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

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

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

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

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

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

Video No. 5



Video No. 6



Video No. 7

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

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

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

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

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

Video No. 1

 

Video No. 2

Video No. 3

Video No. 4

Commentary: A U.P. Professor seeks tenure but finds Happiness instead

By Chanda Shahani

Comes now an article entitled Tenure Untracked: I am happy about what we did! by U.P. Diliman Professor of Sociology Sarah Raymundo. The article somewhat obscurely refers to the bi-polar power sharing arrangement at the University of the Philippines between the so-called business professors best represented by outgoing U.P. President Emerlinda Roman and what Professor Raymundo ironically calls the “enlightened progressives.”

The “enlightened progressives” is another moniker for the so-called “revisionists” who broadly speaking have been identified with embracing parliamentary and other conventional forms of political struggle outside the university while the “rejectionists” famously called for the boycotting of parliamentary elections in the 1980s and thus missed out on a major opportunity to further their grip on power in the national stage.

But the great schism in the left between the revisionists and the rejectionists has taken its own life within U.P. and has resulted in the “revisionists” symbolized by former U.P. President Francisco “Dodong” Nemenzo, forging a tactical alliance with senior faculty of the College of Business Administration, represented most prominently by outgoing U.P. President Emerlinda Roman.

In fact our theory at the Diliman Diary is that the pendulum in picking the next U.P. President should have swung again towards the hand-picked choice of the “revisionists”  – U.P. Diliman History Professor Ma. Serena Diokno becoming the next U.P. President – with the full cooperation of outgoing U.P. President Roman – had not all these well-laid plans been rudely interrupted by the unilateral decision of President Benigno S. Aquino III to reverse all “midnight” appointments by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, including three critical last minute reappointments to the U.P. Board of Regents, who were expected to vote for Professor Diokno.

Aquino's last minute reversal of Arroyo-era "midnight" appointees to the BOR effectively scuttled Diokno's chances of becoming U.P. President as the three critical swing votes were removed from the eleven-member BOR; leading to a free-for-all voting last December 3, 2010 that saw former Alumni Regent Alfredo E. Pascual emerging as the clear winner after one round of voting.

But we digress. Going back to Professor Raymundo, who wrote that, “With all due respect to these academics I do not have to name, now we know how power blocs in the University can forge a strong alliance to block “untamed radicals". They say there are at least two power blocs in UP-Diliman. The business bloc and the bloc of the “enlightened progressives”. But both have done an excellent job blocking,stalling, red-baiting. No real difference when it comes down to concrete and practical engagement."

If we look at the very premise in which so-called ideological opposites – professors of business administration and “enlightened progressives” could come together and work shoulder to shoulder to control and dismember the university as a kind of mutual spoils of war; while abandoning the very people whom Professor Raymundo has fought for – the disempowered and the dispossessed – such as non-academic workers or even non tenured professors such as herself - we are compelled to ask - Why?

At the heart of it, of course is that the perception of some observers that both seeming ideological opposites are obsessed with grabbing and controlling power within the university, as well as its material fruits even as the University becomes commercialized and even as its very workers are discriminated against because they only provide less valuable manual labor as opposed to mental labor.

Ironically, Professor Raymundo should have been a shoo-in to be granted tenure on the basis of her excellent teaching performance and academic track record. However, her progressive views lead her to being shut out of being able to enjoy tenure under the current Roman administration, a price she says she has willingly paid for in practicing “the steely vigilance and dedication crucial to revolutionary struggle,” neither shirking “from the responsibility to expose various forms of abuse of authority among the ranks of academics, not so much as to censure anyone but precisely to remind everyone that the academe is not autonomous from the transmission-function of structural corruption.”

At the end of the day, Professor Raymundo was excluded from being granted employment and tenure because she chose to challenge the conventional morally corrupt power structure of career bureaucrats, running the university into a quagmire of mediocrity that it is now desperately struggling to extricate itself from. 

Nevertheless, Professor Raymundo says that she is "happy" for fighting the good fight.

And with the ascension of incoming U.P. President Pascual as the new U.P. President on February 10, 2011, there is every reason to assume that Professor Raymundo may finally obtain not only happiness, but the tenure she is seeking without having to sell her principles by the wayside, which is the tried and tested formula that the Outgoing U.P. Administration would have wanted for her before embracing her as one of their very own.

