“I believe President Bongbong Marcos and his sisters Imee and Irene should object to a UP presidency held by either Nemenzo or Jimenez”
The University of the Philippines Board of Regents (UP BOR) will meet early next month to elect the next UP President.
As usual, local communists are determined to install a communist or a radical with the same mentality as UP President. They do not relish the idea of losing their influence in UP.
I believe that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., and his sisters, Senator Imee Marcos and Irene Marcos-Araneta, have good reason, and even the moral obligation, to make sure that the next UP President is not a communist or a red sympathizer.
As long as the UP President is a communist hardliner or sympathizer, UP will remain a hotbed of communism.
It will continue to preach the canard that everything about the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. is evil, and the falsehood that everything about the latter’s martial law administration was just as nefarious.
In my opinion, while the martial law years were not perfect segments in Philippine history, and that abuses may have taken place, it must not be lost on the Filipinos that martial law in 1972 effectively stopped the communists from overthrowing the duly-constituted government of the Philippines and replacing it with a vassal state that obediently takes orders from Red China.
I maintain that it’s about time UP put an end to its internecine type of historical revisionism, and to present an objective perspective of Philippine history that every Filipino is entitled to know.
As taxpayers who finance the existence of UP, parents of UP students have the right to expect that their children, if they are studious enough, will graduate from UP and become useful citizens of the country.
They have a right to demand that their children will not end up enticed by the communists to abandon their studies, to join the rebel groups in the mountains, and to die for communism and local communist chieftain Jose Ma. Sison.
Those expectations will be impossible if the next UP President is a communist or an ally of the reds.
I invite attention to several incidents when the communists in UP demonized the Marcoses.
In September 2018, incumbent UP President Danilo Concepcion attended a gathering of the Kabataang Barangay at the Bahay ng Alumni venue in UP Diliman.
The KB was the state-sponsored youth group under President Marcos Sr., and Concepcion was a leading figure in the KB and a friend of Imee Marcos.
News of Concepcion’s presence at the KB gathering infuriated many UP faculty members.
Although Concepcion did nothing illegal, the faculty had the temerity to demand Concepcion’s resignation. Mob rule forced Concepcion to apologize for his presence at the event.
Senator Imee Marcos must be aware that if the next UP President is a communist or a red sympathizer, the KB incident in UP will not be the last of the Marcos-bashing the communists in UP are known for.
In 2019, Irene Marcos-Araneta accepted an invitation to watch a play at UP Diliman.
When radical elements in UP learned that Irene had arrived in UP Diliman for the event, they organized a protest rally there which almost caused physical harm on Irene.
Fortunately, Irene was defended by civilized people in the vicinity who ushered her to safety.
Instead of reprimanding those troublemakers, UP authorities issued an apology to the public for Irene’s presence in UP Diliman.
The soft spoken Irene Marcos-Araneta must likewise be aware that if the next UP President is a communist or a red sympathizer, that incident involving her aborted plan to watch a play in UP Diliman will not be the last of the same type of Marcos-bashing the reds in UP are notorious for.
At least two leading candidates for UP President have some explaining to do.
UP Diliman Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo is one. He needs to explain his known ties to the radicals.
Nemenzo is just on his first term as chancellor, and that term has been a lackluster one due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite that baggage, the ambitious Nemenzo thinks he should be the next UP President.
Another such candidate is Angelo “Jijil” Jimenez, a former member of the UP BOR.
Jimenez must explain his role, when he was a member of the BOR, in the decision of UP to give up 1.4 hectares of valuable land in UP Diliman for a museum on martial law designed to demonize President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his martial law administration, and which will glorify the communist rebels who, in 1972, tried to overthrow the government and install a communist state in the country.
Other than his brief stint as UP regent, Jimenez has no experience in actual university operations.
I believe President Bongbong Marcos and his sisters Imee and Irene should object to a UP presidency held by either Nemenzo or Jimenez.