and age over the students, even offering to show them his senior citizen's identification card.

In Video No. 7, the U.P. alumnus finally and completely loses his temper with the students saying that they do not deserve respect, and uses foul language, specifically the word, "stupido," which can be distinctly heard in the the video. The alumnus categorically states that since the students did not follow instructions to stop disrupting the testimonial ceremony, then they deserved every iota of his disrespect. The U.P. alumnus later retreated behind steel gates when student activists drowned out his angry comments with chants. The video ends with a riveting declamation by a student activist who emotionally asks her companions if they would accept the demands of the U.P. alumnus that he would do all the talking and that they should simply accept their role which is to shut up and to hang on to every word that the official uttered as if their lives depended on it. Surely this should not be the case she says, surely to do so would be to negate their very existence as activists fighting for legitimate causes in support of their university and the people.

To see Videos No. 1 to 4 which covered earlier parts of the student protests at the same February 4, 2011 testimonial ceremony, please click on this link: http://diliman-diary.blogspot.com/2011/02/diliman-videos-of-week-up-mindanao.html

Video No. 5



Video No. 6



Video No. 7

Diliman Videos of the Week: U.P. Mindanao Students Rage Against the Distorted Priorities of Outgoing Roman Administration

Editor's note: The following is a series of videos taken yesterday by the U.P. Mindanao University Student Council over policies of the Outgoing Administration of U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman as well as those of U.P. Mindanao Chancellor Gilda C. Rivero.

To see Videos No. 5 to 7, please click on this link: http://diliman-diary.blogspot.com/2011/02/diliman-videos-of-week-continued-up.html

Video No. 1 begins with Katipunan ng mga Sangguniang Mag-aaral sa UP (KASAMA sa UP) Vice Chairperson for Mindanao Krista Melgarejo sweetly asking security guards and officials if she and fellow students can be let inside the building where the February 4, 2011 testimonial ceremony for President Roman, hosted by Chancellor Rivero is going on. The request is denied by an official, who says the students may be let in if they return in formal attire.

Videos 2 and 3 represent the interregnum before the crescendo of grief, outrage and anger manifested in Video 4, as the students ultimately erupt in protest and rage against the distorted educational and financial priorities of the Outgoing Roman Administration who seem to regard the PhP 100,000.00 spent for the testimonial ceremony as mere loose change, even as U.P. faces a massive budget deficit in 2011. The students are also protesting the formula of the Roman administration which is to raise tuition fees and commercialize many aspects of the university, even as they have no compunction in freely spending U.P.'s already shrunken 2011 budget over unimportant and inessential matters (such as testimonial ceremonies) when the students themselves have inadequate laboratory equipment, and are facing other deprivations.

Video No. 1

 

Video No. 2

Video No. 3

Video No. 4