Last Minute Frenzy of Approved Land Deals Highlights U.P. President Roman's Last-ever Board of Regents Meeting on January 27

A frenzy of real estate deals by the U.P. Board of Regents (BOR) dominated the proceedings of Outgoing U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman's  last meeting at the BOR on January 27.

According to the Facebook page of Student Regent Jaque Eroles, the BOR approved the following real estate deals: The LoveNature! Park in UPV-Miagao, the Solar Power Plant Project in UPLB, and the AyalaLand lease in UPIS land were all approved today at Roman's last BOR meeting.

The Diliman Diary will be updating this dispatch as more details become available.

Open Letter ng U.P. Visayas Students kay Tita Emer

(To zoom in on the graphic, just click on it)

Graphic courtesy of Courtesy of Former Faculty Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo

Protestang pabaon sa huling BOR meeting ni Emerlinda R. Roman

(Photo source: UP Kilos Na)

Editor's note: The following statement was sent to us by UP Kilos Na and we have decided to upload the statement in full because it contains many historical truths which must be balanced against President Roman's contentions that her biggest achievements are the passage of the 2008 U.P. Charter (R.A. 9500) and the successful celebration of the U.P. Centennial.

Kaninang umaga ang huling pulong sa BOR ni Emerlinda Roman bilang Pangulo ng UP bagamat Pebrero 10, 2011 ang turnover ng presidency sa kay Alfredo Pascual.

Anim na taong panunungkulan ni Roman bilang Presidente. Bago niyan ay anim na taon ding Chancellor ng UP Diliman. Kung ibibilang pa ang mga taon bilang University Secretary, bilang Faculty Regent, halos di na bumababa sa pwestong administratibo ang unang pangulong babae ng UP.

Pero malalim ang sugat na idinulot ng kanyang pamamalakad. Sabi niya dalawa ang mahalaga niyang naaccomplish bilang Presidente: ang pagpasa sa UP Charter at pamamahala sa senternayo ng UP . (http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=1&t=1&id=13220)

May ibang pagtatasa ang mga nagprotestang estudyante, kawani, faculty at REPS kanina: pinabilis ni Roman ang proseso ng pribatisasyon ng UP sa pamamagitan ng 300% tuition increase noong 2006 at walang patumanggang pagpapaupa sa lupa ng UP sa mga korporasyon, laluna ang paborito niyang Ayala at ang malinaw na pagyurak sa mga demokratikong proseso ng pamamahala sa ginawa sa pagpapatalsik sa Student Regent, sa pag-alis sa pwesto sa noo'y nanumpa nang PGH Director Jose Gonzales at sa patuloy na di pagpapatupad sa desisyong bigyang tenure si Sarah Raymundo. Tumingkad din ang isyu ng diskriminasyon sa hanay ng mga kawani at REPS sa mabilis na mga dagdag na benepisyo para sa faculty at laluna sa mga senior faculty habang ang matatagal na mga kahilingan para sa kawani at REPS at para sa mga junior faculty ay hindi ibinibigay.

Kung gusto may paraan, kung ayaw may dahilan ang naging tema ng pamamalakad ng Administrasyong Roman. At sa ganitong pamamalakad, tinatangkang wasakin ang pagkakaisa ng komunidad ng UP. Ginagantimpalaan ang mahuhusay magpalabas ng sariling pondo sa pamamagitan ng dagdag na mga pribilihiyo tulad ng sariling dorms. Ang mga walang pondo ay kailangang mahusay na umawit ng pondo sa administrasyon laluna't walang transparency sa kung ano talaga ang kaperahan ng UP.

Good riddance Emerlinda R. Roman. Tuloy ang laban.

UP kilos na para sa demokratikong unibersidad na pilipinas na naglilingkod sa bayan!

