Mr. Chairman Neri, Madam President Roman, my colleagues in the Board of Regents, Chancellor Cao, members of the Faculty and the Staff, Parents, Guests, and Fellow Members of the UP Community.
My congratulations to all of you and to all who made your graduation possible – your parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers.
Your degrees have been conferred, and you are probably just itching to have all these ceremonies over and done with, so that you and fellow graduates can toss your mortarboards to the sky, clap each other’s backs, and promise to get in touch.
Reservations at your favorite restaurants, for some of you, have been made. For others, your guests are probably now awaiting you in your homes, to offer you the congratulations that you so well deserve.
But first, listen to these thoughts of an old man, a UP graduate like all of you.
You are all graduates of the University of the Philippines; you are part of a century-old line.
Some of you graduated with honors, others with higher honors, and a few with highest honors. The great majority, however, are just graduates. But all of you share one thing. You are all the centennial graduates of the University of the Philippines System.
You have a reason to be proud of your accomplishment, for you are part of a line that goes back to almost a century ago, on June 18, 1908, with the enactment of Act No. 1870, the University of the Philippines Charter, which authorized the Governor General “[w]ithin the powers and limitations herein specified, to establish in the City of Manila, or at the point he may deem most convenient, a University which shall be known by the designation of University of the Philippines, the same being organized as a corporation under that name.”
That university “to (be established) in the City of Manila” under Act No. 1870, has today grown into a University System, with campuses extending to the north – Baguio – and the South – Davao, and will be, under the proposed University of the Philippines Charter of 2007, the national University, “composed of its existing seven constituent universities, as follows: University of the Philippines Diliman; University of the Philippines Manila; University of the Philippines Los Baños; University of the Philippines Visayas; University of the Philippines Baguio; University of the Philippines Open University; and those that may be created in the future.” That proposed University of the Philippines Charter of 2007, approved by Congress, is scheduled to be signed by the President of the Philippines, Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, on Tuesday, April 29, in UP Cebu. It will become a law fifteen days after proper publication.
From this purpose in Act No. 1870, “to provide advanced instruction in literature, philosophy, the sciences, the arts, and to give professional and technical training,” under its 2007 proposed Charter, its purposes now are “the search for truth and knowledge as well as the development of future leaders.”
It is safe to say that the University has accomplished its purpose under Act No. 1870, “to provide advanced instruction in literature, philosophy, the sciences, the arts, and to give professional and technical training,” and you, this year’s graduates, are the proof. But the search for truth and knowledge is another matter. It is on your shoulders that we, your elders, now put our hopes for this search for truth and knowledge, just as it is on your shoulders that we, your elders, hope to see in you our future leaders – but future leaders who are nationalistic, fair, decent, and honest.
You are also part of a century-old line that has included heroes and, inevitably, heels.
You have completed the first part of your journey.
For some of you, today marks the completion of a journey. For tomorrow is another day.
Tomorrow, some of you will join the workforce, but sadly, others will not, your UP diplomas notwithstanding. For some of you, work will be here, in this country; for others, again sadly, work would be abroad, where you – for the most part nurses, doctors, engineers, therapists – precisely the very people this country needs the most, will be part of one of the most tragic incidents that has befallen this country – the Philippine diaspora.
It is the completion of a journey that began four (4) years ago, when you, together with thousands of others from all over the country, first stepped foot in the University of the Philippines, be it here in Diliman, in Manila, Los Baños, Davao, Baguio, Iloilo, Cebu or Tacloban, or the Open University. For many of you, it must have been a traumatic first day – after all, some of you, before entering this University, were products of private, some, of very exclusive private school. You therefore found no priests to greet you, no nuns to welcome you.
But what you did find in one place was the Philippines in microcosm, because some of your classmates were children of jeepney drivers, or army sergeants, or market vendors, or farmers, while others were children of corporate executives or top officials. For many of you, it was your first true glimpse of what Philippine society was.
But what you had entered was what somebody has referred to as the aristocracy of the mind. It therefore did not matter that some of your classmates were rich, and some were poor; that some came from families which were powerful and some from the downtrodden. For entry to this aristocracy was gauged by one factor only: the mind. Rich or poor, powerful or downtrodden, you all deserved to be here. You all deserved to be here because the greater majority of you passed on impartial test: the UPCAT. You all deserve to graduate because, for your particular degrees, you fulfilled all the academic and other requirements for your particular course.
