Who should be the next dean of the UP College of Medicine?

by Ramon Lorenzo Luis R. Guinto


This May, after seven years of rigorous education, I am officially departing the hallowed halls of the UP College of Medicine. My departure coincides with the end of the deanship of Dr. Alberto Roxas, who served for two 3-year terms and oversaw major improvements in infrastructure and the landmark institutionalization of the return service agreement, which mandates all students of the College to stay for three years after graduation.

Certainly, the parting of one ushers the coming of another. Three of my professors were nominated to succeed Dr. Roxas for the deanship – Dr. Joey Lapena from the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Dr. Agnes Mejia from the Department of Medicine, and Dr. Arlene Samaniego from the Department of Anatomy. All three have impressive credentials and wide experience in medical education – Dr. Lapena is an accomplished medical journal editor; Dr. Mejia is currently chair of internal medicine; and Dr. Samaniego is a former Vice President of UP.

Why am I concerned about the new leadership? Of course, I owe my holistic formation as a doctor to my alma mater, that’s why I care. More importantly, I believe in the key leadership role the College plays in medical education and in Philippine health in general – sothe leadership of the College is ever crucial in the fulfillment of its work.

Being not affiliated to any of the three in any manner, I leave it to the Chancellor to recommend the best candidate and to the Board of Regents to seal the appointment. But because I firmly believe that the selection of the dean should be based on merits and not familial, disciplinary, organizational, or any affiliation, here I list ten major areas of reform that should serve as guide in choosing the right candidate for the top job.

1. Transforming Philippine medical education to produce doctors that meet the needs of the people.In 2010, in commemoration of the centennial of the Flexner Report that launched the scientific orientation of medical education, a Lancet Commission headed by Julio Frenk, dean of Harvard School of Public Health,published a report entitled “Health professionals for anew century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world.”(1) In summary, the Commission called schools of medicine, nursing, and public health to shift to transformative learning, whose purpose is not just to transfer knowledge and skills, but to cultivate leadership attributes among students to become enlightened change agents. This is in contrast to current informative and formative learning approaches, which are geared towards producing experts and professionals. This overarching recommendation sprang from the realization that despite advances in medicine and public health, glaring inequalities in health care access and health outcomes even widened within and between countries, and contributing to the status quo is the mismatch of competencies of health professionals to patient and population needs.

The Philippines is certainly not an exception. Here, medical graduates are more equipped for hospital settings in cities and even abroad than for the local health system. Furthermore,the estimated generalists-to-specialists ratio is 1:3, while we know that the bulk of the national disease burden – common infectious and noncommunicable diseases – can be easily managed by general practitioners. (2)Given this current paradigm of medical training in the Philippines, the Commission’s report should definitely be first in the reading assignment of the next dean and her/his team.

2. Adopting social accountability as a new measure of success.Certainly the board exam passing rate is one indicator of a medical school’s success. In 2010 however, nearly a hundred institutions and individuals (including the dean of the UP School of Health Sciences, Dr. Jusie Lydia Siega-Sur) drafted and signed the Global Consensus for Social Accountability of Medical Schools, which proposes 10 strategic directions for reorienting education, research, and service priorities of medical schools across the globe. (3) Some of the strategies include anticipating society’s health needs, fostering outcome-based education, and inclusion of social accountability in accreditation schemes. Somehow related to the Lancet Commission’s findings, the Global Consensus however requires commitment from medical schools to implement the recommendations to meet local health needs.

Certainly, UP has contributed a great deal in shaping Philippine medicine and health at large, but hopefully in the 21st century UP will continue to be measured not just for the technical quality of its graduates, but also for the unfading relevance both of its programs and its people, especially to underserved communities in the country.

3. Leading the APMC towards substantial reforms and setting the example for others.The College is a proud and active founding member of the Association of Philippine Medical Colleges (APMC) – I even remember attending its annual conference which the College hosted four years ago. APMC, as the elite collegial body of medical schools in the country, is a fitting place if we want to substantially transform the direction of Philippine medical education and the practice of medicine as a whole.

The new dean of UP should possess the charisma as well as the political force to push for reforms and lead the way for other medical schools. While the College pursues internal changes, the new dean can use our case to demonstrate the need and the feasibility of reforms across the board.

One area of reform needed in many Philippine medical schools is allowing the flourishing of student organizations. Having worked in the Philippine chapter of the Asian Medical Students’ Association, I have listened to many students from other schools who have not been allowed to establish their local chapters because such organizations are not seen as beneficial to the holistic formation of doctors-in-training. This is a stark contrast with UPCM, with nearly 20 organizations spanning diverse interests and advocacies and catering to every type of medical student.

4. Internationalizing the College by promoting global competence. Oftentimes we talk about enhancing the global competitiveness of our students in the health workforce market. What the College should embrace is the paradigm of producing not globally competitive, but globally competent doctors who can harness global knowledge and networks for local and national good.

Global health education should be embedded in the curriculum in order to let students understand local health problems in the context of the global social, economic, and physical environment(4, 5).Furthermore, research partnerships with reputable institutions abroad should be pursued in order to encourage joint learning and discovery to address shared health challenges. More exchange and elective programs with institutions in other countries aside from the United States, especially in fellow developing countries (as part of the growing trend towards South-South cooperation) should also be promoted. In return, the College should open new opportunities for visiting professors and students to further enrich our existing academic portfolio. The construction of a separate medical school catering to international students, however,is not the right measure towards this direction.

5. Thinking beyond return of service in solving the health workforce crisis.The outgoing dean is laudable for instituting the return service agreement (RSA), which was replicated last year in other colleges of UP Manila. While the immediate effects of this policy are still yet to be measured, clearly 160 doctors (or, when all five batches have already graduated, 800 doctors at any point in time) cannot solve the health needs of more than 90 million people within just a short period.

The workforce crisis is more than just a problem of shortage – there is maldistribution and pooling of doctors in urban centers, overproduction, skillmix imbalances, declining work conditions especially of general practitioners, inadequate salaries in the public sector but exorbitant user fees charged by private doctors, and perceived limited opportunities for professional growth, hence the desire to go abroad. (6)While the RSA is operational in the coming years, I wish the next dean will elevate the discussions beyond the contract, and the College begin to take leadership in formulating a national response to the lingering challenges in the management of human resources for health – from recruitment and training to certification and deployment.

6. Uphold College’s commitment to community oriented medical education and primary health care. Unique among schools of medicine is UP’s adoption of the primary health care (PHC) approach in the conduct of community-oriented medical education, which is even enshrined in its vision statement.I remember the WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, respond in wonderment when I told her in 2008, during the 30th anniversary conference of the Alma Ata Declaration on PHC in Kazakhstan, that the first document our medical students learn in UP is the declaration itself. Now, WHO is advocating for a “return to Alma Ata” (7) and has been constantly reminding health leaders that PHC is much needed and feasible “now more than ever” (8).

The College does not need to make a full turn back to Alma Ata – I believe we are still in the road towards that direction. However, progress has been slow, with community medicine occupying only 3.75% of the time spent for the entire UP medical education. (9) The community medicine section’s decade-long work in Pasay City, which is celebrated in a book launched last year (9), is of course commendable –and the College needs to support more initiatives like this, even those coming from students, until community action becomes deeply ingrained in the soul of the College.

7. Embarking on interprofessional education.Another critique of the current health workforce set-up is the lack of synergy among different health professionals, when in fact, most of the health problems today can only be addressed through collaborative practice.Therefore, WHO has called for interprofessional education in order to prepare health workers for working in health teams, whether in the hospital or in the field. (10)

The San Juan-UP Community Health and Development Program is a good example of providing spaces for interprofessional learning. When I rotated in San Juan last April, I was blessed to have worked with physical therapy and pharmacy students in managing patients and teaching health workers about rational drug use and herbal medicine. More venues for collaborative learning in classroom and community settings should be fostered among colleges in the university. Since medical doctors naturally serve as leaders in health teams in real practice, the College therefore should also take the lead in designing interprofessional learning programs and in encouraging other disciplines to participate and join.

