FEU students go to court over exams

The Manila Regional Trial Court was asked yesterday to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop Far Eastern University (FEU) from administering a comprehensive examination, which the students described to be "beyond the curriculum requirements."

Some 200 FEU students and their parents trooped to the Manila RTC on the fifth floor of the Manila City Hall to file their petition for a TRO, or a writ of preliminary injunction, mandatory injunction and damages.

The students, through their legal counsel J.V. Bautista, said their petition for mandatory injunction is aimed to compel the FEU administration to include 233 students finishing a course leading to the degree of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy (BSA) in the roll of graduates this March.

The STAR tried to get the side of FEU officials to no avail.

The students filed the petition after the FEU administration refused to allow them to graduate this coming graduation and even required them to take a special comprehensive examination. The students said the examination was a mere disqualification device of the school to prevent majority of them from graduating.

Bautista said the students should have graduated in March 2001 because they enrolled at the university in 1997, when the course was being offered for only four years.

Upon reaching fourth year, however, the petitioners said FEU-BSA Dean Danny Cabulay required the students to enroll for another year as allegedly required by an expanded curriculum program of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

Believing in Cabulay, the students said they enrolled for another year, paying P24,000 each for two semesters. While in the fifth year, the students said they discovered that "FEU was, in truth and in fact, not authorized by CHED to implement a five-year course curriculum in BSA for students who enrolled in 1997 and the expanded curriculum would only be for 1998-1999 and onward."

"Considering that the 233 students have already completed their course curriculum program after their fourth year, they are entitled as a matter of right to be awarded their degree and included by FEU in its roll of graduates," the students’ petition stated.

Kissy Dy, one of the student petitioners, said the comprehensive examination set on Tuesday would only make them less confident. "It (comprehensive examination) would only eat up much of our time, which we could use preparing for our CPA (Certified Public Accountant) board."

"With or without the TRO, we won’t take the comprehensive examination," Dy added.

Rosemarie Ramos, another FEU student, said "we have taken all the remedies we can with the school administration but FEU officials merely diverted the issue."

Bautista said they also asked Manila Executive Judge Mario Guirina III to consider the students as "indigent parties" so they can waive the payment of filing fees considering their financial status.

Aside from the TRO, Bautista said FEU should be held liable and pay some P68 million to 233 students for actual, moral, compensatory and actual damages.

"Due to the fraudulent misrepresentation of FEU, each student was forced to spend more than P20,000 for dormitory and living allowances for one more year and prevented them from taking the board examinations."

With the fifth year requirement, the students failed to apply for gainful employment, in which they could have earned an average of P48,000 for six months. The students also suffered mental and emotional pain and should be given P150,000 each for moral damages, their lawyer said.