Upcoming U.P., ADMU UAAP 73 Men's Basketball Games from August to September 2010

(To enlarge the picture of the schedule, just click on it)

Schedule for the second round of Men's Basketball games.  All UP Games will be held in Araneta Colloseum, Cubao, Quezon City)

(Source: Facebook page of  I will stand by the UP Fighting Maroons whether they win or lose.)

Dateline Diliman: Announcements and Calendar of Events for April and May, 2010

(Artwork by: Rodel Tagos)

Dear Reader,

The Diliman Diary's research department has consolidated announcements and calendars of events from Ateneo de Manila University, Miriam College and U.P. Diliman and will be posting them online a monthly basis as a service to our readers and to help bridge the gaps in perceptions and understanding between these three great institutions. This will lead over time (at least we hope so) to greater interaction, cross-fertilization and understanding in the Diliman area making it an even more exciting and dynamic place to live and work in.

If you, the reader, in your individual capacity, or your organization have an event or anouncement that you wish to promote please email the details to: dilimandiary@yahoo.com Attention: The Editor.

Best regards,

Chanda Shahani
The Editor

April to May, 2010 Announcements and Events:

Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU). Please click on this link:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2VO4dpq1vHKNzcyNzkyOWQtYzkwZi00NDQxLTllMDctZGZhOTQ4NmM5ODdh&hl=en&invite=CPqdovYN

Miriam College. Please click on this link:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2VO4dpq1vHKOGNkMTNmNmYtNjJhNy00NzRiLTljMDQtZGM1NTVmN2Q4ZTNi&hl=en&invite=CL2CpqYF

U.P. Diliman. Please click on this link:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B2VO4dpq1vHKODJmMzUzOGEtOGY5My00MGNmLTg4NzQtZWE1N2JjZTE3ZDk1&hl=en&invite=CMqxpekM

Public Service Announcement: "IBALIK ANG TONO para IBALIK ANG TAMA," Protest Concert on March 19, 2010 at U.P. PGH Quadrangle/Atrium

IBALIK ANG TONO para IBALIK ANG TAMA

This Friday 5pm March 19 at the PGH Quadrangle/Atrium.

Featuring: Noel Cabangon, Datu's Tribe, The UP Med Choir and more

Entrance is Free

Ibalik ang Tono is an impromptu protest concert produced by the coalition of various groups from UP and PGH that have come together in protest of the unjust and oppressive removal of the PGH Director Dr. Jose "Joegon" Gonzales and the the UP Student Regent Ms. Charisse Bañez. Music is has the great power to strengthen our unity and our resolve to fight for what is right. Kaya Ibalik ang Tono para Ibalik ang Tama.

Other artists are still welcome to volunteer their talents for this concert. Please call Dr. Iggy Agbayani at 09175318648 asap.

Sponsored by Laban UP-PGH, the All UP Workers Union of Manila and the Coalition for truth, justice and good governance in UP-PGH: All UP Academic Employees Union Manila, PGH Head Nurses League, , PGH Nursing Attendants Association, University Student Council-UP Manila, PGH Utility Workers Association, Alternative Students’ Alliance for Progress- Katipunan ng mga Progresibong Mag-aaral ng Bayan (ASAP-KATIPUNAN) and all the advocates of our cause.

BREAKING NEWS: Three (3) Malacañang Regents reappointed to the U.P. Board of Regents

Quezon Hall, U.P. Diliman

By Chanda Shahani

After several weeks of tense waiting for different groups contesting the positional legitimacies of several regents on the University of the Philippines (U.P.) Board of Regents (BOR), the Fat Lady has finally broken out into song.

The Malacañang-based Office of Executive Secretary Leandro Mendoza has confirmed today to the Diliman Diary that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has signed several "midnight" or last-minute appointments for three regents to serve on the U.P. BOR before the constitutional ban on the President signing appointments kicked in on March 10, 2010.

Here are the details:

• Regent Francis Chua's appointment was signed by President Arroyo on March 1, 2010 for a period of two (2) years.
• Regent Abraham Sarmiento's appointment was signed by President Arroyo on March 9, 2010 but good only until September 29, 2010.
• Regent Nelia Gonzales' appointment was signed by President Arroyo on March 9, 2010 for a period of two (2) years.