8. Addressing the basic survival needs of clerks and interns.Having been a clerk and intern myself, I experienced first-hand the challenges of life in the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) – from doling out syringes and test tubes to sleeping in a dilapidated callroom. Of course I do not complain, as on one hand these conditions can be seen as “baptism of fire” for developing resilience and leadership especially in poor resource settings. (But from my conversations with a few classmates, the situation further ignites them to go abroad, seek greener pastures, and experience first-world clinical hospital care.)

However, on the other hand, both personal learning and patient care quality could be enhanced if these pressures are minimized, if not eliminated. The time that can be spent reading a chapter of Harrisons is instead used to purchase needed materials, run blood samples to the laboratory, and track missing results and charts. Oftentimes, the lack of basic resources becomes the spark of petty conflicts, thereby affecting team dynamics and patient interaction. Reducing these problems, therefore, is not only good for ensuring team harmony and work efficiency inside the hospital; it is also good for the health and wellbeing of our medical students, who are already bombarded with heavy workload and intense academic demands to begin with.

9. Asserting UPCM’s leadership in the universal health care movement.The idea of universal health care (UHC) was first brought to public awareness by the UHC study group of the National Institutes of Health. The study grouped analyzed the state of our nation’s health, and came up with a grand master plan that will provide Filipinos with the “highest possible quality of health care that is accessible, efficient, equitably distributed, adequately funded, fairly financed, and appropriately used by an informed and empowered public.” (11)

Most of the stalwarts of the group originated from the College, such as former dean Dr. Alberto Romualdez and former UP Manila chancellor Dr. Ernesto Domingo. However, the voice of the College as a whole on this most ambitious health reform policy is still yet to be heard. The next dean should open more spaces for discussion and debate, take a clear stand in behalf of the College based on broad consultation, and mobilize the entire community towards contributing in the shaping and realization of UHC.

The Organ System Integration (OSI) curriculum should be enhanced to include education about the health system and its building blocks(12), so that our graduates can be better prepared for service and practice in a universal health care system. Furthermore, the College can harness its intellectual and motivational resource to participate in advocacy, lobbying, and policy formulation and implementation. Finally, the College should work with the PGH directorship in order to simulate universal health care in the hospital level and use the PGH as a living example.

10. Expanding our approach to health by including action on social determinants.Even as early as Alma Ata in 1978, there has been a call for the health sector to lead intersectoral collaboration for addressing social factors affecting health. In 2008, thirty years after Alma Ata, the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health released the report “Closing the Gap in a Generation” which calls for action on both downstream and upstream determinants of health to reduce health inequities (13).

Two years later, when I was the Philippine representative to the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA), a global network of 1.2 million medical students from 101 countries, I authored a policy statement calling medical schools to incorporate education, research, and service activities pertaining to social determinants in the curriculum and overall work. (14) Since then, I have been leading the Federation’s worldwide efforts on social determinants and health equity; for months now, we have been meeting with WHO, World Medical Association, and renowned schools of medicine and public health around the world about creating a global consortium for capacity building among health professionals for action on social determinants.

I am sure that the social determinants approach to health for long has been rooted, albeit implicitly, in the overall fabric of the College. I remember that during the second year, we listened to a lecture about the social determinants of health, while the Section of Community Medicine frequently reiterates this perspective in our rotations in Pasay and San Juan, Batangas. Unfortunately, these little efforts cannot substantially transformthe whole of Philippine society, which still suffers from health inequities brought about by myriad social forces that lie beyond our sector (15). Furthermore,in contrast to health sector-initiated programs, whole-of-government approaches like the “Health in All Policies” (16) being implemented now in some countries have not emerged yet in the Philippine public policy arena. I hope the UP College of Medicine will eventually stand in the forefront of this movement, and even set an example to our Asian neighbors for the global consortium we are creating now.

Much of theten aforementioned criteria actually overlap, but they can constitute the scorecard that the decision makers can use in determining who should be the new dean of the College. These standardscan be used to gauge the commitment of the candidates to these reform areas, or measure the contributions the candidates made on these areas even prior to running for deanship. Definitely, these new specific criteria can supplement the more usual and traditional ones such as leadership and teaching experience, commitment to knowledge, devotion to student and faculty welfare, and capacity to manage and even augment existing resources.

Now more than ever, we need a dean who will lead the nation’s premier medical school with anoverflowing spirit of innovation, undying passion to effect radical reforms, and unwavering commitment to social justice and nation building. Ultimately, the greatest challenge of the new dean is to lead a significant culture change in medical education, in the medical community, and in the Philippine health system at large.

Rudolf Virchow, the Father of Social Medicine, once said that medical schools “do not exist to provide students with a way of making a living, but to ensure the health of the community.”The new dean should ensure that the UP College of Medicine is and will remain the full realization of this vision.

References

1. Frenk J, Chen L, et al. Health professionals for a new century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world. The Lancet. 2010; 376(9756): 1923-58.

2. Domingo E. Reforms in the Health Human Resource Sector in the Context of Universal Health Care. Acta Medica Philippina. 2010; 44 (4): 43-57.

3. Global Consensus for Social Accountability of Medical Schools.December 2010. Available from: http://healthsocialaccountability.org/.

4. Novak S. Taking a More Holistic Approach to Global Health Education. New York Times, February 19, 2012.

5. Johnson O, Bailey S, et al. Global health learning outcomes for medical students in the UK. The Lancet online version, October 20, 2011. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61582-1

6. Lorenzo FM and Dayrit M. Global Perspectives on Human Resource Development, Migration and the Philippine Situation. Powerpoint presentation delivered on August 10, 2011.

7. Chan M. Return to Alma Ata. Lancet 2008; 372: 865-866. Available from: doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61372-0.

8. World Health Organization. World Health Report 2008: Primary Health Care - Now More Than Ever. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2008.

9. Marcelo P.(ed.)Partnership Matters: Lessons from a Decade of Community-University Collaboration in Community and Local Health Systems Development. Manila: University of the Philippines Manila, 2010.

10. World Health Organization.Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2010.

11. Universal Health Care Study Group. Executive Summary of the Special Issue on Universal Health Care for Filipinos: A Proposal. Acta Medica Philippina. 2010; 44 (4): 9-11.

12. World Health Organization. Everybody's business: strengthening health systems to improve health outcomes - WHO's framework for action. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2007.

13. Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2008.

14. International Federation of Medical Students' Associations. Policy statement on health inequity and the social determinants of health. Jakarta, Indonesia, 60th March General Assembly of the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations. March, 2011. Available from: http://www.ifmsa.org[Accessed 26th September 2011].

15. Guinto R. Social Determinants of Health. Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 25, 2012.

16. Kickbusch I. “Health in all policies: The evolution of the concept of horizontal health governance.” In: Kickbusch I, Buckett K. (eds.) Implementing Health in All Policies: Adelaide 2010. Adelaide: Department of Health, Government of South Australia, 2010: pp. 11-23.


About the Author

A member of the UP College of Medicine Class of 2012, Ramon Lorenzo Luis R. Guinto is the current Regional Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Federation, former president of the Asian Medical Students’ Association-Philippines, and former chairperson of the UP Manila University Student Council. Last February, he was appointed Youth Commissioner of the Commission on Global Governance for Health convened by The Lancet, University of Oslo, and Harvard Global Health Institute.

(UNFOR)GIVING REVOLUTION

By Gene Nisperos

The forum dubbed “Giving: Join the New Revolution” held at the UPCM last Tuesday left a bad taste in the mouth. It was, at best, an exercise that was rude, myopic, uninspiring, disturbing, deplorable, and a host of other adjectives too embarrassing to invoke.

It was rude because even though the name of Professor Solita Monsod was plastered on the posters of the said event, she was not the main speaker. In fact, Prof. Monsod barely spoke and only to correct the so-called “evidenced-based” presentation that essentially cut her down under the pretext of disputing certain parts of her famous speech (the one that went viral on youtube).

The actual speaker was an alumnus of the UPCM, the valedictorian of the Class of 1979 and a renowned dermatologist, who allegedly went through great pains of conducting a survey and research to prove one point: that you can have your cake and eat it too.

