MANILA, Philippines — University of the Philippines leaders on Monday stressed before lawmakers the need to institutionalize the school's accord with the defense department, months since its widely criticized termination.
The House committee on technical and higher education began today its hearing on three proposed measures that would legislate the 1989 UP-DND accord. It was nixed by the DND in January on unproven claims that UP campuses are recruiting students to the armed communist movement.
Related Stories
UP President Danilo Concepcion said the university community supports the bills. He added that for them, the decades-long accord is not merely a deal but also a promise on keeping academic freedom in the campuses.
"Those accords are the government's formal declaration that [it] guarantees the enjoinment by UP of its academic freedom," he said. "Without academic freedom, UP's existence becomes meaningless."
The said deal bars entry to state forces on any UP campus without prior notifying school officials. Groups fear that the termination would shrink spaces for expressing dissent, especially at a time when some in government had resorted to red-tagging UP students.
Froilan Cariaga, UP Diliman student council chairperson, told the House hearing of the supposed violations of the accord done by the military and police in recent months.
He said students no longer feel safe with state forces' entry to campuses, and urged lawmakers to act on the issue at hand.
"We expound that innovation is impossible without critical thought," Cariaga said. "And what is education if not for the development of man and society? UP-USC urges the [committee] to defend safe spaces in which the Pagasa ng Bayan hones and prepares itself to serve the people and the country."
Lawyer Norman Daanoy, chief of the DND's legal affairs, was present in the hearing. There, he claimed that testimonies of rebels who surrendered to government showed that the accord is being used to "confuse or prohibit" law enforcers from holding operations in state-run campuses.
The official argued that for the DND, the abrogation can should not be reconsidered as the agency and the military are no longer involved in law enforcement.
He said it would be better for UP to discuss another existing accord with the Philippine National Police and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
UP Student Regent Renee Co sought to refute Daanoy's remarks, saying it was only their first time to hear the reason.
"Regarding the argument that DND is no longer the primary law enforcer, we see there is no reason that it could be a barrier on why the UP-DND accord cannot be maintained," she said.
Co said legislating the accord would restore crucial safeguards to members of the university community, which she said have been subjected red-tagging and harassment, to name a few.
"There are even death threats sent to members of faculty and students through texts, through chats, and even as personal message to their own addresses," she said. "There has been harassment, physical and verbal. There have been reports they were being surveillanced and there has also been detention."
The House committee moved to form a technical working group that will look to consolidate the three proposed bills. A similar measure has since been filed in the Senate.
In recent months, the Commission on Higher Education sought to mediate between UP and the DND. Officials from the two parties first met in February, but no progress has been announced so far.