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GMA MUST GO: SYMBOLIC ACTION AT THE UP CENTENNIAL GRADUATION CEREMONIES

Progressive faculty members, graduating militant students and non-academic personnel of the University made a series of symbolic actions at the UP Centennial Graduation ceremonies last April 27, 2008. Amidst the tight security of the University authorities, various groups creatively made bold statements on the country’s deteriorating political and economic situation reiterating the position of the Diliman University Council that GMA must go!

Around past four in the afternoon, breaking the somber mood of the keynote speech that was being delivered, activist teachers broke through the back section of the ampitheater and hoisted a streamer on red balloons that read “Oust GMA!”. As the streamer made its way up, it became visible to the faculty members and guests on the stage as well as the parents on the side of the ampitheater until it got entangled on a tree at the back of the ampitheater. The streamer was to remain there visible for all to see throughout the whole graduation ceremonies as a symbolic reminder of the University community’s stance in the wake of the series of scandals that has plagued the Arroyo administration. It was only the first of a series of actions that would take place in the ceremony.

After the conferment of degrees and the valedictory speech, University police and the Rayadillo cadets from the UPROTC moved to block the access points to the stage in anticipation of more symbolic actions. But this did not deter activist graduating students to break from their ranks on the grounds of the ampitheater. With a red banner that read “Serve the People!”, they marched to the front of the stage and raised their firsts while singing “UP Naming Mahal.” On the stage, progressive faculty members, with clenched fists, went down from their bleachers to unfurl two banners that read “GMA MUST GO!”

As the graduates sang the UP Hymn, the ampitheater transformed into a sea of clenched fists as faculty, students, and even alumni from the gallery symbolically joined the protest.

Not a few faculty members, parents, fellow students and guests were impressed about the militance that the actions represented. The afternoon’s symbolic actions were a reminder to everyone that on the occasion of UP’s centennial graduation ceremonies, the cherished University traditions of activism and nationalism cannot be forgotten. For as long as courageous souls emboldened by their UP education continue to speak truth against tyranny, these traditions will remain integral to the University’s soul.

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Fascist UP Administration: Two Former UP Regents Almost Mauled by UP Police for Attempting to Unfurl Traditional Serve the People Banner During UP's Centennial Graduation

Once again, the University of the Philippines has reared its fascist head and completely shed its progressive and liberal pretensions as an academic institution.

Gross and Fascist Disrespect to Two Former Regents while in the Exercise of University-Honored Freedom of Expression

On the 27^th of April, during the final phase of the Centennial Commencement Exercises in UP Diliman, two former Student Regents of the University of the Philippines, J.M. Terry L. Ridon (2007 UP SR) and Ken Leonard Ramos (2005 UP SR), were almost mauled and forcibly pushed like common criminals and no-gooders by members of the UP Police Force (UPF) and the UP Diliman Social Services Brigade (SSB) as they were going up the center stage in Quezon Hall to approach former colleagues in the Board of Regents and the UP Administration, while attempting to conclusively seek clearance from the Vice-Chancellor for Community Affairs of UP Diliman (UPD-VCCA) for the coordinated and traditional lightning protest rally seeking to challenge new UP graduates to Serve the People, as per the agreement of former SR Ridon and the VCCA prior to the start of the University Commencement Exercises.

Despite pleas and cries by the former UP SRs to the UPF to recognize their right to attend the convocation of past and present UP System officials during the graduation, the UPF forcibly pushed the two former UP officials away and even grabbed them by their clothing until they were clearly out of the garrison-like security barricade in Quezon Hall. One security official even uttered, "Wala kaming pakialam kung sino pa kayo, basta walang order sa amin, wala kayong karapatan pumasok." Another also said, "Wala kaming pakialam kung ano pang sabihin ninyo, wala naman kayo sa programa sasali-sali kayo. This the UPF said despite fully knowing the clear orders of the VCCA to allow at least four student leaders to unfurl the Serve the People banner on the bridgeway of Quezon Hall.