His presentation was a rather tasteless defense of something that should not have to be defended in the first place: the decisions UPCM graduates make at the end of their schooling. He seemed to believe that he can justify decisions made in the past by being charitable now. Thus, what followed was a shameless display of self-aggrandizement hypocritically sub-titled “the merits of expatriate-ism and reciprocity”.

The shabby treatment of Prof. Monsod was wrong on so many levels. Worse, it reflected very poorly on how we comport ourselves when faced with judgment we deem unfair. Rather than be gracious and act with honor and integrity, we only managed to reveal to Prof. Monsod how sorely lacking we are in both.

The forum was also disturbing because a big part of it was all about money – charity money being doled out by the alumni for various projects or “needs” of the college. After the head of the PGH Medical Foundation read a very lengthy laundry list of projects that have been funded by donations, especially those from the UPMASA, some alumni started pledging to donate hundreds of thousands of pesos. It felt like an auction and our dignity was up for sale.

The myopic assumption was that giving money back to the college is equal to or sufficient to connote “serving the Filipino people”. Rather than address the issue of why the UPCM has NOT been able to instill enough values for its students to stay after they graduate to serve the underserved, the forum only highlighted our continuing refusal to sincerely acknowledge our shortcomings and change – change our values, our notions of excellence, our concepts of success – to something more relevant to the many who are still waiting for us to serve them.

I saw the look on the faces of the students and young alumni – many of whom came to hear Prof. Monsod speak and perhaps, listen to an intelligent discourse that would ensue. But that did not happen.

Instead, they saw the inability of the college to rise beyond its own self-interests. Prof. Monsod virtually threw the gauntlet, a challenge for us to confront issues larger than ourselves and to commit and be part of genuine national development. Yet the anemic response of our alma mater was DONATION?

We are better than this. We should be better than this.

I am not a fan of end-of-the-year speeches extolling this or that virtue. During our graduation in 1993, then health secretary Juan Flavier gave an impassioned speech akin to the one of Prof. Monsod. My reaction then is still my reaction now: a 30-minute speech, no matter how eloquent, cannot undo the distorted values ingrained by five years of med school. Graduates who went on to serve the underserved did so in spite of, not because of, the kind of education they received.

Someone once said that physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor. UPCM graduates who stayed behind, including those who tried to insulate themselves from our sad state of affairs by concentrating on their practice, cannot but see the face of suffering every time they treat the poor, who seem to have grown more numerous and impoverished over the years.

That some UPCM graduates have chosen to stay and suffer the daily grind of life in this archipelago of our despair is a measure of solidarity that cannot be experienced vicariously by those who have chosen to leave, even if some of them occasionally look back to see how we are doing.

I have no judgment on those who left the country. They have their reasons. I thank them if they help the people back here, but love them anyway (particularly my friends and classmates) if they do not. Yes, I sincerely wish that they did stay but cannot fault them for their decisions. However, I cannot say the same for a very few who did stay but managed to only make life here more miserable.

The forum last Tuesday reminded me that there is still a war being waged. It is a war being waged here, although everyone can help pitch in. It is a war for the hearts and minds of medical students. It is a war for the soul of this nation, for the future of our people.

THIS is the REVOLUTION.

(Editor's note: Dr. Gene Nisperos is a graduate of the U.P. College of Medicine. The link to his Facebook note was sent to us by U.P. Kilos Na, which also commented thus about the same forum: "Rather than address the issue of why the UPCM has NOT been able to instill enough values for its students to stay after they graduate to serve the underserved, the forum only highlighted our continuing refusal to sincerely acknowledge our shortcomings and change – change our values, our notions of excellence, our concepts of success – to something more relevant to the many who are still waiting for us to serve them.")

Opinion: To Rehabilitate or Demolish our condemned Justice System?

Is Philippine Justice truly blind
- or just Ethically challenged?
(Source: http://tinyurl.com/24lbrkf)

By Katherine Verances Marfal

For most of the graduating high school students, becoming a University of the Philippines (U.P.) college student is just a fantasy, because of the slim chances of passing the UPCAT.

And similar fantasies are also felt by those who already passed the said exam, and are already regular U.P. Diliman students. These fantasies are - being accepted into these two elite colleges of the university - the College of Law and College of Medicine. Due to very stringent requirements needed to gain entrance into these institutions, not all U.P. Diliman Graduates are accepted to be students into these colleges. And after being accepted, come the countless sleepless nights to pass exams given by educational “terror” professors. And for the country as whole, these situations are replicated in all schools, offering Law and Medical courses. These two courses attract the majority of the students with superior IQ’s. Thus, one is tempted to compare the professionals that evolved from these two noble professions after they graduate.

Our medical doctors are recognized as among the best in the world. The health care of Filipinos, in spite being almost 100 million now, is now above par. We even export many of these medical professionals abroad, where they excel, are very much sought after and are very much valued.

Advances in the medical field have made it hi-tech now. A doctor can diagnose the ailment of a patient in an instant accurately, and prescribe immediately the remedy to cure the ailment. The medical field has progressed considerably, since a century ago, when “hilots” and witch doctors “ways” were the predominant practices in this field.

In contrast, the Philippine legal profession a century ago was already a well developed field, with noble legal dictums in place and practiced for centuries before. But to the chagrin of many, these legal practices hardly changed thru the years; and did not improve with the changing times. These are the realities in this important field, though many opine that the Bar Exam is harder than Medical Board Exam. These are known to everybody.

The legal professionals and practitioners are sometimes victims themselves of these legal aberrations. During elections of public officials, many of these legal professionals cry out loud that they were cheated, causing them to file electoral protests. And to dismay of everybody, these electoral protests are resolved only- several days before the expiration of the cheater’s disputed term of office. This is similar to the situation, where a doctor finally prescribes the remedy to the ailment of the patient during the latter’s funeral. And most of the times, the cheated candidate is a cheater himself during previous elections. Only this time, he met his match, a better cheater than him.

Most governors and local government officials own hundreds of hectares of converted forest land reserves in their area of responsibility. These compose the bulk of their wealth, which they usurped thru legal manipulations. These resulted in the rise of turmoil in the rural areas, due to these injustices against poor rightful owners/tenants.

During the Martial Law times, there was a land case between groups of hundreds of farmers and several billionaire landowners. It involved a large tract of land (about 500 hectares) now occupied by the classiest subdivision located at the boundary of Quezon City, San Juan and Pasig. The group of farmers won up to the Supreme Court. Like defeated electoral candidates, the rich landowners were just waiting for their adversaries to be proclaimed; while the groups of farmers were ecstatic of their impending windfall; when suddenly, omnipotent beautiful hand touched the heads of the then justices, for them to reverse their legal stand. As the result, everybody became happy and got compensated; except of course, the said groups of farmers. That gallant lawyer of the poor farmers transferred to a mansion in a classy subdivision owned by the billionaire landowners. Before this happened, the moral and ethical reputation of the Supreme Court justices is similar to those of the Pope and his cardinals. The myth of incorruptibility was destroyed.

Twenty five years ago, a rich investor approached an owner of a 20-hectare land in the heart of Baliwag, Bulacan. The said investor offered the latter, a joint venture to develop the said land into a subdivision, where the said investor will shoulder the cost of development- which was accepted by the said owner. But to the chagrin of the owner, the investor immediately sold lots without any site development. This forced the owner to file a court case against the said investor, which was not resolved by the lower court for more than 30 years. This drove the family of the owner into deep poverty- due to the costs of the litigation and non-use of the property. Out of frustrations, the middle age son of the owner, who was only a boy when the case started, went up to the mountains and sought the help of the NPA’s. Upon learning the story of the case, a NPA commander sent notices to the rich investor and his lawyer never to attend court hearings concerning the case. Due to default, the local court was forced to declare the case in favor of the owner. This is an example of long delayed justice due to the ineptness of our court. This is the reason why NPA is considered as an “alternative court” in the rural areas.

These are just a few of the many sins of our justice system. And this is the primary reason why corruption is rampant in our society. Grafters are not afraid to do wrongs; because they believe that justice in the Philippines has a price and plenty of “fixcals” can be bought. For sure, our legal professionals know more about these.

