AFTER creating a stir over an alleged plan to confer an honorary doctorate degree on President Rodrigo Duterte, the UP Board of Regents on Wednesday said there was no such proposal after all.
Word of the honorary degree had sparked outrage among critics of the President, and a strongly worded defense from his son, Davao Vice Mayor Paulo Duterte, as well as a reaction from the Palace.
Duterte himself said he would decline such an award, if it were offered to him.
“With due respect to the University of the Philippines, I do not accept… I do not accept, as a matter of personal and official policy, I do not accept awards,” the President said in an interview after a command conference in Bohol province.
“I did not reject it… I simply declined,” he said.
In an April 19 letter to members of the 11-man Board of Regents, lawyer Roberto Lara, University and BOR secretary, clarified that following a review of taped recordings of the proceedings of a recent board meeting, there was no motion “to confer honorary degree upon certain proposed conferees,” referring to Duterte.
“The statement to that effect as appears in the summary is incorrect,” Lara said, adding that Senator Francis Escudero, who sits on the board, made no such proposal.
“I deeply regret this error for which I take full responsibility. I apologize profusely to Regent Escudero for any unintended effect this may have created, and to all any inconvenience caused,” he added.
According to the summary of the board resolutions, the motion to confer an honorary degree on Duterte was initiated by Escudero and seconded by regents Frederick Mikhail Farolan and Angelo Jimenez.
This Summary of Resolutions was later revised to delete the phrase “upon motion of Senator Regent Escudero.”
The online community was divided over the suggestion that Duterte would receive an honorary law degree, which angered the school’s students and alumni. The hashtags #NoDegreeForDuterte #DuterteNotWorthy became popular, with the UP community opposing the award because of the thousands of deaths as a result of the President’s bloody war on drugs.
UP Student Regent Raoul Danniel Manuel, a member of the BOR expressed opposition planned conferment, calling on the university administration to serve “as social critic and defender of the oppressed.”
“Honors must not be given to a President that declares all-out war against his people to quell their struggle for just and lasting peace, and reimposes death penalty to legitimize the killing of the poor,” said Manuel.
Incoming UP Diliman University Student Council chairperson Benjie Allen Aquino said that Duterte is “unworthy of any distinction” from UP, calling the President “a self-confessed murderer.”
“President Duterte is guilty of treating women as objects, disregarding people’s fundamental human rights, and condoning unspeakable acts of violence against Filipinos. He is not worthy of being honored by the University,” he said.
Asked about his thoughts on the backlash from the UP community on the possible conferment, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella smiled and replied, “That’s to be expected.”
Defending his father from the backlash, the President’s son, Paulo Duterte, said his father is not fond of getting awards and would just normally shrug it off since the President is satisfied with what he has.
“Knowing my father, he does not give a heck [about] any ‘honorary degre’” simply because he knows he did not work hard for such a degree,” Paolo said.
“He has always been a simple man, satisfied with what he have and works hard to make a difference not just for his family but for the Dabawenyos and now the Filipino nation,” he added.
Paolo said that being elected as the 16th President of the Republic of the Philippines is enough recognition for his father and “no other recognition or honorary degrees could eclipse that.”
Addressing his statement to his father’s critics, Paolo said “You can have that honorary degree for all we care.”
He then thanked the UP Board of Regents for considering giving his father an honorary doctorate degree.
Escudero, who chairs the Senate Committee on Education and sits in the BOR, denied that he was the proponent of the honoris causa conferment.
“I did not move but I did not object when it was proposed given that it is a UP tradition that Philippine heads of state including the Chief Justice and the Senate President are offered honorary degrees when they are invited as commencement speakers, which is also a UP tradition,” Escudero said in a text message.
Besides, he said almost every honorary degree offered by UP has been controversial and never unanimous.
“I guess that too is part of UP’s long history and tradition,” Escudero said.
“However, it’s up to the conferee if he/she will accept it. This is not given unilaterally and needs to be accepted before being conferred,” he added.
Former presidents from Manuel Quezon in 1929 were conferred with the honorary degree, except President Joseph Estrada and his successor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who turned it down.