The UPF, the SSB, and the central organizers of the UPD Commencement Exercises are clearly in bad faith for this gross disrespect to two former UP System officials that served the University in the best way they can during their respective terms, notwithstanding being among the members of the Board of Regents who have clearly stood for better benefits of SSB members, and better pay for UPF officers. All of these things apparently were of no import to the organizers, particularly the UPF and the SSB, as they treated the former Regents as if they were rioting no-gooders. Clearly, none of the two acted such, and they came neatly dressed in a barong and polo, ready to face former colleagues and impart to fellow students the unstated wisdom of the need to serve the country at a time of crisis. The organizers and UP security officers even conveniently forgot that former Regents join the Graduation Processional and have a place in the center stage. More so, even if former SR Ridon invoked the clearance gave by the Office of the VCCA and despite providing information that the UP President herself knows the former UP Student Regents' attendance in the graduation, the UP security officers continued to forcibly push the former Regents away from the center stage while hurling invectives similar to those stated above.

Moreover, the two former Regents clearly stated their intentions to the UP Administration prior to the Commencement Exercises that there shall be no attempts to disrupt the program, to the extent that they even asked that the lightning protest be seamlessly integrated into the graduation program. However, the UP Administration clearly reneged on its word to the former UP SRs who volunteered to unfurl the banners to avoid unexpected inconveniences with graduation organizers, believing that fundamental respect would still be accorded them as former UP System officials.

What is most surprising in all of these is the clear attempt by graduation organizers, particularly the UPF and the SSB, to wantonly break the agreement between the VCCA and former UP SR Ridon, even as they perfectly knew the order from the VCCA to allow a maximum of eight student leaders to unfurl their banner.

Unstated Fascist University Policy on Dissent is the Main Issue

In all of these, accountability for this gross disrespect to former UP officials lies not only on the shoulders of particular officers of the SSB, UPF and graduation organizers. Full accountability lies on the doorsteps of the UP Administration itself, for its unstated policy of effectively dismantling dissent from students, faculty, staff, among other sectors, even if they be former Student Regents, co-equal student representatives of the UP President in the highest policy-making bodies of the University.

No one forgets how the microphone of the former UP SR was turned off while addressing freshman students on the anti-student impacts of the tuition increase during the June 2007 Freshman Orientation at the UP Theater. During the 2007 UP Lantern Parade, the speech of a former USC Councilor was forcibly cut short for sharply integrating the need of celebrating the spirit of Christmas while confronting commercialization issues. Student leaders and activists were all unceremoniously harangued, pushed, and punched by UP security forces such as the SSB and the UPF during these University events.

On the other hand, it has also been these UP security forces that have been involved in UP-ordered demolitions of underlying urban poor communities at the periphery of UPD's academic core zone, in pursuit of an anti-people UP policy to clear the University of urban blight. Lastly, it has also been these UP security forces through UP Administration orders that have forcibly and bloodily dismantled the picket of illegally dismissed utility workers by Care Best agency, all of which have led to numerous injuries, including former USC Chairperson Juan Paolo Alfonso.

It is precisely these instances and direct orders of force from high officials of the University Administration which has emboldened our very own security forces to act as if they are security forces of the Arroyo administration when they deal with dissenting members and communities of the University. Lest we forget, the UPF and the SSB's mandate amounts merely to maintaining peace and order, without infringing on clear and time-honored political and civil rights of members in a university purporting to advocate academic freedom.

In the events stated above, most especially the unfortunate incident involving former UP Regents, we submit that there is a clear transgression of such a mandate. By these acts, the differentiation between rabid Arroyo security forces and aging and well-loved UP security officers shall have blurred, and political repression outside UP shall now have seeped into an academic community supposedly comprised of freedom and democracy-loving persons, by the very policies of our own UP Administration. Only by changing its unstated fascist policy on dissenting members of the academic community can we fully expect a return to its supposedly democratic ideals.

The Demand for a Public Apology and the Relief of Directly Erring Officers

Given all these, the two former Student Regents and the Office of the Student Regent unequivocally demand a formal public apology from UP System and UP Diliman officials for grossly disrespecting the persons of former UP Board of Regents members and assaulting the dignity and integrity of the Office of the Student Regent which facilitated the agreement between the VCCA and the protest rally organizers. By reneging on the agreement to allow the unfurling banners and almost mauling former UP system officials, the Office of the Student Regent's integrity as the highest student representation in the University shall have been blemished and rendered nugatory for all to disrespect.

We wish to remind the UP Administration that even if we are mere students of this University, we are still former Regents who have fully served the University. More so, the Office which we once represented embody the protracted struggle of the Iskolars ng Bayan to defend their democratic rights, inside or outside UP. The UP security forces may push us all they want, and harangue our persons, but we shall never allow the one of the most cherished UP student institution we once represented to be disrespected like such. If we allow UP to browbeat and intimidate UP Student Regents, shall we then presume that crueler treatment awaits the ordinary UP student?