This is not to cast aspersion on the law profession. We, as a family, have high regard of this calling. All my three brothers aspire to take up law- with the whole family very proud and supportive of this dream.

But it seems that the lawyers and justices themselves are victims of our justice system; whose quality has deteriorated over the years. Its like that elegant mansion built a century ago, but due to neglect and bad repairs, lost its glory. Yes, its is still being used, but its like those condemned structures, occupied by robbers , swindlers, cheaters, drug pushers, tax evaders, corrupt judges and other rats of the society that are infected of communicable virus of corruptions. It is sad to say that many of our idealists, very intelligent young lawyers are flushed into the septic tank of wasted legal minds, as they join other legal zombies as they enter this dilapidated mansion of justice- which is unfit to live in nobly.

Young legal minds cannot you not do something about this?

(Katherine Verances Marfal is a freelance writer. Among the publications she writes for are the Manila Bulletin, Sports Digest, Panorama and Pilipino Star Ngayon. She is also a Web Content Writer and teaches Pre-school at Philippine Normal University).

U.P. Manila Administration threatens punitive inaction vs. committee findings on 22 graduating students who cheated in 2009 at the U.P. College of Medicine

By Chanda Shahani

The results of a fact-finding committee created by University of the Philippines Manila (UPM) Chancellor Ramon Arcadio to investigate alleged cheating in an examination by some members of Class 2009 of the U.P. College of Medicine (UPCM) are out and have been discussed in the Minutes of a Special College Council Meeting held at March 2, 2010 at UPCM, Manila.

Excerpts of the minutes have been furnished to the Diliman Diary and are embedded below:

The findings acknowledge that there was a leak in an exam, conducted by the Department of Medicine in April, 2009 and that 22 students from the U.P. College of Medicine may have cheated in that exam, as these 22 did oustandingly well in that exam.

As a quality control mechanism, the UPCM invalidated the first exam and held a second "surprise" exam five days later, and these 22 should have done just as well if they had not cheated.

The fact that they did not do well is a strong statistical indicator of cheating, and should normally have resulted in a full-blown investigation, complete with administrative charges being filed in order to ferret out the truth.

However, the students were allowed to graduate, and have even already taken the Medical Board exams. The excerpts of the minutes refers to passing the results to the Office of Legal Affairs of the U.P. System for possible action, but with no apparent enthusiasm or appetite to get results or punish the perpretators.

In fact the weight of the discussion on corrective measures centers on how the faculty should tighten their test design procedures rather than seek punitive action versus cheats in the academe.

These developments have been eerily forecast several months ago by several students at the UPCM who call themselves, UP Med Fight for the Truth and emailed then Secretary Francisco Duque on August 17, 2009 the following letter of complaint:

"Doctors who cheat

Apparently, training starts from Med School.

It is amazing that this still happens, and in UP no less.

Twenty two students from the already graduated class of UP College of Medicine 2009 were caught cheating in the Final Exams of their 5th year (Internship). These are would-be doctors, all men in their mid twenties, highly intelligent by the country’s standards, all independent minded individuals in the final stages of their training to become the country’s healers. Yet, last April of 2009, weeks shy of their graduation from the University of the Philippines, they decided, both individually and as a group, to use recently acquired test exams leaked by an unknown source from the esteemed Department of Medicine. These medical interns then topped the final exam, besting perennial excellent exam performers (like the Class Valedictorian) and occupying the most coveted spots in what was probably the Department’s most challenging 200 point exam in recent history. When the dust settled the top scores were held by these 22 men, and all were amazed at the academic acumen they displayed. They were applauded, pats on the back were made, and people were impressed. But when questions about the suspicious nature of their scores arose—one student made the innocent observation that most of those who topped came from a single fraternity, Mu Sigma Phi Fraternity—the entire class of more than 200 medical interns were asked to retake the exam again, this time a completely different one with the same coverage. An obvious disparity in scores revealed itself, in that these 22 students had two scores which were significantly different from each other. In short, it became clear that during the first exam the 22 students received some form of unfair advantage, and in time it was revealed that yes, these interns did indeed receive leaked questions of the newly made exam. An investigation was performed, and an admission of guilt, albeit defensively and only when no other recourse seemed possible to these 22 interns, was made.

The guilt hangs on the shoulders of these 22 medical interns, all members of the Mu Sigma Phi Fraternity. The Mu Sigma Phi fraternity is the first medical fraternity in Asia, and it counts Scholarship as one of its pillars. It has been recognized by award giving bodies both within and outside UP for excellence. All these distinctions (somewhat ostentatiously declared in the UPCM school grounds in the form of banners and posters) now ring hollow, for an entire batch of their brothers have proven themselves to be cheaters. This also raises the question that if this has happened to this batch, then has it happened before? And if their brazenness is any indication, is it possible that this has systematically been going on for years?

No scandal has rocked the academic foundations of the UP College of Medicine like this event. Known for its high standards and rigorous program, it is surprising that this behavior can come from some of its students. The scandal has already reached the Chancellor of UP Manila, Chancellor Ramon Arcadio, who has supported the initial plan to disallow the students from taking the Board Exams until the matter has been resolved. It has been elevated to the Student Disciplinary Tribunal in UP Diliman, to see what legal recourse can be undertaken against these individuals. This matter is extremely serious, and it raises questions about the university’s basic values. If these adults are not penalized in a way that is commensurate to their offense, then the national university is sending a clear message that it tolerates dishonesty.

The UP College of Medicine, however, seems serious about pursuing this. It seems to understand that to cheat during high school, while wrong on any level, can somehow be excused as part of the recklessness of youth. To cheat during college is already a major offense, punishable by expulsion in most of our respected universities. But to cheat during Med School, a postgraduate degree, and a degree that lends so much of its credibility in integrity, is extremely appalling. But up to what extent UP wishes to prosecute these students is at the heart of the matter. Initial reports point to the likely soft stance the College will be taking in this incident. Students of UPCM know that the administration, led by its Dean Alberto Roxas, has been outwardly strict but has quietly been tolerant of student misbehaviors such as these.

What of the 22 young would-be doctors who cheated? Reports claim that most of them are unaffected, confident of the outcome, coolly believing that no real consequence can come from their actions. They feel they can no longer be expelled (a reasonable consequence of cheating in such an important exam) and this gives them reassurance. Their fraternity, deeply enmeshed in the college and the hospital, will have means of protecting them (PGH Director Carmelo Alfiler, as well as key persons in his employ, as well as the head of the Department of Medicine—all are members of Mu Sigma Phi).

It was expressed by some members of the fraternity that it would be impossible for the UP College of Medicine to go after them now, now that they have just taken the recently concluded Medical Board Exams and especially because they have been issued certificates of graduation by the acclaimed Medical School. Apparently, their certificates of graduation have already been signed weeks prior to the actual graduation, before news of cheating have surfaced, and they have already been claimed by the students prior to the school’s decision to hold their papers. The members of the fraternity seem to not be taking this matter seriously, as if this is again one of those things that can disappear in the murky waters of academic bureaucracy.

But the indignation of the UP Community in unlikely to disappear. Too much is at stake, and the Dean and his administration know this. What is the worth of integrity? Of honesty? Maybe in other professions these are qualities that may not take first priority. But in the profession of Medicine, in the practice of healing the sick, in a position of responsibility and authority, integrity is paramount. Trust is key. And once it has been compromised, it can diminish your worth as a physician.

August 17, 2009
UPMEDFIGHTFORTRUTH"

A more detailed backgrounder to the events leading up to the investigation, including an inclusion of the points of view of the affected 22 students are thoroughly documented in the website, Atmidfield.com: http://atmidfield.com/2009/08/27/a-crisis-over-alleged-exam-fraud-simmers-at-the-u-p-college-of-medicine/

The Diliman Diary will continue to provide more updates on this topic for its readers as events continue to unfold.

UPDATE:

The page of Ibalik ang Tama sa UP-PGH on Facebook had the following information which it posted on April 16, 2010 and which the Diliman Diary is including in its update to its readers:

"The minutes of the March 2, 2010 College council meeting show that 24 UP interns most probably cheated on their exams due to the statistical improbabilities. The following summary of facts appear to point to this conclusion:

1) Previously non high ranking students suddenly get to the top 30 of an exam.