In UP therefore, you had your first true glimpse of the entirety of Philippine society, what Philippine society is – a society of the high – the corporate executives and top officials, and the low – jeepney drivers, army sergeants, farmers and public school teachers – with the twain hardly meeting, but had you looked further, you would have seen what Philippine society should be – a society where a child of a jeepney driver or army sergeant or market vendor or farmer could be with a child of a corporate executive or a top official – in one environment, and all are treated equally. You do not even find that in the Senate and the House of Representatives, where one apparent criterion for membership is that of brother and sister, husband and wife, father and son and the reverse, son and father, their election notwithstanding.
What Philippine society should be is a society where a person is not accepted because of wealth alone, or power alone, or where one’s poverty or lower status in life is a disqualification for advancement. Philippine society should be a society where, where one criterion is established for anything, that and only that standard should be applied. For entry in UP, it is the UPCAT, (although UP does accept transferees from other schools) and your wealth or lack of it, you power or lack of it, was immaterial. For graduation, UP’s own academic standards are what mattered, (and here transferees from other schools have to conform) and your wealth or lack of it, your power or lack of it, was likewise immaterial. It is a point that has been lost in many of us.
There is a provision in the proposed University of the Philippines Charter of 2007, Section 9 1st paragraph, that states: “The national university shall take affirmative steps which may take the form of an alternative and equitable admissions process to enhance the access of disadvantages students, such as indigenous peoples, poor and deserving students, including but not limited to valedictorians and salutatorians of public high schools, and students from depressed areas, to its programs and services.”
I am bothered by this provision from a Constitutional standpoint. Affirmative action looks good on paper but this affirmative action is based on the wrong premise – the premise that the access to UP of the persons belonging to the classes mentioned therein is somehow limited or restricted. The premise is wrong because some of you are the proof – you who belonged to indigenous people’s groups – are poor and deserving students, and are students from depressed areas, and who did not need an alternative admissions process.
I do wholeheartedly agree with the succeeding paragraphs, first, that “No student shall be denied admission to the national University by reason solely of age, gender, nationality, religious belief, economic status, ethnicity, physical disability, or political opinion or affiliation,” (a provision which appeared in an abbreviated form in Act No. 1870) and second, that: “The national University recognizes the separation of Church and State. It shall guarantee religious freedom and shall not discriminate on the basis of religion.”
You are part of a privileged few.
Even before you stepped in UP therefore you were part of a privileged few – the privileged few who graduated from high school, the privileged few who continued on to college, the privileged few who passed the UPCAT, the privileged few who were admitted to UP, the privileged few who are now gathered here today.
Think of those who were left behind, and ponder on what you can do for therm.
Why did you go to UP? Do you owe anything, and to whom?
Ask yourselves these questions: Why did you go to UP? Why not to Ateneo or La Salle? Or Assumption or Miriam?
And please, do not repeat to me that joke about Ateneo being your first choice and La Salle being your second but that you found out that the course you wanted to take was supposed to be more difficult in Ateneo and that, insofar as La Salle was concerned, there, what was difficult was finding a parking space for your car so that you went to UP by process of elimination.
I am sure that many of you applied not only to UP but to other schools as well, as I am also sure that many of you were accepted not only in UP but were accepted by other schools as well. Why then did you enroll in UP? Figures indicated that in 2004, for example, of the 3,822 students who qualified to places in UP Diliman, only 2,314 actually enrolled here. What happened to the more than one thousand others?
Today, unlike yesterday, it is not easy to enter a College or University, but why UP in particular? Certainly, it was not for snob appeal. Or to affect a particular English accent. Or to write a certain way. Or elitism. Or class. The very term University of the Philippines is offensive to “snob appeal” or “elitism” or “class.” Again, why UP?
One: Was it because of the family?
In my case, neither my father, a farmer, nor my mother, a storekeeper, were UP graduates, but my late wife and my in-laws were. All my children, as well as their spouses, are UP graduates; as to my grandchildren, a majority are graduates of UP and one is still enrolled here in UP Diliman.
In my case therefore, family did not play a part in my decision to enter UP, because then, I was only the third in my family to attend college.
Two: Was it the campus and its facilities, or, in today’s language, the ambiance?