On the other hand, we demand the immediate relief upon investigation of all directly involved UP security officers in the April 27^th incident with the former UP Student Regents. They must be made to pay the price for their arrogance, gross disrespect to former UP officials, and most importantly, defying a clear order from the VCCA to allow student leaders, former UP SRS, to unfurl banners as part of the lightning protest during the commencement exercises. There is no defense to their insubordination and arrogance, as the former UP Regents were clearly within their rights to enter the center stage and approach the VCCA to seek conclusive clearance for the unfurling of the Serve the People banner. By preventing the unfurling of the banner at the bridgeway of Quezon Hall, the graduation organizers and the UP security officials have successfully frustrated the students' exercise of their right to free expression, as per agreement with the VCCA.

The University of the Philippines has always been proud of its democratic traditions. With the event above, all these seems to have been completely dismantled. We sincerely hope that the UP Administration does its part in reassuring our former Student Regents, the student institutions they once represented, and the Iskolars ng Bayan in general, that the UP is still the bastion of free thinking, expression and critical dissent.

Ken Leonard Ramos                                 J.M. Terry L. Ridon

2005 UP Student Regent                           2007 UP Student Regent

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Rites of Passage

by Sarah Raymundo

UP Department of Sociology
 

I'm a sucker for UP graduation ceremonies. That's what I have become as a faculty member. I missed my own graduation rites exactly a decade ago. I thought back then that such rituals are for whimps. Against the tragic feminine tradition of my school and family, I remember myself swearing, as a teenage sociology major, never to succumb to the seduction of matrimonial rites since walking down the aisle dressed in white while holding a bouquet of flowers was for me the perfect image of fetishism. And fetishism was the lowest of all crimes any young self-proclaimed marxist could ever be found guilty of, at least for my peer group back then. I also resolved never to give in to baptismal rites and impose upon my children a religion that my parents imposed on me. I even remember someone making a very convincing proposal about educating our children: Let's not send them to formal schooling, that way they would be spared from the "kacheapan" of bourgeois education. We just teach them ourselves, anyway we are smart and then they just have to take the qualifying exam from DECS so that they will be eligible to take the UPCAT.

Armed with our avant-gardeish claims, we thought we are ready to damn all institutions that get in our way of fostering our self-styled idea of freedom, justice and what not. I realize that it was the stubborness of the punk movement, the audacity of the Beat poets and the maverick thinking of Flaubert, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Milan Kundera which shaped our young sensibilities; and not Marx's Manifesto or Mao's Five Golden Rays.

But it was all good.

But then again, I must say, with all humility and sincerity, that the young activists of this day are better. I observe that they are not given to useless snobbery and can very well mix with their generation. Some students hate them on account of their strong positions on an issue. I had never heard of anybody hating me in college but I must have earned the ire of some when I opined in class that my classmate's presentation was more like a faux pas than a report or when I attached a course syllabus with a complete reading list and a logical sequence of topics in my final exam because I thought that the course was crappy.

The young activists are present in all ceremonies that the studentry generally go to. They would unfurl protest banners during the freshman orientation day. They would hold a lightning rally in fora to protest a guest speaker. They would be present in every room in AS, if permitted by the instructor, to convince the students to take a stand on a particular issue. Some students have branded them as self-righteous, dogmatic and emotional. But those who do so are believers in the doxa of the free market without their knowing. I refuse to elaborate on this point because I have nothing more to say to social climbers and their corresponding neoliberal agenda for their so-called lives.

But you see, a few ideas and events deserve some lashing.

On UP's centennial commencement exercise, the valedictorian whose name I cannot recall at the moment, claimed that indifference is not a mark of the current crop of UP students (I am paraphrasing her since I only feign ineloquence when dealing with superiors and armed men, charoz). She proposes that we reinvent our definition of patriotism since cutting classes just so that students could commit themselves to giving solutions to persistent social issues is wasting the taxes of the marginalized in society whom the activists claim to defend. Focusing on one’s studies is itself a form of patriotism
 

For example, she opines, students from the College of Human Kinetics who run and train barefoot is an expression of patriotism. And she was serious. Such is, of course a romanticized view of runners. Whoever runs barefoot from that College anyway? Besides, I don’t think that our mighty and fast runners run without having to tell themselves that they do it in the name of patriotism. Does one actually think about patriotism while reviewing for an exam or writing a paper? I think the young lady was imputing her own rationality to the hardworking students she was talking about. Precisely, this is what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu refers to as theoreticism--the academic’s tendency to skip to understand the practical logic involved in a practice and instead comes up with an explanation which is a mere assertion of his/her hypothesis. In her aim to prove that militant activism is passe, she then cited running, reading, ►►

Iskolar ng Bayan

For some reasons I had to attend two graduation rites: one at NCPAG (UP National College of Public Administration and Governance) on April 25 and another at the College of Engineering the following day.