2) These same students belongs to the same medical fraternity - the Mu Sigma Phi fraternity

3) They have the same correct answers and the same wrong answers.

4) A re-examination on the same subject a few days later show that 22 of these 24 top notchers could not replicate their high scores.

Behavior after these facts also point to guilt. None of these twenty four interns agreed to be interviewed despite repeated invitations. It seems clear that cheating did occur."

(Chanda Shahani is the editor of the Diliman Diary)

The U.P. Administration on the growing PGH Crisis: Smile! It's Service as usual!

(Source: http://www.wikipedia.org/)

Editor's note: The following is the official statement of the U.P. Administration on the mass planned leave of absence by the U.P. College of Medicine (UPCM) as posted on the U.P. Administration's official website (http://www.up.edu.ph/features.php?i=196):

Joint Statement from the Philippine General Hospital and UP College of Medicine of UP Manila

IN PGH, IT IS SERVICE AS USUAL!

We have received unconfirmed and unofficial reports that some 40 faculty members of the UP College of Medicine (UPCM), including around 30 with admitting privileges at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) will go on leave beginning today, March 29, 2010.

We would like to assure our patients, students, clients and co-workers that:

1. Services at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) will continue unhampered despite this planned leave of absence by some members of the UP College of Medicine (UPCM) faculty.

UPCM and PGH have around 650 common faculty members. There are about 100 medical specialists; 580 medical officers, 200 fellows, 260 medical interns, 1400 nursing staff and 1200 administrative personnel.

Beginning this Maundy Thursday and up to Easter Sunday, PGH will observe the Holy Week and will not hold outpatient clinics, as is the usual practice. However, the emergency room and wards will continue to serve patients.

2. Academic activities, particularly the conduct of final examinations at the UPCM will proceed as scheduled. The Dean assures the students that the academic calendar will not be affected;

3. Consistent with the University’s policy of respecting our constituents’ right to express their views, the reported leave of absence will be properly evaluated and approved upon submission, subject to existing University rules and regulations.

The cause of this alleged mass action has already been filed before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court. We therefore opt to defer comments on matters sub judice. We urge the complainant to respect the courts.

Again, we want to assure our public that it is SERVICE AS USUAL IN PGH.

U.P. Philippine General Hospital Doctors' Statement on March 29 Mass Leave of Absence to Protest the Blatant Disregard for a Democratic Process and Oppressive Ouster of PGH Director, Dr. Jose Gonzales

The Philippine General Hospital is in crisis because of a Hospital Director’s questionable appointment. When a tenured, democratically elected and functioning PGH Director in Dr. Jose C. Gonzales can be removed from office without due process and cause, it sends a message of oppression and shock to the PGH community. On February 25, 2010 upon orders from the University of the Philippines’ Board of Regents, Dr. Gonzales was replaced by Dr. Enrique Domingo. On March 2, 2010 the College Council of the UP College of Medicine whose membership represents the majority of doctors and faculty members of PGH, overwhelmingly approved a resolution (with a vote of 199 to 19) recognizing Dr. Jose Gonzales as the duly appointed Director of PGH until December 2012. 

We the undersigned have therefore decided to take a mass leave of absence starting the week of March 29, 2010 to express our anger and dismay over the oppression and dubious removal from office of one of our own PGH Doctor and to strongly protest the lack of a democratic process in selecting our Director. In view also of the fact that this matter has already been brought to the courts and has yet to decide on who should be the legally recognized Director, our leave of absence protects us from following orders from a de facto PGH Director. We wish to make it clear that our actions will not affect life threatening or emergency cases in PGH patients but may only delay elective surgeries attendance to outpatient cases or other non-life threatening illnesses for a limited time only. Those of us in very sensitive leadership posts will likewise continue working in a limited capacity despite our LOA. We will not abandon our patients already admitted in hospital and will be available for emergency cases and critical aspects of patient care.

To this end,

We call on our patients and the public for understanding, as we will not neglect the care of the critically ill and emergent conditions, but may sadly have to defer outpatient consultations, elective surgical procedures and non-essential administrative functions.

We call on our medical students and resident trainees for support, as we demonstrate in deed, as in word, what it means to uphold and enflesh the noble traditions we cherish and the timeless principles we value.

We call on our colleagues- physicians, health professionals and health workers alike for introspection, reflection and realization that we share a common situation, and that we are challenged to make a common stand in conscience and with conviction.

We call on our leaders, elected or appointed to positions of authority in the University system, to examine their consciences, rectify the situation and assume the rightful role of servant leader rather than that of lord and master, for they are accountable to the People for their words and deeds.

We particularly call on the other members of the Board of Regents and the President of the University of the Philippines, to heed our resounding call, expressed through the representative voices of our organic Faculty, Staff and Alumni Regents, and through the silenced voice of our Student Regent, as we echo the closing lines of UP Naming Mahal:

Ating pagdiwang, bulwagan ng dangal,
humayo't itanghal, giting at tapang,
mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan,
mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan!

SIGNED:
1. Manny Agulto
2. Marge Lat-Luna
3. Joey Lapena
4. Randy Abdullah
5. Eric Legaspi
6. JJ Cruz
7. Jonas del Rosario
8. Eric Talens
9. Butch Felizar
10. Gerardo Legaspi
11. Jojo Jocson
12. Randy Nicolas
13. Venancio Garduce
14. Mario Geronilla
15. CJ Gloria
16. Pio Villacorta
17. Jubert Benedicto
18. Abundio Balgos
19. Mariel Nicolas
20. Arnel De jesus
21. Abe Marinduque
22. Dennis Serrano
23. Ted Herbosa
24. Leo Cubillan
25. Delen Dela Paz
26. Herbie Uy
27. Alvin Marcelo
28. Atoy Manalo
29. Rene Tuazon
30. Leah Tantoco
31. Edison Ty
32. Ricky Salonga
33. Bebol Paterno
34. Maloy Calaquian
35. Butching Paterno
36. Felix Lukban
37. Pablo Lazatin III
38. Jimmy Tan
39. Aileen Cubillan
40. Portia Marcelo
41. Adrian Manapat
42. June Lopez
43. Telly How -Hidalgo
44. Ben Vista
45. Gene Abes
46. Pia Malanyaon
47. Carlos Chua
48. Eris LLanes
49. Charlotte Chiong
50. Gary Mercado
51. Peter Bernardo
52. Jun Kaw
53. Ting Leynes
54. Joan Ocobillo
55. Agnes Mejia
56. Grace Herbosa
57. Joan Ocubillo
58. Eduardo Bautista
59. Benjie Dela Paz
60. Lara Alentahan
61. Cynthia Dominguez
62. Eugene Reyes

If you are a faculty member of the UPCM and you wish to be added to this list please e-mail or call/txt the following cell phone numbers below ASAP. To determine the mechanics of applying for an LOA for this purpose please contact, text or e-mail the following:

Dr. Iggy Agbayani 09175318648 or
iggyagbayani@yahoo.com
Dr. Jonas Del Rosario 09178456627 or
delrosariojonas@yahoo.com
Dr. Joey Lapena 09179137258 or
joeylapena@yahoo.com
Dra. Marge Lat Luna 09189234718 or
margelatluna@yahoo.com

DEADLINE FOR JOINING IS Sunday APRIL 4, 2010

Maraming salamat po. Tuloy ang Laban para Ibalik ang Tama.

Unibersidad ng Pilipinas ang Eskwelahan ng Matatalino, Matatapang at May Malasakit sa Kapwa at Lalo na sa Mahihirap.

Laban UP-PGH Movement

(Editor's note: the Diliman Diary will give equal treatment to the U.P. Administration's comments or reactions on this issue when they become available).

U.P. PGH Crisis Deepens with resignation of Associate Dean of the U.P. College of Medicine and Planned Mass LOA of UPCM Faculty over the issue of Academic Freedom

By Chanda Shahani

The Associate Dean for Planning and Research of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine (UPCM), Dr. Abundio A. Balgos, has resigned.

