Letter from the Student Regent: Invitation for all professors to strike!

16 September 2011

OPEN LETTER TO ALL UP PROFESSORS

Dear professor,

Next week is strike week, the highlight of this season’s campaign for greater state subsidy. Our unities are now beyond opposition to this year’s P800 million UP budget cut. Through sharp analysis, we have interwoven the many concerns of state college and universities and the school sector and now stand against the chronic education crisis.

In response, student councils and organizations, multisectoral alliances Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut and Ugnayan ng Mamamayan Para sa Karapatan sa Edukasyon (Umaksyon) across the UP system have agreed to conduct alternative activities and massive mobilizations to heighten the atmosphere of protest in the university. We will strike with utmost vigor especially on Wednesday, the anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law. We invite you to participate in the following activities:

Diliman
Tuesday, 20 September
 9-12 NN – forum on the budget with Chancellor Saloma and system officials

Wednesday, 21 September
AM – college walkouts and programs
1130 AM – march along acad oval and declaration of strike
PM – common program at AS steps
6-8PM – interactive fashion show
8-11PM – film showing and cultural night        

Thursday, 22 September
AM - Alternative classes (AKLAS) at AS
1-5PM – station of the cuts, per sector situationer
6-11pm – retro night “Walastik, dehins sa cuts repapapips”    

Friday, 23 September
7AM – almusalang bayan
9 AM – march to Mendiola

Manila
Tuesday, 20 September
Teach-ins, educational discussions       

Wednesday, 21 September
3PM – dodgeball event against budget cut        

Thursday, 22 September
AM – solidarity program
LUNCH – common program at PGH; boodle fight
PM – film showing; cultural night with smores bonfire             

Friday, 23 September
AM – morning exercises; solidarity program
10AM – march to Mendiola

Baguio
Tuesday, 20 September
10 AM – Forum on budget hearings with Rep. Mong Palatino  

Wednesday, 21 September
Discussion groups on UP, education and youth situation           

Thursday, 22 September
6-9 PM – “Camp  fire”, a culminating activity of different sectors         

Friday, 23 September
Black shirt day
AM – ecumenical service, org activities
LUNCH – boodle fight
PM – march against the cuts

Los Banos         
Tuesday, 20 September
Visual, cyber and verbal prop 

Wednesday, 21 September
Black shirt day
AM – mob on Martial Law anniversary              

Thursday, 22 September
AM – prop action
PM – film showing; videos on the budget cut to be aired during class days            

Friday, 23 September
Solidarity program

Visayas (Iloilo and Miag-ao)                                    
Thursday, 22 September
10 AM – All-Panay SUCs student leaders press conference       

Friday, 23 September
Black shirt day
PM –big protest in Iloilo City with other schools

Cebu       
Wednesday, 21 September
PM – multisectoral mobilization at city proper                             

Friday, 23 September
PM – consultation with President Pascual
5 PM – Candlelighting

Mindanao                                         
Thursday, 22 September
Cultural activities at the atrium
LUNCH – solidarity program             

Tentative schedules subject to adjustment.

May we note two shared activities where we specially need your help:
1)     Black or no to budget cut shirt days – We call on all sectors to display personal solidarity. Free t-shirt printing is available in Diliman, Manila and Los Banos; please bring your own shirts. Some organizations are also distributing merchandise at cost.
2)     Teach-ins, alternative class discussion – We hope to gather as many students as possible in the spirit of community teaching, and in search for holistic and responsive learning.
     a) Would you be amenable to sending your classes for alternative lectures? Kilos Na and Umaksyon teams would be glad to take them on.
     b) Could you bear the inconvenience of relocating your classes outside? We encourage all professors to conduct regular classes in the common areas if feasible (AS in Diliman, Los Banos and Manila, main lobby in Baguio).
Please do not hesitate to initiate your own actions to complement this schedule, to reach the widest audience for our campaign. In the midst of this crisis, we hope to be part of the solution by pursuing an education that is truly democratic, scientific, and geared towards serving the nation.


In solidarity and with thanks,

Maria Kristina Conti
Student Regent

The Role of the Student Regent in Defining the University of the People

By Krissy Conti

There are many ways to define the University of the Philippines (UP), but it is most compelling to call it the “University of the People.” After all, we have staked a claim on “socially responsible and relevant education” for the better part of a century.

The university is in a prime position today to realize, if not reconstruct, the notion of service to the people. By sheer overuse over time, it may have become trite and confusing.