At the entrance to the NCPAG, one sees this huge billboard announcing the name of the college with this in caps: “PAGLINGKURAN ANG SAMBAYANAN” (Serve the People).

The graduating students of NCPAG were correctly referred to as “iskolar ng bayan” by their professors. Their commencement speaker, UP Century Man Engr. Fernando Javier had a message for them: ”As Iskolar ng Bayan, continue to impact upon the lives of others, especially those in need.”

Earlier in his speech he had this assessment of the current situation:

“There is moral degeneration. Corruption and dishonesty are rampant everywhere. Thousands of lives need to be uplifted and rights and freedoms must continue to be protected… .I urge you to stand up and be united in the struggle to fight corruption and moral degeneration in our environment.”

He of course earned a warm applause from the young graduates.

Early the next day I was at the Engineering graduation where the Class Valedictorian, a BSChE summa cum laude graduate, Carla Co, began her speech with a recall of the T-shirt graffiti, bragging, “Eh, ano kung uno ka? Engineering ka ba?” She ended her speech with her own reply, now humbled: “Eh, ano kung Engineering ka? May gagawin ka ba?”, presumably about using their engineering know-how in a country that is still mainly agricultural.

The answer to her question would have been a very easy “Napakaraming gagawin” if the country is amidst a determined and sustained program of modernizing agriculture and achieving full-scale national industrialization.

There were hundreds of graduates, 58 of them with honors. Combined with the people who toil and sweat, they can become an important part of a great force for national development — if provided the opportunities and effectively mobilized.

She also mentioned about their being iskolar ng bayan in the same way that the NCPAG speaker also mentioned the phrase.

But in all their pronouncements about being “iskolar ng bayan” it seemed to me that something about their being “iskolar para sa bayan” is not grasped well, much less completely understood. This is perhaps the best time for a gentle reminder that they are “iskolar para sa bayan” and they should act that part. Happily, many already do.
 

From the blog:

http://monram.wordpress.com/

going to class as new expressions of patriotism. Can we also include coffee drinking at Chocolate Kiss, tambay hours in our respective orgs, photocopying readings, taking pictures of trees in the lagoon, smooching at the sunken garden as other examples of this new sensibility? Why not? I mean, she is, in fact, saying that patriotism’s signifiers are forever sliding therefore it can be everything and and nothing (as logic would have it) at the same time. Maging Summa ka man daw at magaling, sumasablay din.
 

Indifference as per C. Wright Mills (The Sociological Imagination) is a condition when people are not consciously aware of their cherished values and, in effect, do not feel that these values are being threatened. Indifference is not a disposition that is consciously chosen. In short, one does not will indifference. And so when some people label others as indifferent, it is not necessarily a put down or a derogatory statement. Rather, it is a description of a condition that shapes a person’s location in his/her social millieu. I hope people would start to appreciate the term as a conceptual tool (i.e. imbis na magtampo o mairita tayo, bakit hindi na lang natin basahin si C. Wright Mills, chapter 1, The Promise?)

But indifference was not the theme of UP’s Centennial Graduation Rites. Below is a statement that Arnold wrote to describe the protest action on UP's centennial graduation.
 

From the blog:

http://sarahraymundo.multiply.com/journal 

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BONUS TRACKS

College commencement exercises

at the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG)

and College of Engineering

The NCPAG graduation speaker, Engr. Fernando Javier, the UP Century Man, told the graduates, April 25:

“There is moral degeneration. Corruption and dishonesty are rampant everywhere. Thousands of lives need to be uplifted and rights and freedoms must continue to be protected… .I urge you to stand up and be united in the struggle to fight corruption and moral degeneration in our environment.”
 

Engineering Class Valedictorian, Carla Co, BSChE summa cum laude graduate, asked her fellow graduates, April 26: “Eh, ano kung Engineering ka? May gagawin ka ba?”

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