The resignation, which took effect last March 23, 2010 was done “in protest of the death of academic freedom and BOR tyranny. President Roman and her BOR cronies hav been downplaying d U.P. Manila PGH protests re student regent and PGH Director (Jose) Gonzales ... After my resignation as UPCM associate dean to protest the death of academic freedom and BOR tyranny, 50 more UPCM faculty are sumbitting mass leave of absence on Monday (March 29, 2010) during the PGH flag ceremony protest rally to b joined by fac(ulty), students and all U.P. Workers Union,” Dr. Balgos said in a message posted in the website, U.P. Issues (http://upissues.wordpress.com//).

The UPCM Faculty are protesting the decision by the U.P. Board of Regents (BOR) to disregard their academic freedom as faculty which they formally expressed in a resolution of the College Council last March 2, 2010. In that resolution they said that the appointment of Dr. Jose C. Gonzales as Director of the Philippine General Hospital from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2012 should be respected by the very same BOR that selected him on December 18, 2009 and then removed him on February 25, 2010.

The Diliman Diary has extensively covered the intricate politics and the background behind the arbitrary removal of Dr. Gonzales by the BOR (please see Diliman Diary, March 22, 2010 (http://diliman-diary.blogspot.com/2010/03/alternative-copy1.html). The issue at hand that is being strongly emphasized by the UPCM Faculty, however is that the BOR, which is currently dominated by allies of U.P. President Emerlinda Roman should respect the academic freedom of the majority of the UPCM Faculty to determine that Dr. Gonzales, who is regarded as being more senior and experienced than his replacement, Dr. Enrique Domingo, complete his term of office.

Is President Roman contradicting President Roman?

For President Roman, the essential contradiction is that by tolerating the use of legal manuevers by U.P.'s legal department to justify the removal of Dr. Gonzales by the BOR, she is essentially riding roughshod over the UPCM faculty's much-cherished academic freedom to employ its collective judgement and expertise in determining that Dr. Gonzales should serve out his full term as PGH Director because of his performance and qualifications.

The resignation of Dr. Balgos as Associate Dean, and the planned mass leave of absence by such a large number of UPCM Faculty is seen by observers as a combined vote of confidence for Dr. Gonzales, and a vote of no-confidence in the BOR's decision to replace Dr. Gonzales with Dr. Domingo.

President Roman has said in the past that the BOR should not get involved in matters involving the academic freedom and expertise of a particular subset of faculty belonging to a particular discipline. For example, in a December 18, 2009 letter she wrote to U.P. Diliman Sociology Professor Sarah Raymundo denying her appeal to overturn the decision of U.P. Diliman Chancellor Sergio Cao denying her tenure, Roman said that:

“Our tradition in the university of upholding and maintaining sacrosanct departmental autonomy do not allow us – rightly – to make a decision simply on the basis of the number of people supporting a particular proposition.”

“Upholding the autonomy of the Department of Sociology in its determination that Professor Raymundo should not be granted tenure is vital to maintaining the institutional autonomy guaranted under the U.P. Charter. This is also what the Department and the CEB (College Executive Board) have been insisting throughout the entire process."

"The implication of asking the President and the Board of Regents, at every turn, to substitute their judgement for that of members of the faculty of a department, unit, college or university is fraught with danger as it may transform a purely academic function into a political exercise.”  (http://tenureforsarahraymundo.blogspot.com/)

Other points in the UPCM College Council resolution

Other points in the UPCM College Council resolution commenting further about Dr. Gonzales said that:

• He had already taken his oath of office as Director of Philippine General Hospital, University of the Philippines Manila before the BOR Chair on December 21, 2009 and before the UP Manila Chancellor on January 7, 2010;
• Served as PGH director and has performed responsibly since January 4, 2010 with honor , integrity and transparency;
• Under Civil Service Laws, Dr. Jose Gonzales can only be removed as PGH Director for due cause;
• His removal as PGH Director is unjust and arbitrary, he should therefore continue to perform his duties and functions as Director of PGH.

The Final Reality in the PGH case: the U.P. BOR also enjoys its own Academic Freedom

But no matter how vocal protests become against the decision to remove Dr. Gonzales, the Diliman Diary has concluded that the U.P. System still holds one trump card over the UPCM Faculty - the U.P. System's institutional academic freedom outweighs Dr. Gonzales' legal complaint against being unjustly removed - or at least that's how the courts see it.

The Diliman Diary's legal consultant, Atty. Noel C. Ducusin has analyzed the issue of how academic freedom always benefits the institution over the individual litigant in a court of law, no matter what the circumstances are. This means that a case in courts regarding Dr. Gonzales' tenure may have difficulty in succeeding if the U.P. Administration invokes its institutional academic freedom. In court cases, judges routinely defer to the U.P. Board of Regents' presumed expertise in academic matters. The U.S. case of the Garcia v. Faculty Admissions Committee which has been extensively referred to in Philippine jurisprudence, summarizes this reflexive bias in this manner:

"There is, as previously noted, the recognition in the Constitution of institutions of higher learning enjoying academic freedom ...  Justice Frankfurter, with his extensive background in legal education as a former Professor of the Harvard Law school, referred to what he called the business of a university and the four essential freedoms in the following language: "It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation. It is an atmosphere in which there prevail "the four essential freedoms" of a university - to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study." (Garcia v. Faculty Admissions Committee, 68 SCRA 277, G.R. No. L-407779, November 28, 1975).

The irony here is that because it is Dr. Gonzales who has filed an individual suit - and not the majority of UPCM faculty who have filed a class action suit - then the U.P. BOR has the luxury of preempting the UPCM's academic freedom argument by invoking its own institutional academic freedom in its defense against charges of unjust treatment of Dr. Gonzales. The U.P. Administration can easily say that it has the necessary expertise to determine who may teach , assuming for the sake of discussion that PGH is not just a hospital but is also a learning environment for UPCM students and that the court should defer to its institutional expertise on the matter. Based on Attorney Ducusin's extensive study of Philippine jurisprudence, the courts will, in all probability, defer to the academic institution's arguments.

OP-ED: The Day of the Long Knives: U.P. Board of Regents turns on its own duly Selected U.P. PGH Executive Director

By William H. E. Romero, M.D.

February 25, 2010 was the day of the long knives for the University of the Philippines Philippine General Hospital (U.P. PGH) Executive Director Jose Gonzales, who was finished off quickly by the very same U.P. Board of Regents (BOR) that had voted and selected him last December 18, 2009.

The BOR, in a meeting held on February 25, 2010 declared the Dec. 18, 2009 election of Executive Director Jose Gonzales as being null and void and held a new election during which they elected Dr. Rolando Enrique "Eric" Domingo as the new PGH Director.

Here's a chronology of events, with comments:

Dr. Carmelo Alfiler, was on his second-three-year term as PGH Director, ending Dec. 31, 2009. Normally, PGH Directors should have a maximum of two terms, unless with exemplary or extraordinary performance.

The search process for new director started sometime in August, with initially just two candidates:

1) The incumbent director: Dr. Carmelo Alfiler

2) The former Chairman of the Dept. of Surgery: Dr. Jose Gonzales

A third candidate eventually emerged:

This was the incumbent Deputy Director for Administration (only for the last 2 years): Dr. Eric Domingo.

Comment: a lot of eyebrows were raised when Dr. Eric Domingo joined the candidates because he was close to Dir. Alfiler, and was still a neophyte in the UP-PGH Admin.

A few days prior to the Dec. 18 election of the BOR, Dr. Eric Domingo was "pulled out" from the list of nominees upon U.P. Manila Chancellor Ramon Arcadio's notification of to the BOR that Dr. Domingo was not qualified because his appointment in the U.P. College of Medicine was only part-time, and he was not tenured. Even when Dr. Eric Domingo was already taken out from list, he was calling Regents to vote for him, showing the obvious reason for his run: to take away votes from Dr. Gonzales in what they predicted would be a close fight. The group of U.P. President Emerlinda Roman probably knew before the election about the results of the possible vote, which now relates to a case filed against the Student Regent, which was related to her failure to enroll.

Before the vote, Regent Sarmiento raised the issue that the Student Regent is not enrolled and should not be allowed to vote. The BOR did vote, and the majority decided to allow the Student Regent to vote.

