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

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

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

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

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

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

Video No. 5



Video No. 6



Video No. 7