"Parents send their children to UP to study and to finish college, and to become law-abiding citizens of the country."
Two weeks ago, Kerima Tariman, died in a clash between cadres of the communist New People’s Army and soldiers of the Philippine Army in Negros Occidental. Tariman joined the underground movement when she was a student in the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
Communists in UP should be held accountable for Tariman’s death, and the deaths of many other UP students like Tariman whom they recruited to fight and die for the NPA.
The NPA is the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines headed by the aging Maoist Jose Maria Sison. While idealists like Tariman die for Sison’s so-called “protracted people’s war” against the government, Sison is living a luxurious life in exile in Holland, financed by “revolutionary” taxes NPA rebels extort from hapless businessmen in the countryside.
During the martial regime of President Ferdinand Marcos, The Reds had a difficult time recruiting UP students to the communist fold. When Corazon Aquino was President, UP authorities and the national government made a deal to the effect that police and military personnel may not enter any UP campus without the prior permission of university authorities.
Because of that deal, the main UP campuses in Diliman and Los Baños became havens for red recruiters. It was almost impossible to track down the reds there because the UP campuses became vast and convenient “safe houses.”
In my view, that deal is legally indefensible. To paraphrase Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, “What is so special about UP to allow its exemption from the law?” UP campuses are covered by the law, and it is absurd for law enforcers to get the permission of UP officialdom before they can carry out their law enforcement duties inside a UP campus.
Secretary Lorenzana did what his predecessors were afraid to do. He abrogated that illegal deal.
As expected, the Reds among the students and faculty in the biggest UP campuses protested, saying that the termination of the deal threatens the academic freedom in UP.
That argument is preposterous because assuring safety in public places, and UP campuses are public places, is the obligation of the police, and in extreme cases, of the military. Policemen patrol campus streets, and cannot enter classrooms or libraries at their whim. So what’s the big deal about academic freedom?
There is nothing in the UP charter that exempts UP campuses from the law. If there is, that provision is unconstitutional on the ground of class legislation.
UP claims that its campuses constitute “democratic space” where anyone, regardless of political creed, religious dogma, or sexual orientation is free to express himself, without fear of reprisals. That’s a myth. The truth is, UP has become shamelessly intolerant and overbearing.
In August 2018, UP students and professors criticized UP President Danilo Concepcion for attending a Christmas party of the Kabataang Barangay, a Marcos-era youth group of which Concepcion was a leading personality, held at a rented pavilion inside the UP Bahay ng Alumni in Diliman. Even though it was a simple reunion of members with no political speeches delivered there, the radicals threatened to unseat Concepcion. The incident subsided only after Concepcion publicly apologized.
What happened shows that UP condemned a Marcos-era organization just for renting space in UP Diliman for a peaceful activity. In contrast, UP donated valuable land in the same campus for the construction by anti-Marcos groups of an “anti-Martial Law” museum, with the late President Corazon Aquino as the star of the exhibit.
Irene Marcos-Araneta attempted to watch a play at UP Diliman in 2010, the radicals tried to manhandle her. Fortunately, campus security guards helped Irene escape unharmed.
A Christian group was harrassed by the LGBTQ sector in UP Diliman after the group’s leader, speaking during a religious service inside the UP Film Center which they rented on Sundays, told his flock that the Bible frowns on homosexuality.
Radical activists are allowed to enter UP Diiiman anytime. Pro-government youth groups are not.
Critics observe that Concepcion seems to be afraid of antagonizing the Reds in UP, as seen in the way he appeases those radicals by yielding to them. By doing that, the critics believe, Concepcion thinks he is buying peace during his time. Thus, today’s radicals in UP behave with a misplaced sense of entitlement because they can do what they want anytime, with impunity.
Concepcion should realize that in 1938, England resorted to appeasement in dealing with Adolf HItler of Nazi Germany, who was bullying Western Europe. Appeasement only emboldened HItler to start World War II a year later.
Someone should also remind Concepcion that parents send their children to UP to study and to finish college, and to become law-abiding citizens of the country. They did not send their children to UP to join the underground.