The Triumph of Malice
A Report to the UP Community and Alumni
Francisco Nemenzo
President
University of the Philippines

When the Senate adjourned last February 6, we saw eight months of intensive lobbying for a new UP Charter gone to waste. It was not the opposition of a loud minority that brought this about, but the masterful filibustering of a single senator and the ineffectual Senate leadership. Politicking of the most despicable type shelved what could have been the legislature's singular gift to the University of the Philippines. Malice triumphed over reason.

Senate Bill 2587-an act amending the Charter of the University of the Philippines-was the culmination of over a decade of efforts by successive UP administrations to introduce long-overdue revisions to the UP Charter. The initial consultations started near the end of the term of President Abueva. President Javier continued the process. I merely inherited the bill my predecessor had drafted and submitted to both houses of Congress. SB 2587 is substantively the bill drafted by the committee of President Javier, minus the provisions that provoked much controversy during the consultations, such as my proposal for a University Senate.

Our Charter, framed in 1908, is badly in need of an overhaul to recognize our status as a national university-distinguished from the 110 other state universities and colleges by the level and quality of our teaching and research-and accord us the level of support a national university deserves. I specified these revisions and the reasons behind them in an earlier document, "A Charter for Our Times," a copy of which you can still read on our website at www.up.edu.ph.

Improving our capabilities

The most significant provision of SB 2587 exempts UP from the Salary Standardization Law (SSL), which inhibits UP from using its earnings and savings to improve the salaries of faculty and employees. Our inability to do so has resulted in the exodus of many of our best and brightest people, and in demoralization among those left behind. We sought tax exemptions for imports of materials we need for teaching and research, and greater institutional autonomy to enhance our ability to compete with the best universities in the region. SB 2587 also aimed to improve University governance by providing for a Staff Regent and for a better selection process for appointive members of the Board of Regents.

An earlier and similar form of the bill had passed the House of Representatives unanimously, and we had every good reason to expect that it would-with some minor amendments-pass the Senate as well. Senator Francis Pangilinan, the bill's chief sponsor, took pains to conduct many consultations with the UP community and with his fellow senators to ensure that all points of view were represented and considered.

We received resounding support for the bill not only from our own constituents, but also from UP alumni here and abroad. The bill was certified as urgent by the Administration. Some questions were raised by some students and senators about our plans to make commercial use of our assets for our needs, but we answered these questions squarely.

Today, however, I must inform you that our campaign to get SB 2587 passed has, in this particular Congress,
failed. The Senate adjourned its session without passing the bill or even bringing it to a vote, and we gravely doubt if it will be taken up again when the Senate meets briefly to canvass votes after the May 10 elections. I say this with great sadness, as I had hoped that a new UP Charter would have been one of my administration's worthiest legacies to the University. But I must also express my anger and dismay over the cavalier manner by which our bill was doomed to die on the Senate floor, largely on account of one senator's utterly unreasonable objections and demands.

Between June 2003 and February 2004, UP's chancellors, vice presidents, other University officials, and I dutifully attended the Senate sessions, ready to assist Senator Pangilinan in fielding questions on UP's programs and plans. These sessions started in mid-afternoon and often went into the evenings, without any absolute assurance that our
bill would be taken up.

At every interpellation, we performed well, providing the needed answers and prepared to cooperate with the Senate in crafting more mutually acceptable provisions without compromising our fundamental positions. We made reasonable concessions, introducing more safeguards against any possible abuse or misuse of power by the Board of Regents, but we held our ground on our designation as a national university, because this was our premise for requiring more support from government.

Publicly and privately, senators from both the administration and opposition parties expressed their support for the bill. We had the votes, to put it plainly, without even having to presume or to depend solely on the allegiance of the nine UP alumni among the senators. One man's instransigence But Senator Pangilinan's efforts to move the bill forward were conssistently thwarted by Senator John Osmeña, who would either suddenly disappear when it was his turn to interpellate, or otherwise make demands and claims so outrageous that it took every ounce of forbearance on the part of our University officials to suffer them in the hope that our bill would pass, regardless.

John Osmeña claimed, for example, that UP had become a rich man's school, catering only to the needs of Metro Manila. This is an old canard easily disproved by all the facts-which we presented, but which the senator blithely dismissed.