I entered UP in Padre Faura in 1939. The landscaped campus with its large, classical buildings were different from the old Ilocos Norte High School that I knew. But then, there was the matter of World War II – I joined the USAFFE and when I returned in 1946 the UP that I returned to was this, as described by a classmate, Prof. Maria Clara Lopez-Campos:
“We resumed our freshman years at the bomb-damaged Cancer Institute Building fronting the Library Quadrangle. …Books were scarce and so were mimeographed notes. The post-war law library had only two sets of Philippine Reports and hardly any reference notes. We utilized the Supreme Court library and some private law libraries…Chief means of transportation were army trucks operated as public vehicles…There were no restaurants around the campus to speak of and the UP cafeteria was inexistent until our sophomore year. Instead, we had the barong-barong canteens near the PGH…
In June 1946, the College of Law once more acquired its own exclusive territory – the third floor of the old Engineering Building, still part of the old Padre Faura Campus. The building had been badly damaged during the war. Only improvised sawali partitions separated our classrooms. …
We stayed in this war-torn building until December 1948, when UP finally made its momentous decision to transfer to Diliman – that that time, a ghost of what was formerly the biggest U.S. Army Supply Depot in the Far East. The only bus route to UP Diliman then was through España Extension and Kamuning. From the old Quezon City Hall to UP, was no man’s land. Nothing but surplus depots and tall talahib grasses could be seen in surrounding areas.…
The College of Law was housed at an elevated place near the present Vinzon’s Hall. It wasn’t even a big building – it was a sawali structure, spacious yes, but with GI roofing built so low that whenever it rained, classes had to stop because we couldn’t hear each other…
Class ’49 (ours) was the first to graduate in the Diliman campus…
Our graduation rites were held on April 26, 1949, before a big crowd at the football field, back of what’s now the Main Library Building. It was the first commencement in the new campus…” [Professor Maria Clara Lopez-Campos, “Brief History of UP Law Class ’49,” 1999 UP LAW HOMECOMING CELEBRATING 88 YEARS OF LAW IN THE GRAND MANNER, 99, 100, 101]
Certainly, to us, the state of the campus and its facilities, pre- and post-World War II, was not a consideration in choosing UP over others. And certainly, for us, the state of the campus and its facilities, post-World War II, was not a barrier to what we, as UP law graduates, initially accomplished. Again, Professor Campos:
Members of Class ’49 were probably the graduates who waited longest for the release of the bar examination results. We took the exams in August, 1949, but it was not until May 15, 1950 that the results came out. It was well worth the waiting. Besides obtaining a 100% passing rate, we copped four of the top ten places (Id., at 110)
For us, it was the institution – UP – that mattered. It was UP’s prestige.
I only have a Bachelor of Laws Degree from this University. I am not even a holder of a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science Degree, now a prerequisite to a law education. I have however and Associate in Arts certificate. But I could hold my own against those with Masteral or Doctorate Degrees, whether obtained here or abroad. I learned that in UP.
But the campus and its facilities – these things too do matter. While the University has come a long way from the University that I stepped into in 1939, campus and facilities-wise, it will go further, campus and facilities-wise. Already, we see evidence of the development of the UP North Science & Technology Park. The development of the UP North Science & Technology Park, as you can see across the campus along Commonwealth Avenue, we assure you, from UP’s point of view, and to use the terminology of the day, has no loan component, domestic or foreign, involves no sovereign guarantees, is not tantamount to exploration, and does not violate UP’s “sovereignty.” For we did say, in the Contract of Lease (with Development Obligations) between the University of the Philippines as lessor or landlord, and Ayala Land, Inc. as lessee or tenant, that:
2.5 DEVELOPMENT, PROHIBITION AND CONSENT
(a) In the development of the LEASED PREMISES during the Development Project, and throughout the term of this Contract, in no case shall the land or any part thereof belonging to the LESSOR, or any building or part thereof belonging to the LESSOR, be mortgaged or otherwise encumbered.
Three: Or did you choose to enroll in UP because of its political atmosphere?
UP, after all, is a place where you can heckle the Chairman of the Board of Regents, in his own turf, the University of the Philippines, and before a meeting of the Board of Regents, and not fear later being called by your Dean and by him or another required to write on a blackboard or elsewhere, one hundred time, “I shall not heckle the Chairman of the Board of Regents.” In UP, we call that behavior, heckling the Chairman of the Board of Regents, unwelcome it may be to the object of student displeasure, freedom of expression.