On the actual BOR election on Dec. 18, 2009 this was the resulting vote:

5 votes for Dr. Alfiler:

• Pres. Emerlinda Roman - Presidential appointee
• Regent Abraham Sarmiento - Presidential appointee
• Regent Nelia Gonzales - Presidential appointee
• Regent Francis chua - Presidential appointee
• Cong. Cynthia Villar - Chair, Congress Committee on Education

5 votes for Dr. Gonzales:

• Student Regent Charisse Banez - sectoral rep for students
• Regent Judy Taguiwalo - sectoral rep for faculty
• Regent Santos - sectoral rep for staff and employees
• Regent Pascual - sectoral rep for alumni
• Sen. Mar Roxas - Chair, Senate Committee on Education

To break the tie, Commission for Higher Education and Development (CHED) Chairman Emmanuel Y. Angeles, who sits as the Chairman of the BOR, voted for Dr. Gonzales. Regent Sarmiento raised objections again on the ground that the Student Regent should not have been allowed to vote, and that he was submitting a formal letter of protest on Dec. 23, 2009.

During the Dec. 18, 2009 BOR meeting, three other appointments were made, aside from that of Director
Gonzales:

1. U.P. Diliman College of Business Administration, Prof. Joselito Florendo, as Director, System Budget Officer.
2. Dr. Flordeliza Lantican, as Dean, College of Economics and Management.
3. Dr. Vicente Medina III, as Dean, College of Dentistry.

All three other appointees immediately received their notice of appointment, but none was received by Dr. Gonzales. At that time, CHED Chairman Angeles knew that the main supporter of Dr. Alfiler was Sen. Manuel Villar and his wife, Rep. Cynthia Villa, who has publicly said that Dr. Alfiler will most likely be the next Secretary of Health if Senator Villar becomes the next Philippine President.

Sensing the possible problem, CHED and BOR Chair Angeles asked Dr. Gonzales to come to his CHED Office on Dec. 21, during which time he administered his oath of office as PGH Executive Director, effective January 1, 2010 to Dec. 31, 2012. He belatedly knew that Dr. Alfiler was also a personal friend and physician to the children of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

• On Jan. 4, 2010, first day of office after the holidays, Dr. Gonzales was supposed to be offically introduced to the PGH staff at the usual Monday flag ceremony. This did not happen because Director Gonzales was called to the CHED Office by CHED Chairman Angeles, who told him that the BOR is holding his appointment until the objection of Regent Sarmiento has been resolved.
• Chairman Angeles, who now obviously has changed his support for Dr. Alfiler, upon orders from President Arroyo, who is a personal friend of Dr. Alfiler. Chairman Angeles grilled Director Gonzales on why Senator Mar Roxas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, and also a U.P. Regent, voted for him. The Students and All UP Workers' Union did a rally in front of PGH protesting the holding back of Dr. Gonzales' appointment.
• On Jan. 5, 2010, Pres. Roman issued Memo No. PERR-2010-001 withholding the appointment of Dr. Gonzales as PGH Executive Director, and appointing Chancellor Ramon Arcadio as OIC PGH Director, until further advice. A flurry of protests was again started by students and workers, which eventually resulted in the decision to appoint Dr. Gonzales. Chancellor Arcadio administered the oath of office to Dr. Gonzales on January 7, 2010, and as Executive Director of U.P. PGH, he performed his official function, including the day-to-day operations of the U.P. PGH. The hospital was already running at near-normalcy, but the clinical department chair appointments were temporarily put on hold until the BOR dealt with finality on the issue during the January 25, 2010 BOR meeting.      
• On January 29, 2010, Regent Sarmiento proposed to nullify the Dec. 18 election of PGH Director Jose Gonzales, and for which, the 4 sectoral regents walked out. The BOR meeting was stopped due to a lack of quorum. Students and the All U.p. Workers Union were actually rallying outside.

In the meantime, PGH operations were going on unhampered, and the U.P. College of Medicine dean, with the concurrence of Dir. Gonzales recommended the appointment of the new clinical department chairs by Chancellor Arcadio.

On the day of the February 25, 2010 BOR meeting, the BOR decided first on the matter of removing the Student Regent, Charisse Banez, from the BOR since she was not an officially enrolled student. Having made that decision, there were now only 9 BOR members counted in the meeting (5 presidential appointees, including CHED Chair Angeles, Rep. Cynthia Villar, and the three sectoral representatives). They then proceeded to vote for the nullification of the Dec. 18 election of Director Gonzales, and held a new election, resurrecting Dr. Eric Domingo as a contender again. The three sectoral regents abstained from the voting, and the 6 remaining regents all voted for Dr. Eric Domingo, who was earlier deemed not eligible for the position last December.

Note that the other elected positions decided upon in the Dec. 18 BOR meeting (Prof. Joselito Florendo, as Director, System Budget Officer; Dr. Flordeliza Lantican, as Dean, College of Economics and Management, and Dr. Vicente Medina III, as Dean, College of Dentistry) were not considered null and void. The BOR acted with swift dispatch this time, giving Dr. Domingo his appointment papers effective the same day, Feb. 25, and administering his oath of office on Feb. 26, 2010.

Dr. Domingo is supposed to be offically presented to the PGH community as the new Executive Director on Monday, March 1, 2010 but will be met by a rally of employees, faculty, and students who are protesting the unfair, unjust and oppressive moves of the BOR, so uncharacteristic of academic freedom and truth that U.P. stands for.

The political intervention of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Senator Manny Villar in U.P. PGH is deplorable!

(William Romero, M.D. is a UP graduate, BS Zoology in 1977 and Medicine in 1981. He currently practices in the United States).

U.P. Dictates the Script on Student Regent's Vote Eligibility, Preempts its own Board of Regents Meeting on January 29, 2010

                                                   (Artwork by: Pam Liban)

By Chanda Shahani

In its own version of writing on the wall, the University of the Philippines (U.P.) top administration has effectively signalled its objections to the appointment of Dr. Jose C. Gonzales who was selected by the Board of Regents last December 18, 2009 as the new Director of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) over the then incumbent director, Dr. Carmelo Alifiler, who was going for a third term, by emasculating the vote of Student Regent Ms. Charisse B. Bañez who voted in favour of Dr. Gonzales; thus throwing into doubt the validity of a closely-won contest where Gonzales garnered only six (6) votes and Alfiler five (5) votes.

The U.P. administration has tilted the balance of votes away from Dr. Gonzales when it already announced on its own website at http://www.up.edu.ph/ on January 29, 2010 that Student Regent Bañez was not eligible to vote in the appointment of the new PGH Director; thus preempting its own Board of Regents (BOR) meeting set at 8:00 a.m. on the same day at Quezon Hall in U.P. Diliman to discuss objections set forth by Regent Abraham Sarmiento last December 18, 2009 on Bañez's eligibility to vote on the selection of Dr. Gonzales. The issues of Sarmiento's objections regarding Regent Bañez's eligibility to vote in the selection of Dr. Gonzales, Gonzales's binding appointment thereof, and other issues were set to be discussed at the January 29 BOR meeting.

The proceedings of the January 29 BOR meeting were disrupted by a walkout by the Faculty Regent, U.P. Professor Judy M. Taguiwalo, Staff Regent Clolualdo E. Cabrera, Alumni Regent Alfredo E. Pascual, and Student Regent Bañez, said Arnulfo Anoos of the All-UP Workers Union in a text message. The walkout occurred because the Student Regent was not allowed to participate and had the resulting effect of a lack of quorum, said U.P. Professor Danilo Arao,a member of CONTEND UP in another text message. This was confirmed by Regent Nelia Gonzalez in a telephone interview with the Diliman Diary who said that the lack of a quorum led to a postponement of the BOR meeting. Regent Gonzales also said that Dr. Gonzales remained as Executive Director of PGH thus far.

“Nagkaroon ng principled walkout ang sectoral regents (faculty, staff, students regents) at yung alumni regent, so no quorum kaya hindi natuloy evil plan ni Roman to nullify Dec. 18 BOR decisions, partcularly PGH directorship,” said Prof. Mykel Andrada of the All-UP Academic Employees Union in a text to the Diliman Diary.