In a March 1, 2010 report, Faculty Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo previously raised the issue of the legitimacy of the three Malacañang appointed regents, during the February 25, 2010 BOR meeting, considering Regents Sarmiento, Gonzales and Chua were appointed as "acting" regents on September 29, 2008, March 18, 2008 and January 1, 2008 respectively by President Arroyo.

Regent Taguiwalo said that she put her objection on record during the February 25, 2010 meeting to the participation of the three Regents in BOR meetings after their respective terms expired after a period of one year.

Despie the March 2010 “midnight” appointments of President Arroyo for the same regents to serve again on the BOR, what is sure to be hotly contested in several courts of law are the decisions made by the BOR based on the votes cast by the three regents during the interregnum, or the period between when the regents' terms expired in 2009 and when they were renewed in March 2010.

The U.P. Administration is claiming that a unanimous vote of the BOR on February 25 resulted in the removal of PGH Executive Director Dr. Jose Gonzales, his replacement with Dr. Enrique Domingo, and the approval of a draft resolution voiding the legitimacy of Student Regent Bañez's right to vote from December 18, 2009 onwards on the grounds that she is no longer a student and therefore no longer a Student Regent.

All of these developments may be additional fuel for what is already a blazing fire within U.P. For example, taking the interregnum or the critical period into account when the “acting” regents with expired terms had not yet received their “midnight” appointments, then nine regents attended the February 25 BOR meeting but three regents - Staff Regent Clodualdo Cabrera, Faculty Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo and Alumni Regent Alfredo Pascual abstained from voting leaving six regents who particpated in the voting. However three regents had expired appointments at the time of the voting, meaning that only three regents with valid papers voted on February 25 which does not constitute a majority of the BOR.

These are the kinds of isues which may be taken up by Student Regent Charisse Bañez, who has filed a case against the U.P. Administration with Branch # 215 of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court or even Executive Director Gonzales, who said he is consulting his lawyers on his case, possibly leading to a second lawsuit being filed against the U.P. Administration.

COA 2008 report shows PGH is severly underequipped and lacks essential personnel

By Chanda Shahani

The University of the Philippines (U.P.) Philippine General Hospital's (PGH) inadequate government budgetary allocation for human resources and state of the art equipment may adversely affect its goal of becoming one of the best national university hospitals in Asia, and achieving International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2000 Certification, a 2008 report of the Commission on Audit (COA) shows.

With an annual budget of PhP 1.3 billion, which is PhP 1.7 billion short of the PhP 3 billion COA says PGH needs to attain ISO certification, and to operate effectively as a world-class government hospital, both PGH and the U.P. Administration may need to raise revenues through effective profit-making schemes and also addressing issues of financial mismanagement that only serve to take away badly-needed pesos that should go, by law, to the medical personnel of PGH.
 
(To read the rest of this story, originally programmed as a sidebar to our story, "U.P.-PGH has faced and is facing more administrative problems, Government records show," March 7, 2010, please click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/yg6umqu).

Editor's note:

To readers who would like to make a financial contribution or otherwise volunteer to help PGH's official foundation; which would help close PGH's budget gap which is necessary to acquire state-of-the-art and basic equipment and address compensation needs for their understaffed medical personnel, please click on this link:
http://www.pghmedfoundation.com/

Undemocratic Governance by the University of the Philippines System Leadership is Lambasted by Faculty, Staff, and Students at U.P. Diliman Press Briefing

U.P. Faculty, Staff and Students giving their
thumbs down to the incumbent U.P. Administration

By Chanda Shahani

From the joyous year-long 2008 University of the Philippines (U.P.) Centennial Celebrations peaking with the passage into law of the U.P. Charter of 2008 (R.A. 9500). To this. Perhaps U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman should start popping a series of Extra-Strength Tylenol tabs as prophylaxis for a projected series of headaches; as a growing number of U.P. System Faculty, Students and Staff are becoming increasingly vocal about what they call her leadership's lack of democratic governance consequently creating a host of long-term problems for the premier state university and its constituents.