Ipagpatuloy ang mga laban

Pagpapatupad sa desisyong magkatenure na si Prof. Raymundo

Labanan ang Pribatisasyon ng FMAB
Dagdag na 10 days leave benefits para sa mga kawani at REPS
Labanan ang Pagsasara sa UFS ng UP Diliman
Hustisya para sa mga biktima ng Had. Luisita Masaker at Ampatuan Masaker
Tunay na reporma sa lupa kabilang na ang kagyat na pamamahagi ng lupa sa mga magsasaka at manggagawang bukid ng Had. Luisita.
Dagdag na P125 sa sahod ng mga manggagawa sa pribadong sektor! Dagdag na P6,000 sa minimum na sahod ng mga kawani sa pampublikong sektor!
Salary upgrading ng mga public school teachers!
Back COLA!
Demokratisasyon ng pamamalakad ng unibersidad!
Paglaya ng lahat ng bilanggong pulitikal!
Pagbigay wakas sa impunity!
Paglaban sa patuloy na pagpapatupad ng neo liberal na mga patakaran sa bansa at sa unibersidad!
Paglaban sa VFA at Balikatan exercises!
Pagtutol sa OPLAN Bayanihan na kapalit ng OPLAN Bantay Laya
Prosecution ni Gloria Macapagal Arroyo sa mga krimen ng plunder, korapsyon, paglabag sa karapatang pantao


Ang mga iskolar, kawani at guro ng bayan, patuloy na lalaban

Philippine Information Agency: Judge me by my performance - Outgoing U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte, Jan 25, (PIA) – It was a short talk yet the message from the outgoing UP president rings to the ears of the crowd from the UP Visayas community.

In the short message delivered by Dr. Emerlinda R. Roman, outgoing UP president during the ceremony held today at the auditorium of UPVTC campus as a tribute to her, said she will be judged by her performance as UP’s 19th and first ever woman president.

Dr. Roman said she never saw herself competing with her predecessor in terms of achievements because according to her the only objective she has is just to finish one’s term of office which is six years.

Read the rest here: PIA: Judge me by my performance - Outgoing U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman

U.P. has a new Student Regent

(Editor's note: The following is a statement from the Facebook page of Faculty Regent regarding the new U.P. Student Regent Jacque Eroles and the former Student Regent Cori Alessa Co. Ms. Co was not allowed to vote as a member of the University of the Philippines (U.P.) Board of Regents (BOR) last November 17 in the election for a new U.P. President due to an issue regarding her academic standing as a student. The BOR decided to postpone the elections to December 3. Ms. Eroles succeeds Ms. Co and was sworn in as Student Regent during the November 26, 2010 BOR meeting at U.P. Cebu by U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman)

Statement of Faculty Regent Judy M. Taguiwalo

(New U.P. Student Regent Jacque Eroles
Source: Facebook page of Regent Taquiwalo)

“Jaque Eroles took her oath as the new Student Regent last November 26, 2010 in U.P. Cebu. She will serve until April 2011. Jaque's record as Vice Chair of the USC of UP Diliman indicates that she will be a militant representative of the students in the Board of Regents and will advance democratic governance in the university and in opposing policies that will further erode the public character of UP.”

“We bid goodbye to Cori Alessa Co as Student Regent and acknowledge her tremendous contribution in uniting the UP students, through their Student Councils and organizations in the whole UP system in opposing the continued state abandonment of tertiary education and asserting that education is a right. We are confident that even as Cori is not part of the BOR anymore, she will continue to be a strong pillar of the youth and student movement.”

“Mabuhay ang mga iskolar ng bayan!”

(Ms. Cori Alessa Co when she was U.P. Student Regent
Source: http://tinyurl.com/28lws9v)

Arizona State University is once again ranked among top world universities

The Times Higher Education magazine has just published its 2010-11 World University Rankings using a sophisticated new methodology that constitutes the most detailed, rigorous and comprehensive study of global university performance ever undertaken.

The Times Higher Education link for the top 200 universities in the world may be accessed at this link: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

"We would like to congratulate Arizona State University for its performance in this year's rigorous rankings," said Ann Mroz, editor of Times Higher Education. "Being ranked 161 in the world top 200 is an impressive achievement. The top 200 universities in the world represent only a tiny fraction of world higher education and any institution that makes it into this table is truly world class."

ASU also was ranked 73rd among North American universities.

Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education World University Rankings explained some of the changes:

"Our tables are based on rigorous data provided by Thomson Reuters, and for the first time an invitation-only reputation survey of over 13,000 verified academics was conducted. This ensures that we have very high-quality data, both qualitative and quantitative.

"As global higher education is becoming more competitive than ever, inclusion in this year's ranking is an impressive achievement for any institution. These rankings are the gold standard for world-class research institutions."

The 2010-11 Times Higher Education World University Rankings represent a "year zero," thanks to a new methodology developed after consultation with 50 sector leaders, the magazine's editorial board and website feedback.

The new methodology, with data supplied by Thomson Reuters, the world's leading research data specialist, places less importance on reputation and heritage than in previous years and gives more weight to hard measures of excellence in all three core elements of a university's mission - research, teaching and knowledge transfer.

It also is the only global ranking system that includes a section dedicated to the teaching and learning environment - including the first-ever global survey of institutions? teaching reputation. In all, it includes 13 separate performance indicators, across five broad categories:

• Teaching - the learning environment (based on an institution's income, student-academic staff ratio, degrees awarded, undergraduate-graduate mix, undergraduates admitted, reputational survey) - 30 percent

• Citation impact - a normalized measure of research influence (a university's research influence, measure by the

number of times a published work is cited in other academic's papers) - 32.5 percent

• Research volume, income and reputation (based on papers published per academic and research staff, research income, reputational survey) - 30 percent

• International mix - staff and student ratios (ratio of international to domestic students, academic staff) - 5 percent

• Industry income - measuring knowledge transfer (research income fromindustry, per academic staff) - 2.5 percent

Arizona State University's results in full:

Teaching, The Learning Environment - 43

Research - volume, income and reputation - 44.1

Citation - research influence - 66.9

Industry Income - innovation - N/A

International mix - staff and students - 24.1

Overall Score – 50.3

Editor's note: No Philippine university, including the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University  made it to the top 200 in 2010-11. U.P. President Emerlinda R. Roman blames The Times Higher Education's faulty methodology for U.P.'s refusal to participate in the annual survey which is increasingly seen as the gold standard' for world-class research institutions. However, many world-class institutions such as Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, and several state-run universities in Asia, including those located in South Korea and China have regarded the methodology as acceptable. We urge U.P. to reconsider its stand of outright refusal to participate in the surveys, so that it at least knows how it ranks among its peers and can correspondingly strategize on how to improve its world-rankings from that baseline. Several candidates for U.P. President have emphasized that U.P. needs to become a true research university, which the Times Higher Education Survey Research gives a 30% weight for a university's overall score and is made up of volume, income and reputation (based on papers published per academic and research staff, research income, and reputational survey).

On Monday Morning, Flag Day, the U.P. PGH community says to U.P. President Emerlinda Roman: "We are more than just a small band of protesters."

By Chanda Shahani

Ignoring a ban against any mass assembly by the administration of the University of the Philippines (U.P.) Philippine General Hospital, hundreds of protesters made up of doctors, medical students, medical staff and members of the All-U.P. Workers Union converged today on the lobby of U.P. PGH today to lend support to the symbolic signing by PGH doctors of their intent to file mass leaves of absence (LOAs).

The LOAs by so many senior doctors are seen by many observers as a collective act of protest against the administration of U.P. President Emerlinda Roman, a professor of business administration at U.P. Diliman and who has very aggressively forced the issue of installing a less qualified Dr. Enrique Domingo as PGH Director over a more experienced and qualified Dr. Jose Gonzales through controversial corporate-style board room tactics at the Board of Regents that has angered students and faculty also in U.P. Diliman and U.P. Los Baños

102 doctors have so far signed and the setting up of a cordon as a symbol of the intent of the doctors and staff to continue with the protest until the U.P. Administration recognizess Dr. Jose Gonzales as the Director of PGH. However, LABAN UPPGH organizer, Dr. Iggy Agbayani  has  said in a Facebook update that the "mass LOA list formally ends ... at 102. Those who still wish to join are advised to sign the statement of support but not to file an official LOA at least while the others are on LOA. Somebody has to man the fort at PGH di ba."

Below are pictures of the symbolic mass LOA taken at U.P. PGH today by Dr. Iggy Agbayani: