Misteryosa

A cross-post from Misteryosa.ORG.

Much as I’d like to parade my Pacquiao statue entry a couple of days longer, I just can’t. [EDIT] I’ve
received almost 100 comments within 2 days in that blog entry. It’s
bound to get more hits soon because it’s been featured in two
(community) web sites already. [/EDIT]

A text message yesterday from Ange roused me to go online and get agitated. The reason: an article written by UP professor and TV show host Solita “Winnie” Colita-Monsod in the national broadsheet Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I read the papers regularly, but for some unknown reason, they’ve
(don’t ask me who “they” are) stopped delivering them in our area. I
normally pick up a paper on the way to school and read it there.

Last Thursday, students from UP Diliman boycotted their classes to air their grievances against the proposed Tuition and other Fee Increase. The proposal is said to be implemented next academic year, supposedly affecting only the incoming college freshmen. Supposedly, because most regular students think that they will not be affected when in fact they will also have to shoulder the o in ToFI
in the form of miscellaneous, laboratory, and other imposed exorbitant
fees (Late Registration fee, Add Matriculation fee, facilities and
equipment rental rates). The tuition fee will increase from PhP300-per-unit to PhP1000 to PhP1500-per-unit, an incredible rate of 250-300% increase. It means that in an 18-unit load per semester, the tuition of PhP5400 will become PhP18000. Miscellaneous fee will increase from PhP615 to almost PhP2000. Laboratory fees will increase by 100-500%. Breathe, Shari, breathe.
As a call to action, students have been asked to boycott their classes
to show their distaste of this poorly-founded proposal, and to support
the Philippine Collegian’s fight for its autonomy.

And Monsod claims that there is no “boycott” to speak of. Only about
200-400 people have participated in the boycott, as opposed to the more
than 25,000 students on campus. She says that her classes have been
well-attended, and that pictures of the boycott are only close-up shots
and not panoramic, giving away the fact that the boycott has been
ignored by many. She accounts two reasons why this is so: UP students are indifferent because they will not be affected by ToFI,
and/or they have studied the proposal and found it to reasonable.
Simply put, she thinks that the boycott attempt has failed. She has
come to a conclusion built on ridiculous bases. (Bikoy has a video of a news coverage. Arkibong Bayan has loads of pictures and comprehensive files.)

She likens the student leaders to “their national counterparts,” which are the trapos
for supposedly having the “the tendency to take liberties with the
truth” just like the latter. Ironically enough, she’s one of the people
who takes creative liberties with and manipulates the truth by saying that the ToFI is justified by the “fact” that an average UP family’s wage has had a raise since the last increase nearly 10 years ago. And that the tuition of UP
is relatively small compared to that of top private universities in the
country (according to the de Dios committee, which initiated the
proposal).

I suppose she has forgotten the fact that UP is a state university. It is the premier state university in the Philippines. It should not be compared to private universities such as Ateneo, La Salle, and UST.

She further argues that poor bright students still have the chance to get into UP
because of Student Tuition and Financial Assistance Program. I say, and
to quote her, “Excuse me?” Anyone in their right mind knows that the STFAP is as rotten as hell. Research on its history and you’ll surely get negative results. With STFAP rebracketing (another de Dios committee proposal), only the poorest 650 students or 10% of the UP system population - whichever is lower - will be exempted from paying the tuition fee. Taking into consideration that the UP system consists of 6 campuses and an open university, with almost 50,000 students, I don’t think that’s a lot.

Additionally, the professors’ salary will not increase with the tuition fee. Get real! UP professors are government employees. Their salary is tied to the Salary Standardization Law. They’re not bound to get a raise soon.

The government has ample money to fund for every child’s education.
However, it chooses to prioritize debt servicing (almost 85% of
national budget) and militarization. The education crisis has been
brought about by the government’s misallocation of the national budget.
And should I even forget? With the reenacted budget for 2006, the
government is sitting on a pork barrel worth at least PhP48 billion. If your president Arroyo has made PhP1 billion magically appear to fund her “all-out war” against “terrorists” (which, we know, isn’t the real case), surely she can spare more than that to fund for the education and other social services.

We students call for greater state subsidy, not only for UP but also for the education sector as a whole. With UP as a “testing ground” of proposals like ToFI to be implemented, it won’t be too long until PUP
and other state universities follow suit, until such time that the
state abandons its responsibility to its citizens to provide for
accessible education at all levels.

You can read arguments and counter-arguments at Bikoy’s site. I’m tired.