'Not the time to forget': UP chancellors push back on DND ending of 1989 accord
MANILA, Philippines — Chancellors of different University of the Philippines campuses pushed back on the defense department's termination of the accord barring state forces in their schools, urging government to rescind the widely criticized decision.
The DND's move this week had been an apparent culmination of the Duterte administration's repeated yet unproven claims that the state-run institutions are being used to recruit students to the armed communist movement.
Students earlier today trooped to the Diliman campus to protest the nixing of the decades-long accord, first signed in 1989, that prohibits military and police from entering their grounds without prior notification from university officials.
In a statement, UP Diliman Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo said the DND's claim about communist recruitment in campuses need concrete proof and "are not grounds to cancel an agreement founded on a constitutional right," adding that academic freedom may face threat with the accord ending.
#DefendUP
— UP Diliman (@Official_UPD) January 19, 2021
Statement of the UPD Chancellor on the Unilateral Termination of the UP-DND Agreement
Read more: https://t.co/mVMz5xa4rp pic.twitter.com/429dDK4gFm
"Academic freedom has allowed us to do what we do best: to nurture young minds to dream and think big for our country, to be mission-driven and service-oriented," he said. "This is why we must defend, and will defend UP as a zone of free thought and free speech."
He added: "This year we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Diliman Commune; next year is the 50th anniversary of the imposition of martial rule. It is not the time to forget."
Several lawmakers who graduated from UP have since aired their opposition on the move, with members of the upper chamber formalizing their opposition through a resolution.
But it remains unclear if the DND would take back its decision, especially with the Palace saying it had the backing of President Rodrigo Duterte, who himself had said that the university is a breeding ground for communists.
In November last year, the president also threatened to defund UP on misguided claims that it was their students who called for an academic strike over government's handling of recent typhoons that affected millions and left scores dead.
The Commission on Higher Education has also so far kept mum on the issue, despite its chairman Prospero de Vera III, who had taught in UP, sitting as the de facto chairman of the UP Board of Regents.
In UP Visayas, Chancellor Clement Camposano said cases of government troops involved in cases of human rights abuse "cannot but leave us unassured" that rights and freedoms would indeed be honored, as claimed.
STATEMENT OF THE CHANCELLOR
— UP Visayas (@UPVOfficial) January 19, 2021
The University of the Philippines Visayas denounces the sudden termination, without consultation, of the 1989 DND-UP Agreement that regulates police and military operations inside the University’s campuses.
Full statement: https://t.co/DVDM7dvBJY pic.twitter.com/BGk9DETFV9
"Historical events that have shaped the relationship of UP and the country's security forces—many of these leaving wounds that have yet to heal—explain the university's strong apprehension," he said.
UP Cebu Chancellor Liza Corro cited too the intimidation, threats and red-tagging students had experienced, including the arrests made in June 2020 when police forcibly entered the campus despite the accord still in place then.
UP Cebu Administration’s Statement on the DND’s Unilateral Abrogation of the UP-DND Accord pic.twitter.com/7dKnuVrFcd
— UP Cebu (@UPCebuOfficial) January 19, 2021
An assault against UP’s freedom https://t.co/dmF1ojtRxO
— UP Los Baños (@UPLBOfficial) January 19, 2021
While in UP Los Baños in Laguna, Chancellor Jose Camacho Jr. described the abrogation as "an assault against the freedom of UP as an institution."
He said that in the past, the university had cooperated with government on enforcing laws, hence the accord is not a hindrance to implementing order.
"As a bastion for the expression of ideas, ideals, and advocacies and as a sanctuary for the exercise of our cherished rights and freedoms, UP is hallowed ground for activism and dissent, not rebellion," he said.
Nixing the agreement followed after the CPP-NPA was designated as a terrorist organization by the unelected Anti-Terrorism Council, formed under the highly controversial Anti-Terror Law which faces 37 petitions before the Supreme Court to strike it down as unconstitutional.
The deal, signed in 1989 between then UP President Jose Abueva and then defense chief Fidel Ramos, holds that military and police cannot enter any UP campus “except in cases of hot pursuit and similar occasions of emergency” or when assistance is requested by university officials.
Incumbent UP President Danilo Concepcion has since said that the scrapping of the pact is "unwarranted" and could only stir confusion and mistrust.
The Department of National Defense has told the University of the Philippines that is is terminating an agreement that requires the police and military to coordinate with the university administration on entering or holding operations in UP campuses.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the department "is aware that there is indeed an ongoing clandestine recruitment" inside UP campuses and the accord is being used to prevent government from holding operations.
The move has been criticized widely on social media, with many saying it endangers the academic freedom and activism that UP is known for. UP campuses have also been venues for protests on national and social issues.
Photo: The UP Oblation symbolizes excellence, sacrifice and service for the common good. The STAR, file
The Department of National Defense says the appeal of UP Diliman's University Student Council to restore the abrogated 1989 DND-UP accord is untimely.
Defense spokesperson Arsenio Andolong points out that discussions between the DND and the UP on the cancellation of the pact have already started.
"Both parties have agreed to sit down again to further express their positions on the issue, and possibly come up with an acceptable deal that would balance legal considerations and moral obligations," Andolong says.
A technical working group will be formed to study a 1992 security agreement between the University of the Philippines and the Department of the Interior and Local Government, DILG spokesperson Jonathan Malaya says.
The agreement prohibits the police to operate on campus grounds without prior notice.
"At first I thought the men who made up the UP police were actually policemen. If these are security guards or security teams, they should be called such and regulated by the PNP. UP police force is not currently regulated by the PNP," Malaya tells ANC's "Headstart."
The police and military should not be in a panel that the Commission on Higher Education says will be tasked with defining academic freedom, Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan says.
The panel will be convened amid backlash against the security sector insistence on entering UP freely to conduct operations against supposed communist rebels.
"Might we ask [CHED Chair Prospero] De Vera, what qualifies the generals of the AFP and PNP as ‘education experts’ that justifies them having a role, a determining role at that, in defining academic freedom?” John Lazaro, SPARK national spokesperson, says in a statement.
“To add, why should they be included in a discussion about academic freedom, while the real stakeholders, the students, professors, and school employees are left out of the discussion?”
The Quezon City government supports academic freedom in the University of the Philippines and in other colleges and universities in the city, Mayor Joy Belmonte says in a press statement.
"I was a lecturer at the UP before, and I know how important academic freedom is in an educational institution. True learning will only happen in an environment where there is a free discourse of ideas by all members of the community," she says.
Quezon City is home to UP Diliman as well as to Ateneo de Manila University, both of which have been accused of being recruitment grounds for communist rebels. The two universities — as well as Far Eastern University, University of Santo Tomas and De La Salle University — have rejected the allegations.
"In Quezon City, academic freedom will always be protected and upheld," Belmonte also says.
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Disclosure: Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte is a shareholder of Philstar Global Corp., which operates digital news outlet Philstar.com. This article was produced following editorial guidelines.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana stands by his decision to abrogate the DND's agreement with the University of the Philippines.
"We stand by our choice to protect our youth and encourage our fellow Filipinos to help us finally end this 50-year war," Lorenzana says.
The abrogation of the UP-DND agreement is a fulfillment of my sworn duties. We stand by our choice to protect our youth and encourage our fellow Filipinos to help us finally end this 50-year war.#DefenSecDel #OneDefenseTeamPH pic.twitter.com/f2DfLFvu1C
— Delfin Lorenzana (@del_lorenzana) January 24, 2021
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