A press briefing was held on March 3, 2010 at the 3rd floor of the College of Social Work and Community Development (CSWCD) at U.P. Diliman to represent a coalition of groups including the Faculty Regent Judy Taguiwalo, Student Regent Charisse Bañez, Staff Regent Buboy Cabrera, Dr. Jose Gonzales of the PGH, several PGH doctors, concerned University of the Philippines (UP) faculty and students, and the All U.P. Workers Union. They have all been united by converging interests centering on the following key issues involving decisions involving the U.P. System Administration which they are questioning.

Some of the key highlights of the briefing include:

• For the first time in UP’s history, students were stripped of their representation from the UP Board of Regents (BOR) as the current student regent was prevented from attending the board meeting and removed from her position due a technicality.
• For the first time in UP’s history, three regents overstayed their temporary designations to the BOR which lapsed in 2009.
• For the first time in UP’s history, the appointment of a University official was revoked without due cause. In UP Manila, the sitting PGH director, Dr. Jose Gonzales, was removed from his post a month after he was appointed by the board and sworn in as director.
• For the first time in UP’s history, classes as large as 300 will be the norm at UP Los Baños, leading to a degradation in each student's quality of education.

Jacqueline Eroles, the University Student Council of U.P. Diliman Vice Chair said during the press briefing that Student Regent Charisse Bañez was removed due to a technicality by several members of the BOR, acting as one, in order to nullify her swing vote in favour of U.P. Executive Director Jose Gonzales who they did not support.

She commented that copies in the press kit of several students' Form-5s which are U.P. students' proof of enrollment showed conclusively that unlike Student Regent Bañez, other students at U.P. Los Baños were allowed to enroll late beyond the claimed absolute and non-negotiable deadline of November 17, 2009 of the U.P. Administration for all UPLB students. One student enrolled for residency on February 2, 2010 and the other enrolled on February 16, 2010. Thus the unwillingness of the UPLB administration was due to pressure from the U.P. Administration which was not to give the Student Regent equal treatment as other UPLB students which was in turn was directly linked to her independent stand on the issue of who should be U.P. PGH Executive Director.

During the press briefing, Student Regent Bañez was even more emphatic in characterizing the linkage between her attempted ouster as Student Regent and Dr. Gonzales as Executive Director of U.P. PGH: "Malacañang at Roman itaksil sa Pamantasan. Education not for sale. U.P. not for sale," she said.

In a March 1, 2010 report also released during the media briefing, Faculty Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo said that she raised the issue during the February 25, 2010 BOR meeting, of the legitimacy of the three Malacañang appointed regents, Abraham Sarmiento, Nelia Gonzales and Francis Chua. She said that all three were appointed as "acting" regents on September 2008, March 2008 and January 2008 respectively by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Faculty Regent Taguiwalo cited the Administrative Code of 1987 (E.O. 292) which said that the President of the Philippines has the power to "issue temporary designations" but "(i)n no case shall a temporary designation exceed one (1) year."

She said that Vice President for Legal Affairs Atty. Theodore Te said during the February 25 BOR meeting that this issue could not be tackled by the BOR because the status of the three is included in a court case filed b y the Student Regent in the Quezon City Regional Trial Court and any discussion would be considred sub judice and that "temporary designation" is different from an acting appointment based on Supreme Court rulings. Taguiwalo said she consulted a lawyer afterwards, who showed her an excerpt from a Supreme Court ruling, Pimentel vs. Ermita (GR 164978 13 October 2005) which expressly ruled that "Acting appointments cannot exceed one year as expressly provided ... (in) EO 292."

However, based on Atty. Te's explanation, the BOR Chairman, Eduardo Y. Angeles denied Faculty regent Taguiwalo's motion, she said in her report. She said that during the whole process of deliberations made by the BOR, the three regents with expired appointments remained as regular voting members even as they voted for the selection of Dr. Enrique Domingo as the new Executive Director of PGH; consequentially removing Dr. Gonzales as PGH Executive Director, and also approving the minutes of the January 29, 2010 BOR meeting which contained a draft resolution nullifying the legitimacy of Student Regent Bañez's vote for Dr. Domingo during the December 18, 2009 BOR meeting and which provided the basis for the removal of Dr. Domingo.