And it is to the credit of Chairman Neri that he sees such an action as freedom of expression and has reacted to it in his usual mild-mannered way. We prize that in UP too. We call it gentlemanly behavior.
For, in UP, we do not declare martial law. We have no states of rebellion.
In UP, you associate with the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. You meet with those from the left and those from the right, and here, neither the words “left” nor “right” are dirty words. You can be part of the activities; you can be the silent type. Here, not only you are welcome, also welcome are your ideas.
Fourth: Was it economics that played a part in your decision to enter UP?
In 2004, the average tuition in UP for an undergraduate course was between P5,000.00 to P6,000.00 per semester. It did not matter whether you enrolled in the College of Architecture or the College of Arts and Letters – the tuition per semester was P5,000.00 to P6,000.00. In 2004 however, if the income of the parents was within Brackets 1 to 4, the student paid no tuition and in addition was given an allowance.
In June, 2007, the tuition hike took effect in UP, raising tuition by more than 300%. The tuition in UP, beginning in June 2007, now ranges from P1,000.00 to P1,500.00 per unit. But then again, if you fell within Bracket E, you enjoyed free tuition plus an allowance of P12,000.00 per semester.
In 2007, when the tuition hike took effect, you protested, as you had every right to do. You looked at your side of the equation and you said that a more 300% increase was high.
But look at the other side. I think I can safely say that any Filipino who pays some sort of tax can rightfully and honestly lay claim to you, for he can say that his taxes somehow or other helped put you through school. And he will continue to do it, tuition hike and all.
What then can you do for him? Surely, he expects much from you.
Fifth: Is it because of the faculty?
Some of the faculty may not be able to pronounce the word “hamburger” correctly, but we really place no great stock in that, unless, probably, if the faculty member concerned were teaching Speech and Drama. And if that particular word was not correctly pronounced, the mispronunciation should not be a ground for laughter or derision. Not in UP.
But you hardly hear complaints about a corrupt or dishonest part of the teaching staff, or a faculty member who was unable or unqualified – if there were, then I am sure that he or she has become ex-UP faculty, but only after due process.
Consider your faculty.
An Instructor II takes home P13,000.00 a month.
An Associate Professor VII has a salary of P26,293.00 a month. In other words this particular Associate Professor VII has a salary slightly higher than that of a starting lawyer in a reasonably-sized Metropolitan Manila law office.
This particular Associate Professor VII, however, to reach that rank, started in 1987 – twenty-one (21) years ago, as Instructor II. In twenty-one (21) years, she passed through five steps of Instructor rank, and six (6) steps of Associate Professor rank. She has yet to make Professor I. That starting lawyer in a reasonably-sized Metropolitan Manila law office on the other hand, twenty-one (21) years later would probably be a Congressman or a Senator.
And our faculty members enjoy no pork.
True, they can avail of scholarships, but they are bound by return service requirements. True too, their children enjoy free tuition – but only if these children were qualified.
True, there is a housing program, but that program is not available to all the faculty and there is rent to pay.
Yet our faculty remains.
Think of them too, as we will, in due time, consider what we can do for you, the faculty. We are considering measures for you, but serving as this is a commencement address, not a campaign speech, let me leave it at that.
What can you do? How will the next part of journey be?
What can you do?
The Instructor II whom I mentioned is my granddaughter. She is an occupational therapist and is teaching as Instructor II, at the UP College of Allied Medical Professions.
Like many doctors, nurses, and others in the allied medical professions, she will probably work abroad. Her parents have interposed no objection to her desire to work abroad – compulsion, after all, this not the UP way – but they have imposed this condition: that she serve the people first. Which is precisely why she is teaching in UP. And her parents have no doubt that she will continue to serve; even abroad.
The Associate Professor VII is my niece. She has been serving the people for the past twenty-one (21) years.
Whatever you do, wherever you are, give back. If you are to be a doctor, remember these lines from the Hippocratic Oath – “I swear that unto whatever house I go, I will do no harm.” If you are to be a lawyer, hold fast to that part of the attorney’s oath which says – “I will delay no man for money or for malice.” And if, perchance, in 2016, one of you gets to be the President, remember these words of the Oath – “I do solemnly swear…that I will…do justice to every man xxx”
The oath applies not only to the President, but to each and every one of you.
A part of your journey is over. The next part of it has come. Give back. UP expects no less.
Thank you and good afternoon.