But this was the least of our worries. John Osmeña reserved his worst diatribes for my person, privately calling me a communist, blaming my relatives in Cebu for his political misfortunes, and vowing to make UP pay for "demonizing" him during the bases debate more than a decade ago. Once, he informed UP officials that only my immediate resignation from the UP presidency could secure his support for the Charter bill. When he realized that I was resolved to serve UP to the end of my term, he proceeded to do his best to achieve the same end and to maim SB 2587 in the process by
demanding, for example, that the UP President's age be limited to 65. Over a period of almost eight months, he maintained this peevish and puerile posture, managing to delay substantive discussion of our Charter to the end.

I relish intellectual debate, and am used to the insults of the ignorant and the desperate. But this is not an argument between John Osmeña and myself. This is not even an argument, but petty tyranny at its worst, with brute political power prevailing over any possibility of reason. It is patently unjust to hold the future of the country's leading university hostage over some personal differences, no matter how deep they may be. I would have no hesitation leaving office for the right reasons-but humoring John Osmeña is hardly one of them. I have a university to lead, to manage, and to defend-and I will do so to the end of my lawful term to the best of my ability.

A failure of leadership In the meanwhile, it is a tragedy that we came this close to seeing our ten-year labor of legislation
succeed, only to be foiled in the end by one man's intransigence.

But perhaps I should not have been too surprised by the machinations of this one senator, whose pettiness and petulance are legendary. What I am more deeply disappointed by was the abject failure of the Senate leadership-which
had publicly promised to support the bill-to exercise its legal and moral prerogatives to bring the matter to a vote, taking cognizance of Senator John Osmeña's tediously familiar objections. Senate President Franklin Drilon-who was named our "Most Outstanding Alumnus" not too long ago-publicly promised the UP alumni reunion in Iloilo last July that we would have a new Charter by the end of the year. I reminded him of this personal pledge just a few days before the end of the session, and he urged me over the phone to accept further modifications, in deference to John Osmeña's caprices. We addressed those concerns-clarifying, for example, what we meant by a national university. We fielded questions and considered constructive suggestions from the many senators who took time to interpellate us or express their support-including members of the opposition and non-UP alumni-whom we thank for their interest. But no vote was ever called or taken, and the Senate leadership let valuable time slip away until it was too late, for
reasons we can only divine. Despite Senator Pangilinan's valiant effort-for which we are deeply grateful-to keep the bill alive, what triumphed in the end was malice, misinformation, and petty politicking.

I realize that the Senate had many other important bills to consider, and that its legislative agenda was upset by such distractions as the Jose Pidal exposé and the Oakwood mutiny. I do not question the right of any senator to interpellate any measure before that body. But I have no doubt that something could still have been done by a truly committed leadership to save SB 2587. With the election of a new Congress in May, we have no assurance that the new senators and congressmen will be so favorably disposed toward our measure.

We will fight on

Those who opposed SB 2587 may be pleased by this delay and even claim an albeit hollow victory, thanks to an improbable ally. That pleasure will be short-lived, as the realities of our resource constraints set in, something that our new Charter could have helped relieve.

But we will fight again, and we will fight on. We cannot yield to demagoguery and intimidation. As disappointing as the results of this struggle have been, we also learned many things, and will employ those lessons in a fresh campaign to get a new =Charter-perhaps one even better than the current version-drafted and passed.

Among those lessons is my conviction that just as our legislators have always held UP accountable for its programs and its funds, so should UP hold the legislature and its individual members accountable for their acts of commission and omission. We can only pray-and mobilize-for the emergence of more responsible lawmakers and leaders who can truly help UP and Philippine higher education. I thank all our faculty members, students, staff, and especially our alumni who gave their unqualified support to the new UP Charter, as well as the more enlightened senators and congressmen who fought for its passage. I hope we can continue to depend on you, as we face even tougher battles ahead. We should find solace in the thought that, as long as we keep true to our core values and ideals and maintain our fundamental union as a community of scholars, the University of the Philippines will survive the worst of politics and politicians.

16 February 2004
Francisco Nemenzo
President
University of the Philippines

:: Bing Tuesday, February 17, 2004 [+] ::
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