In the recent public forum that I
had attended, two of the speakers had claimed that the misuse of the UP lands
has been eroding our public character. I
absolutely agree.
Full swing
privatization shows a switch in the priority of the administration from the
education and welfare of UP students and employees to income generation by all
means. We can see this in many of the UP lands; however, due to its timeliness
I’d like to focus on the newly built UP Town Center.
One of the
student speakers who is currently part of the University Student Council mentioned
that in order to build this establishment, the UP Integrated School’s (UPIS) students
as well as staff were relocated into the campus of UP Diliman. This would have
been alright if one, Ayala had donated enough money to reconstruct it complete
with all the facilities and equipment and if two, if the future establishment
would cater to the UP Student and his needs according to the UP Charter.
Sadly, none of
those two conditions were satisfied. Ayala asked UPIS to leave with the condition
of a 220M donation for a new building in the campus but this was not enough. UPIS
had to find means to support themselves and resorted to launching a project to
earn money due to the lack of facilities and equipment. In addition to that,
the new UP Town Center was not built according to the provisions of section 22
of the UP Charter that focuses on Land Use.
First of all, Section
22 states that the land must be used for Academic purposes. Today, we see that
the UP Town Center has absolutely no academic relevance. It only houses
numerous food establishments and one clothing store, which have no benefits or
special privileges at the very least for students taking up related courses
such as Hotel Restaurant Management or Clothing Technology. It is purely for
leisure purposes.
Secondly, the UP
Charter indicates that the use of UP lands must not act as a substitute for
state subsidy. However, the main reason for launching the UP Town in the first
place is so that the university will have income to support itself and its
students which is lacking from the government. This is another direct violation
of the provisions of section 22.
Thirdly, there
must be transparency and accountability regarding all transactions and the cash
flow of the institution. According to the speaker, the University Student
Council has continuously requested for financial reports from UP lands however
no breakdown has ever been given. They are only able to see summaries and do
not know whether the income generated indeed goes to the UP community.
Lastly, one of
its provisions is that there must be student consultation regarding the matter.
Sadly, there was no comprehensive consultation that took place regarding the
establishment of the UP Town Center. If so, then it would not have ended up as
infamous with majority of the UP students today. Most people only knew about it
when it was already being built and were surprised at the type of market it
caters to. Several iskos and iskas now believe that it does not even
deserve to be called the UP Town Center because it only caters to people of the
upper brackets and mostly Ateneans or students from the Miriam College.
With all of
this said, we see how the establishment of the UP Town Center clearly reflects
the current orientation of our government as well as the administration. They
claim that we have no money and can no longer provide for ourselves in UP but
we have seen recently through the PDAF scam that we do in fact have enough for
the country and for the university. Therefore, it is NOT true that we do not
have the sufficient budget, and we must start looking for other more correct
ways on how to solve this problem without degrading the public’s image of the
UP community. We have to prove to the people that we have not become slave to
commercialization and we have not become the next Ateneo de Manila or De La
Salle University. We have to show others that we are still Iskolars ng Bayan
who tirelessly fight for equality and opportunity for all. We have to establish
that we are still the University of the Philippines, for the Philippines.
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