Elitist, commercialized and less caring university

Elitist, commercialized and less caring university

Judy Taguiwalo, center, with fellow alumni awardees

University of the Philippines

By Dr. Judy Taguiwalo
Former Faculty Regent
University of the Philippines Diliman

I graduated from UP with my BSSW degree in October 1970 (I had an incomplete in my Field Work as I spent too many hours attending rallies during the FQS and so fell short of the required hours for field) but actually obtained my diploma only in 1986. The intervening 16 years were years of full time organizing for me, going underground as part of the anti dictatorship resistance or of being in prison because of my activism. In those roles, I did not need my certificate of completion from UP.

When I decided after the overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship that I could still pursue my activism aboveground, I opted for academe, particularly UP, as the best site for me to earn a living while pursuing my advocacy.

UP, particularly the College of Social Work and Community Development where I graduated, welcomed me with open arms after my release in March 1986. Then CSWCD Dean, Dr. Sylvia Guerrero offered me a teaching job when I visited the college to thank my colleagues who visited me in Camp Crame and who helped generate international support for my release. But I felt I was not ready to teach yet. It was only when I completed my masteral degree in public administration in Ottawa, Canada that I felt I was qualified to teach in our UP Naming Mahal.

Prior to my return to the country, I contacted then CSWCD Dean Angelito Ka Lito Manalili to ask if there was a space for me in the college. To make a long story short, I started in 1992 as a lecturer in CSWCD. Got an item in 1994 and retired from government service in 2015—three years as a contractual employee and 20 years as a regular one.

I love UP as a bastion of academic freedom , as critic of society and its avowed goal of service to the people . In its campus, I did research that I was interested in, wrote about what I truly believed in and became part of movements that were critical of corruption, injustice, exploitation, and subservience, among others. UP provided that space for me and I will be forever grateful for that.

But I have also watched UP evolve into a more elitist university, a more commercialized one and a less caring one as the neo-liberal thrust in the world, in the country and in education in particular dominated the end of the 20th century and expanded rapidly in the 21st century.

In 2008, when I was asked to speak to the UP Alumni Association Council, I talked about the erosion of the public character of the university. I mentioned the following indications of the erosion of the public character of the university:

1. Transferring more and more the burdens of resource generation to the students is going to change the profile of the student population of the university. It was already difficult during my time, when tuition was a low P185 per semester for a family like mine whose father was a school principal earning P300 per month to cope with the cost of education, it is so much more difficult at present for children of the middle class and the lower income class to enter UP with an average tuition of P1,000 per unit. The 2006 reformulated socialized tuition scheme projected only about 10% of new UP students would be covered by the free tuition with allowance. Some of my colleagues foresee the day when UP would be like Ateneo with majority of the students coming from higher income families and a minority of poor with scholarships.

2. The corporatization of the university structure and governance.

a. Already Section 24, “Management of Funds” of the UP Charter, designates representatives of big business as investment advisers to the university through the creation of a so-called “independent trust committee” composed of the UP President and representative each from the Bankers Association of the Philippines, the Investment Houses Association of the Philippines, the Trust Officers Association of the Philippines and the Financial Executive Institute of the Philippines. This independent trust committee, a new structure in the university, “shall provide the Board with direction on appropriate investment objectives and permissible investments with the view to preserving the value of the funds while allowing the University to earn a reasonable return thereon. The Charter has now institutionalized the University going into business as an important mission.

b. The criteria for the selection of the college Deans, the primary academic leaders of the various degree-granting units, now also place high emphasis on the “resource generating” capability of the nominees.

c. An increase in the number of Vice Presidents and Assistant Vice Presidents as well as Executive Assistants in the UP System administration has also been noted. A case in point is the transformation of the title of the UP General Counsel into the Vice President for Legal Affairs indicating perhaps the expanded role of the legal office not only in academic and disciplinal questions but in the matters of contracts and agreements with business entities.

3. The increase in the number of contractual workers of the university as non-academic but vital services necessary for running the university are being privatized. Contractual workers have no job security, limited benefits and in most cases are “discouraged” from forming or joining unions.

4. The trend towards developing greater dependence on the private sector, particularly big business and foreign corporations, in generating funds, rather than in more vigorous engagement with the state. The danger of this trend is the question of accountability: the private sector is basically accountable to its investors; the state is accountable to the public and individuals could be removed via elections.

For a number of us in the university, the most dangerous impact of the diminishing public character of the university is the erosion of the ideological mooring of service to the country and to the people among the students and among the faculty with the prominence being given to market rates as the standard for tuition and for salaries. Already, some quarters in the university have adopted “Iskolar para sa bayan” rather than Iskolar ng Bayan, a term which emerged during the height of martial law and which captures the fact that UP students are subsidized by the public and have an obligation to serve the people. This is not true for the term “iskolar para sa bayan” which can encompass Ateneo’s description of “person for others”
And it has gone from bad to worse.

Now we have the Virata School of Business, honouring one of the loyal handmaids of the Marcos dictatorship. We have the Henry Sy Hall in Taguig for UP’s professional school. We have the UP Technohub and the UP Town Center; income generating supposedly but which have been reported to owe UP P76 million and P129 million respectively.

UP appears to be more tolerant of the financial arrears of big business which owes UP millions but did not show compassion for poor students, like Kristel Tejada who was not allowed to attend classes and even got her ID confiscated because her family was unable to remit the payment for an earlier semester.

We are witness to the academic calendar shift which aligns UP with international academic schedule but does not give consideration to how intense heat affects teaching during the second semester which now encompasses the summer months of April and May. The General Education program is being changed, reducing the units required of UP students and affecting the number of liberal arts and humanities courses.

But as the history of UP as documented in our book “Serve the People, Ang Radikal na Kasaysayan ng Unibersidad ng Pilpinas, showed, a patriotic and militant section of the university will continue to oppose measures that are anti-people and anti-poor and to offer alternatives that include democratic governance and an education system that is nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented.

I am proud to have been part of that section since my undergraduate days and in my years as a UP personnel. I will continue to be a part of that section as an alumnus and as a retired UP faculty.

Maraming salamat UP Naming Hirang