Regent Taguiwalo said that she put her objection on record to the participation of the three Regents on the grounds that their appointments have already expired. The U.P. Administration is claiming that a unanimous vote of the BOR on February 25 resulted in the removal of Dr. Gonzales and the approval of a draft resolution voiding the legitimacy of Student Regent Bañez's right to vote from December 18, 2009 onwards on the grounds that she is no longer a student and therefore no longer a Student Regent. That may be an exaggeration. Nine regents attended the February 25 BOR meeting but three regents - Staff Regent Cabrera, Faculty Regent Taguiwalo and Alumni Regent Pascual abstained from voting leaving six regents who particpated in the voting. However three regents had expired appointments at the time of the voting, meaning that only three regents voted on February 25 which does not constitute a majority of the BOR.

"Parang sampal sa mga doctors ng PGH ang ginawa nila," said Dr. Jonas del Rosario, an Assistant Professor of the Department of Surgery at the U.P. College of Medicine who spoke during the press conference. He was referring to the ouster of  Dr. Jose Gonzales by the BOR last January 29, 2010 or about a month after he won in the voting by the BOR for the selection of a new Executive Director last December 18, 2009. "They are not respecting the civil service law," he said.

A March 2, 2010 resolution of the College Council of the U.P. College of Medicine also threw its support behind Dr. Gonzales. A resolution of any College Council in the U.P. System is considered especially important, by U.P. standards, in view of U.P.'s historic commitment to the principles of college and departmental autonomy. The resolution said that "Dr. Gonzales has already served as PGH director and has performed responsibly since January 4, 2010 with honor, integrity and transparency."

The resolution said the College Council resolved to "recognize and support Dr. Jose Gonzales as the duly appointed UP PGH director from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2012 in accordance with his original appointment."

A statement dated March 3, 2010 and released by CONTEND during the press briefing criticized President Roman for her "unrelenting effort to transform the University into a private commercial educational institution." One example is the proposal for large class sizes of 150 to 200 in general education courses starting in UPLB which "considerably lowers the expectations for quality while blatantly hewing to the logic of mass marketing."

The CONTEND statement openly criticized President Roman,  a faculty member of the U.P. College of Business Administration in Diliman with a Ph.d. in Business Administration from the same college, for "her unrelenting effort to transform the University into a private commercial educational institution ... Her philistine imposition of the narrow parameters of profitability for measuring or evaluating academic excellence in the University is simply unacceptable for any institution dedicated to teaching, learning and the deepening of knowledge. Her desire to transform the University into a privatized educational corporation is incompatible with the ideals of the University to serve the people and provide education for the poorest and least privileged in Philippine society."

A press kit handed out at the ground floor of CSWCD at the same time of the press briefing by the U.P.'s Office of the Vice President of Public Affairs contained several statements from the Office of President Roman to the Philippine Collegian, specifying President Roman's actual comments on many of the same issues, and also posted on U.P. own website at: http://www.up.edu.ph/ Here are her comments:

• On the complaint of Student Regent Bañez for a temporary restraining order where she said the votes cast in the January 29 BOR meeting to remove her eligibility to vote as Student Regent starting December 18, 2009 were invalid in the January 29 BOR meeting because there was no quorum: "The minutes of the January meeting of the Board were approved by the Board in its February meeting. Nobody questioned the quorum precisely because there was a quorum. Ms. Bañez was wrong when she said there was no quorum," Roman said.
• On the issue of the report of Faculty Regent Judy Taguiwalo where she raised an issue regarding the legitimacy of the three Malacañang-appointed regents since they have expired terms. Roman said that, "The terms of the three regents appointed by Malacañang are the subject of a court case filed by the Student Regent. This case is before the court now. Therefore I shall not be able to comment on this. Suffice it to say that our arguments regarding their tenure have been firmed up and U.P.'s lawyer will present these to court."
• On the issue of Faculty Regent Judy Taguiwalo objecting to Regent Nelia Gonzales' motion to appoint another PGH Director other than Dr. Gonzales, since the board cannot remove an official who has taken his oath of office except for cause, Roman said that: "The rule they are citing does not apply in the case of Dr. Jose Gonzales. His appointment has been voided by the Board because Ms. Bañez was not qualified to vote by virtue of her not being a student at the time of the election. If Ms. Bañez' vote is not counted, Dr. Gonzales would have lost in the vote. Hence the need to elect another director."
• On the issue of the Faculty Regent Judy Taguiwalo being unable to understand why the Chancellor of U.P. Los Baños continues to deny Bañez’s appeal for late filing of residency as it had been granted to other students similarly situated nor has President Roman advised the UPLB Chancellor to grant the appeal as it would ensure continued student representation in the BOR, Roman's reply was:
  
  "Judy Taguiwalo chooses to blame me for everything. I don‘t know what her motive is. She may not be fully aware of all the rules. For example, application for residency is decided finally by the Chancellor, not by the President. Does she expect me to tell the Chancellor to approve Ms. Bañez’s appeal even if the student has not complied with the requirements?"
  
  "The Chancellor informed me that Ms. Bañez applied for residency on December 16 (way beyond the last day for registration which was November 17) and this letter did not reach the Chancellor until January (remember, UP was on vacation starting the 19th). On January 11, Ms. Bañez‘ representative (a certain Ms. Elena Carlos) withdrew her application for residency. Ms. Bañez has denied withdrawing this application but Ms. Carlos signed the withdrawal of the application. So what was there for the Chancellor to act on if she withdrew her application?"
  
  "Instead Ms. Bañez, represented by her lawyer, chose to go on leave of absence. The lawyer wrote to her dean on January 12 (the day after Ms. Carlos withdrew her letter applying for residency) about Ms. Bañez "intention" to go on leave. Note that it was not even Ms. Bañez who wrote and applied for a leave. It was her lawyer. This was denied by her dean because she did not comply with the requirements to go on leave. According to College rules, she has to submit her clearance, and her parents‘ permission for her to go on leave."
  
  "Now the Faculty Regent wants me to tell the Chancellor to approve Ms. Bañez‘ appeal even though the requirements are not complied with? I am very surprised by this. Why doesn‘t she instead advise the Student Regent to comply with the requirements? Why does she tolerate the non-compliance with the rules by Ms. Bañez and instead ask me to pressure the Chancellor to approve Ms Bañez leave?"
  
  "The latest news is that Ms Bañez has again changed her mind and is filing for residency again!"
  
  "The rules for the selection of Student Regent were formulated and ratified by the students themselves. You have rules for the SR to continue to qualify. My question is: why did Ms Bañez not work on this during the registration period? Her reason was that she was busy. Could she not have spent a day to work on this? Or did she think it was not important to comply with the rules? By her action or non action on her enrollment, residency or leave (yes, she acted but much too late) there is no one representing the students in the Board. Should we be blamed for this? What about her? What is her culpability here?"

(Chanda Shahani is the Editor of the Diliman Diary).

U.P. Student Regent Charisse Bañez files TRO vs. U.P. President Emerlinda Roman and Allies

   (From left to right: Student Regent Bañez and President Roman.

   Sources: http://www.flickr.com/ and http://www.up.edu.ph/)

By Chanda Shahani

Tit for tat. The Student Regent Charisse Bernadine Bañez has now decisively answered the tax-payer funded University of the Philippines (U.P.) administration's attempts to disallow her vote cast as a member of the Board of Regents (BOR) in favour of the narrowly won selection of Dr. Carlos Gonzales as U.P. Philippine General Hospital (PGH) Executive Director with her own application for a temporary restraining order (TRO) on February 22 before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) praying that she continue the unhampered exercise of her functions as Student Regent for 20 days or until the RTC resolves the issue with finality.

The hearing for the possible granting of the TRO is set on Feb 24, 2010, at 8:30 am at the sala of Judge Ma. Luisa Quijano Padilla, RTC QC Branch 215 and the decision is expected within the day. The granting of the TRO is seen as being especially urgent since the next scheduled BOR meeting is set on the next day, or on February 25, 2010 and the granting of the TRO would essentially determine whether Bañez remains as a voting member of the BOR or effectvely has her status whittled down to being a mere observer by the implementation of a BOR resolution penned by the U.P. administration removing her right to vote as a member of the BOR.

In her prayer, Bañez asked that “Immediately upon the filing of this application, this Honorable Court conduct an ex-parte hearing on plaintiff’s application for the issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order effective for twenty (20) days, restoring the parties to their last peaceable and uncontested status before the controversy started on January 29, 2010, and prohibiting and enjoining the defendants from: (a) disallowing the plaintiff, as Student Regent, from attending, participating in, and voting in the meetings of the Board of Regents; and (b) exercising her office as Student Regent.”

Bañez is citing the following facts and issues in support of her right to relief in court which, if successful, would result in a permanent injunction agains the implementation of the resolution of the BOR adopted in its 1253rd meeting held on January 29, 2010 disallowing her from participating in and voting in BOR meetings:

• The Resolution of the BOR disallowing Student Regent Bañez from participating in, and voting, in the meetings of the Board of Regents is invalid because there was no quorum in the 1253rd meeting of the Board of Regents held on January 29, 2010 and the votes cast in that meeting were invalid.
• While the BOR is composed of eleven (11) members, in the 1253rd meeting of the BOR held on January 29, 2010, there were nine (9) members of the BORs who were present, namely: Chairman Eduardo Y. Angeles, President Emerlinda R. Roman, Regent Abraham F. Sarmiento, Regent Nelia T. Gonzalez, Regent Francis C. Chua, Regent Alfredo E. Pascual, Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo, Regent Bañez and Regent Clodualdo E. Cabrera.
• Of these nine (9) members of the Board of Regents, there are three (3) Regents with expired terms, namely: Regent Sarmiento, Regent Gonzalez and Regent Chua.
• Regent Sarmiento was appointed by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as an “Acting Member” of the BOR on September 29, 2008.
• Regent Gonzalez was likewise appointed by President Arroyo as an “Acting Member” of the BOR on March 18, 2008.
• Regent Chua was appointed by the President as an “Acting Member” of the BOR on January 1, 2008.
• Citing Sections 16 and 17 of Executive Order (E.O.) 292 or the Administrative Code of 1987 Bañez stated that the President of the Philippines shall exercise the power to appoint officials as provided for in the Constitution and laws; and that the President may temporarily designate an officer already in the government service or any other competent person to perform the functions of an office in the executive branch, appointment to which is vested in him by law, when: (a) the officer regularly appointed to the office is unable to perform his duties by reason of illness, absence or any other cause; or (b) there exists a vacancy;
• E.O. 292 also states that in no case shall a temporary designation exceed one (1) year. However, Regents Gonzales, Chua and Sarmiento had already exceeded the one-year mark for their temporary designations as “Acting Members” of the BOR when they voted on January 29, 2010 to disqualify Bañez's eligibility to vote as a member of the BOR.

Ironically, the designation of Regent Sarmiento as an “Acting Member” of the BOR by President Arroyo had already long expired when he manifested his intention on the December 18, 2009 BOR meeting to file a protest against the appointment of Dr. Gonzales who was selected over outgoing PGH Executive Director Carlos Alfiler by a majority of the BOR (six (6) votes to five (5) votes) on the ground that Student Regent Bañez was not qualified to vote in the said meeting.

In her February 22, 2010 Complaint for Injunction with prayer for issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order, filed before RTC QC Branch 215, Student Regent Bañez said that for the purpose of determining attendance and quorum in the 1253rd meeting of the BOR held in Quezon Hall on January 29, 2010 at U.P. Diliman, only six (6) Regents should be counted, namely: Chairman Angeles, President Roman, Alumni Regent Pascual, Faculty Regent Taguiwalo, Staff Regent Cabrera and Student Regent Bañez.

In her complaint, she said that when Regents Taguiwalo, Cabrera and Bañez left the meeting, there were only three (3) Regents in good standing who were left, namely: Chairman Angeles, President Roman and Alumni Regent Pascual. She said that when the motion was put to a vote, there was no longer a valid quorum for the meeting. She added that the votes cast by Regents Sarmiento, Gonzalez and Chua were invalid votes because their terms as Regents have already expired after twelve (12) months from the dates of their appointments as acting members of the Board of Regents.

Even if the presence of Regents Sarmiento, Gonzalez and Chua were counted for the purpose of determining quorum, still, there was no quorum when the motion on the status of the Student Regent was voted upon because Regent Pascual was inside the toilet when the actual voting took place, the complaint read in part.

The complaint alleges that contrary to what is reflected in the draft minutes of the 1253rd meeting of the Board of Regents that Regent Pascual was present in the meeting when the motion and voting on the status of the Student Regent took place, the facts are that Regent Pascual went to the toilet before the motion was made and put to a vote. Upon his return to the meeting, he was surprised to find out that the motion and voting has already taken place in his absence.

