The Gambit of Despotism
12 February 2010
The issue is not about the inability of Student Regent Charisse Bernadine Bañez to file an LOA or residency on time. It is about the tyrannical ploys of the U.P. Administration to depose a member that stalwartly contests and exposes its manipulative stances and effectively railroads its vested interests. It is not about unseen technicalities. It is about student representation. Bañez’s track record is one of consistent service to her constituents and the people. Despite the numerous schemes and threats posed by the UPLB Administration, Bañez remained at the forefront of the students in upholding their rights and welfare. Despite the coercions and black propaganda she has encountered, she remained unfaltering and still continued to lead the students’ struggle against repression by the UPLB Administration. Even with Bañez’s selection as the new Student Regent, she still came across difficulties from the schemes manipulated by the UPLB and UP System Administration to prevent her from sitting as SR. It can be remembered that exactly 3 days after she was selected as SR through the General Assembly of Student Councils (GASC), several cases against her emerged. These cases caused a two-month delay of her confirmation as SR. Nevertheless, because of the students’ collective effort to defend the Office of the Student Regent (OSR) and to preserve the democratic SR selection process, we overcame the challenge and won the struggle for representation in the Board of Regents (BOR). As SR, Bañez served the students well. She was never delinquent in her responsibility of upholding the students’ rights inside the BOR. She was never absent in every Board meeting and even once, she never came late. But once again the Administration chose to deny us student representation by unseating Bañez, the only voice of the students inside the BOR. With an Administration wherein various impositions of anti-student policies are prominent in every academic year, campus repression has always been the trend. During the height of the university’s current crisis of student representation in the BOR, it must be remembered that this is the Administration which forwarded commercialization and privatization schemes in our University. This is the same Administration who ruled out the collection of the students’ fund in UPLB thus leaving the Student Councils as well as the Student Publication nothing but their own resources to go on with their services. It must be remembered that this is the same Administration that Bañez blatantly exposed and valiantly faced because of its anti-student policies. The vicious step of removing a SR that has been critical of the administration’s moves and vocal in opposing its anti-student courses of action is therefore a blatant manifestation of repression. It is a clear repression of our rights as students. Desperate to remove anyone that blocks their malevolent ruses, the Administration chose to unseat the SR instead of ensuring the continuous representation of the students. Threatened by the SR’s consistency to her mandate of genuinely serving the students, the Administration became alarmed that the SR might expose further machinations of despotism. But despite the crisis that we are facing, certain entities are riding on the issue to forward their ambitious, untimely and selfish craving of amending the CRSRS which was ratified by the students all over the U.P. system through a referendum. Some groups are even abiding by the Administration’s line. They claim to be one with the students, but behind these deceptive words, they remain silent and lethargic and failed to lead the students from urgently addressing the issue. The claims to being pro-active therefore fall to the ground as these groups fail to present an alternative that does not compromise the interests of the students. This is not the time to ride on the issue to forward one’s selfish desires. Nor is this the time to copy-paste and disseminate information that comes from a single website (the UP Administration’s) and misrepresent this as looking at every side of the issue. This is not the time to act as mouthpieces of an Administration that has time and again trampled the rights and welfare of the students. Such an act only makes these groups unwitting adherents of the plan to phase-out U.P. High, the Large Lecture Class Scheme and the PGH privatization. That, in effect, is consenting to political repression in our University. That only misleads and creates division among the students. As the largest sector in an academic institution which carries the tag “bastion of democracy” in our country, we students are the decisive forces that can bring-forth essential feats. This is not the time to divide. Rather, now is the time to link our arms together and fight for our right to representation in the BOR. Considering the current crisis in our University, we are in dire need of a representation in the BOR. However, that representation also needs the action of the students. We can never attain that unless we make a stand, a unified stand that serves the interests of the students and does not deflect the very purpose of the office that has long been defended by the past Iskolars ng Bayan. REINSTATE CHARISSE BERNADINE BAÑEZ TO THE BOARD OF REGENTS! DEFEND THE OFFICE OF THE STUDENT REGENT! FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHT TO REPRESENTATION! ISKOLAR NG BAYAN, TUMINDIG AT IPAGLABAN ANG ATING KARAPATAN! | be involved |