In the generic sense, “people” pertains to the public. It is more familiar to say that UP serves public interest via its legions of alumni serving in government, people’s organizations and yes, even private institutions which have social responsibility programs. Any outward form of public activity not tooled for private interest thus becomes public service. Here, the common values are altruism and selflessness.

Without proper grounding, this could become a dangerous declaration. Public service becomes an instrument of charity, rather than of responsibility; an undertaking after graduation, rather than during matriculation.

The people we seek to serve have been identified by our own studies, surveys and reports. Majority of the Filipino people are rural-based workers who do not enjoy economic equality (conservative data say 18% of families go hungry and 49% rate themselves poor).

UP knows that the service is urgent and already offers tailored co- and extra-curricular programs, such as barrio-based community work, legal aid to indigents, and return service obligations for medical students. These immersion activities and direct services underscore that public service entails physical closeness and self-effacing productivity to be most effective.

As the public epitome of the UP student, it is the task of the Student Regent to help every student imbibe this spirit of service in applying his holistic education. After all, the training in UP is precisely designed to equip every student with the values of integrity and excellence, not only in academic endeavors. The Student Regent must show how it is to learn, not simply study.

The Student Regent must be well-meaning in pursuing people’s interests, and in the course of the task not merely represent, but protect and advocate for the students. As the students’ spokesperson, together with other student leaders, he has the responsibility to campaign for pro-student policies that ensure quality and accessible education, principled participation in campus activities and university decision-making.

As the model “iskolar ng bayan”, the Student Regent has to be the most accessible policymaker in the university. He represents the ordinary people’s investment in a better future. He is the closest and most powerful advocate the marginalized – whether cultural, political, or social minorities – can have in this university. Besides, as a public official, the Student Regent is statutorily required to be accountable in his dealings with his direct and expanded constituencies, and especially so with taxpayer funds and government activities.

Ultimately, the Student Regent’s role is to dissolve the individualism of both the student sector and the student. It has always been the Student Regent’s historic task to secure consensus among all sectors for key issues such as sufficient budget for education and democratic governance. Collective action is our – at 55,000 students we are the largest sector in the university – most potent defense against grown-up world-weariness.

Even as many paths lead us out of this University, at one point in time we will find ourselves, older and wiser, yet coming together again as our petty personal problems merge and fuse with larger political crises. If there is anything the Student Regent must show us, it is that, in the words of one of our own, “only those who choose to fight on the battlefield live beyond irrelevance."

(The quote is from Chief Justice Puno's message to the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers at its founding Congress in September 2007)

Program of action

A) To maximize participation in the Board of Regents

1) Conduct periodic policy reviews and author necessary policy reforms
     a) on system academic policies such as on admissions, financial aid and loans,curriculum reforms, faculty diversity
     b) on the University's land use plan, for the site permanency of several campuses, arrangements for masjid in campuses, assessment of demolitions of UP communities
     c) on University tie-ups with private entities and other private-public partnerships, as well as land leases
     d) on academic policies which affect the overall atmosphere of learning in the University
     e) on more gender-responsive policies in the university

2) Establish effective relations with the constituencies and enhance the level of awareness system-wide on pressing University issues
     a) Conduct regular unit hops
     b) Designate an official OSR liaison per campus
     c) Convene the local organizations
     d) Conduct Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao Students' Conventions

3) Participate in sectoral regents' caucuses

B) To strengthen the institution

1) Release regular BOR reports and quarterly summing-up papers
2) Set up a website, web portal or other new media channels for faster information
dissemination and communications across the system
3) Review and reassess the flexibility of the Codified Rules of Student Regent
Selection
4) Follow up the prosecution of former student regent Hannah Serana
5) Highlight the history of the Office of the Student Regent via a regent's reunion,
an exhibit

C) To prepare the students for their role in the people's struggle

1) Open the OSR and its resources as a mechanism for students to campaign on
pertinent national issues and concerns, such as but not limited to
• Accountability for human rights violations
• Adequate government allocations in social services, especially education
• Accountability for corruption
• Accountability for worsening economic conditions
• Education for all Filipinos that is free and emancipating
• Science and technology geared towards national industrialization
• Mass-oriented culture
2) Encourage alternative, supplemental or complementary education inside and
outside the classroom
3) Expand capacity-building efforts with student leaders' trainings, discussions on
operating a student council, and the like
4) Link up with external sectors and organizations in advancing causes
     a) Convene the Multi-sectoral Assembly

(Krissy Conti is the newly-elected University of the Philippines Student Regent)