Bañez said that there were only five (5) members of the Board of Regents who were present when the motion and voting on the status of the Student took place, namely: Chairman Angeles, President Roman, Regent Sarmiento, Regent Gonzalez and Regent Chua. Clearly, there was no valid quorum of six (6) when the motion and voting on the status of the Student Regent took place.

She is asking the court to to declare as invalid the resolution of the BOR to disallow her to participate in, and vote, in meetings of the Board of Regents “approved” in the 1253rd meeting of the Board of Regents held on January 29, 2010 and that the BOR should also be permanently enjoined from implementing this resolution.

The Diliman Diary has exercised due diligence in attempting to get the U.P. administration's side in the past. In an email dated February 23, 1010, the Diliman Diary asked Attorney Theodore Te, Vice President for Legal Affairs of U.P., to comment or react to the factual and other allegations contained in Bañez's complaint. However, as of press time, Attorney Te had not replied to the Diliman Diary's email.

On February 12, 2010, the Diliman Diary had earlier emailed the Facebook account of Dr. Lourdes Abadingo, the Secretary of the University, asking her to verify “upon very good authority” that “in the last meeting of the BOR (January 29) there was a quorum when the decision to disqualify the Student Regent was made. Is this claim by that authority accurate in view of the fact there was supposed to have been a walkout by some regents resulting in no quorum at all?”

In reality, the “very good authority,” who claimed that there was indeed a quorum when the decision to disqualify the Student Regent was made was no less than U.P. President Roman when she replied on February 8, 2010 to an email query on the matter to Dr. Silverio Cabellon, Chairman of the University of the Philippines Medical Alumni Society of America that, “In the last meeting of the Board (January), there was still a quorum when the decision to disqualify the Student Regent was made. This can be attested by the Secretary of the Board.” However, to date, there has been no reply or response by Dr. Abadingo to the Diliman Diary's query as to whether or not there was a quorum of the BOR when some mebers of the BOR tried to remove her as a voting member of the BOR.

The Diliman Diary also tried emailing Dr. Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, U.P.'s Vice President for Public Affairs, on February 12, 2010 for clarifications on U.P.'s statement on its own website at http://www.up.edu.ph/features.php? stating that the Student Regent was no longer eligible to act as a Student Regent with full powers and responsiblilities or to at least be put in touch with the author if the statement which President Roman said in her email to Dr. Cabellon was uploaded by Office of the Vice-President for Public Affairs; but Dr. Hidalgo has not replied to the Diliman Diary's email query to date.

With the filing of this case, Bañez could have potentially plunged the entire BOR into a crisis by asking the court to disqualify the three other “Acting Members” of the BOR whose terms of office have long since lapsed. However, she is instead asking the Court to conduct an ex-parte hearing on her application for the issuance of a Temporary Restraining Order effective for twenty (20) days,“restoring the parties to their last peaceable and uncontested status before the controversy started on January 29, 2010,” or in other words, maintain the status quo.

If the TRO is granted, then Bañez effectively will be allowed to vote on the draft BOR resolution removing her right to vote as a Regent in the BOR and if it is not granted, then President Roman's assertion that there was a quorum and a majority vote existed to remove her right to vote as Student Regent effectively removes Bañez's one vote in favour of the narrowly won selection of Dr. Carlos Gonzales as PGH Executive Director over outgoing PGH Executive Director Carlos Alfiler.

The potential elimination of Bañez's vote as a bona fide voting member of the BOR potentially creates a hung jury of five (5) remaining votes for Gonzales and five (5) votes for Alfiler and could reverse a de facto acknowledgement by Quezon Hall, published by on U.P. own website at: (http://www.up.edu.ph/features.php?i=176) that Gonzales is the Executive Director of PGH which is based on the premise that six (6) and not five (5) Regents voted for him.

A removal of Bañez's eligibility to vote could pave the way for the U.P. Administration to immediately implement Memorandum No. PERR-2010-001, issued byPresident Roman dated January 5, 2010, appointing Chancellor Ramon L. Arcadio as Officer-in-Charge of PGH, thus removing Dr. Gonzales as PGH Executive Director. Dr. Gonzales continues to acts as the Executive Director of PGH despite the existence of President Roman's memo.