With the possible elimination of Bañez as a voting Regent, the jury still remains out on the eligibility of Dr. Gonzales to continue on as UP PGH Director if a new vote was taken and the Regents still vote the same way they did on December 18 as there would now be a division of the vote with five (5) votes for Gonzales and five (5) votes for Alfiler compared to the alignment of the votes on December 18, 2009 where six (6) Regents, including Regent Bañez voted for Dr. Gonzales and five (5) Regents voted for Dr. Alfiler.

Observers state that with Quezon Hall's unilateral splitting of the vote of the BOR, an interim measure such as President Roman's memorandum appointing of an OIC for PGH will take place until more votes are available in the BOR to reinstall Dr. Alfiler as Executive Director for a third term.

The January 29 walkout has forestalled any plans for both the pro and anti Gonzales supporters to make their respective moves until the next BOR meeting however. This date of the next meeting has not yet been announced, however.

According to the Manila Times.Net (http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/top-stories/8673-new-pgh-director-takes-oath-of-office) , those who voted for Dr. Gonzales were Student Regent Charisse Bañez, Faculty Regent Judy Taguiwalo, Alumni Regent Alfredo Pascual and Admin Staff Regent Cabrera. Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd also sent a written vote in favor of Gonzales.

Alfiler, however, received votes from U.P. President Emerlinda Roman, as well as Regents Abraham Sarmiento, Nelia Gonzales and Francis Chua and Rep. Cynthia Villar of Las Piñas City through a letter.

The Diliman Diary could not immediately confirm over the weekend the statement of Regent Gonzalez that Dr. Gonzales remained officially as Executive Director of UP PGH in view of Quezon Hall's January 29 website statement questioning Regent Bañez's eligibility to vote and Memorandum No. PERR-2010-001, issued by U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman dated January 5, 2010, appointing Chancellor Ramon L. Arcadio as Officer-in-Charge of PGH.

However, despite the January 5, 2010 memo of Roman, the website of the PGH (http://www.pgh.gov.ph/ ) confirms that Dr. Jose C. Gonzales assumed his new post as PGH Director last January 7, 2010 after being voted into office last December 18, 2009 by the UP Board of Regents. During his first flag ceremony as Director last January 11, he was even introduced by UP Manila Chancellor Ramon Arcadio. Gonzales has already announced the members of his cabinet, namely Dr. Charlotte Chiong as the Deputy Director for Health Operations, Dr. Rey Ang as the Deputy Director for Administration, and Dr. Virgilio Novero as the Deputy Director for Fiscal Services. Ms. Ma. Rita Tamse remains as the Deputy Director for Nursing.

Dr. Gonzales is a renowned thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon and was the former Chair of the PGH Department of Surgery in 2001-2004. He is a member of the UP College of Medicine Alumni Class of 1972. He was former Director of the Regionalization Program of the UP College of Medicine.

Quezon Hall's attempts to rewrite the entire script on the eligibility of the Student Regent to vote after the vote had already been cast by the BOR; and possibly rescind the official appointment of Dr. Gonzales by creating a hung jury among the BOR is also being met with stiff resistance from U.P. PGH alumni in the Philippines and overseas.

An online petition authored by William H.E. Romero, M.D., a U.P. graduate (B.S. Zoology 1977, Medicine 1981) who practices medicine in the United States, with the name, The INSTALL DR. JOSE GONZALES NOW! Petition to ALL FILIPINOS (http://www.petitiononline.com/JOEGON72/petition.html) that was formed by U.P. College of Medicine Alumni and PGH personnel, asked Roman “to protect the welfare of its underpaid and overworked personnel and strengthen the education of our future doctors, by immediately implementing the decision of the Board of Regents to appoint Dr. Jose C. Gonzales as the new PGH Director and rescind the above mentioned memorandum.” The petition now has more than 1100 online signatures.

Roman's memorandum comes at the heels of another controversial decision involving Roman at U.P. Diliman where U.P. Diliman Sociology Professor Sarah Raymundo appealed to Roman to overturn a decision by U.P. Diliman Chancelor Sergio Cao denying her tenure due to a minority protest vote (Please see Diliman Diary, December 10, 2009) despite the fact that the majority of faculty in her department had voted to grant her tenure.

Raymundo's appeal for tenure was denied by Roman in a copy of a resolution of Roman she received last January 4, 2010, according to Raymundo, writing in an update she posted on an online website, Tenure for Prof. Sarah Raymundo (http://tenureforsarahraymundo.blogspot.com/).

On January 15, 2010 Raymundo submitted an appeal to the BOR, asking them to overturn Roman's decision. There has been no decision yet by the BOR, in view of the postponed January 29 BOR meeting.

In a statement dated January 29, 2010 on U.P.'s own website at: (http://www.up.edu.ph/), the date of the BOR meeting, the U.P. administration stated that:

“The Charter of the University of the Philippines, Republic Act No. 9500, provides that there shall be one Student Regent chosen by the students from their ranks in accordance with the rules and qualifications approved in a referendum by the students (sec. 12[g], RA 9500). In 2009, the students overwhelmingly ratified the Codified Rules for Student Regent Selection (CRSRS) through a referendum called for the purpose.”

“Article I, section 6 of the CRSRS defines a bona fide student as one who is “taking up academic units for bachelor’s degree, masters’ degree, doctorate degree, non-degree (sic), or certificate courses in the university, including those who are on residency status or on leave of absence (LOA).” Article III, section 1 provides, as part of the qualifications to be nominated, current enrollment at the time of his/her nomination. Article IX, section 7 provides for grounds to consider the position of SR-elect or the incumbent SR vacant, to wit:

• permanent disqualification from the university
• incapacity to enroll or file an LOA the following semester
• death, illness or any other cause which prevents him/her from discharging functions.”

Regent Bañez admitted to the BOR that she was not currently enrolled at the time of the date of voting by the BOR on December 18, 2009. However, U.P. also admits in its own website that:

“On 18 December 2009, the Board of Regents met for the 1252nd time. Before discussing the items in the agenda, the President brought Ms. Bañez’s status to the attention of the Board.”

“When asked by the Board if she is enrolled, Ms. Bañez admitted that she is not (Minutes, 1252nd BOR Meeting, 18 December 2009, p. 3). During an executive session, the President moved that Ms. Bañez be allowed to sit during the 1252nd BOR meeting but only as an observer because she was no longer a student and therefore cannot discharge the duties of a student regent. This resulted in a division of the Board.”

“Before the vote, however, one of the regents moved that Ms. Bañez be allowed to vote, in effect, on her own fate. The vote went against the President’s motion, 5-4 (with Ms. Bañez voting for herself instead of abstaining). Thus Ms. Bañez was allowed to “sit as a regular member of the Board until the issue on enrollment is resolved.” ”

“The BOR then proceeded to take up its agenda items with Ms. Bañez participating and voting. Part of the agenda included the appointment of the PGH Director, where the voting was decided by a tie breaker vote cast by the Chairman of the CHED, as Co-Chair and Presiding Officer.”

Thus, by its own admission, the U.P. administration has stated in its own website that Student Regent Bañez was allowed not just to sit as an observer but as a regular voting member of the BOR where her own eligibility to vote was agreed upon by the majority of the BOR and in that same meeting, Dr. Gonzales was selected as the new Executive Director of PGH.

The petition authored by Dr. Romero states that given the fact that Regent Sarmiento protested the eligibility of Student Regent Bañez to vote after voting had already taken place on December 18 and at the very end of the meeting; and that Bañez's eligibility to vote had already been discussed prior to voting, but that she was allowed to vote anyway; that Sarmiento's protest, formalized through an official letter dated December 23, 2009 was scheduled to be taken up in the next BOR meeting scheduled on January 29 in Los Baños; Roman's memo “unilaterally decided the outcome of the protest of a single Regent, before this protest could be acted upon by the full Board”

“The question is why is Dr. Gonzales being removed even before the protest of Regent Sarmiento is discussed in the next BOR meeting?” Romero asked the Diliman Diary.