“Reboot PH Education!” Starting With The UP System & Its Beloved Academic Freedom!

Credentials: I am a teacher – UP System alumnus, UPLB graduate, BSA major in Ag Edu, Weighted Average 2.36, 1965. I am a Civil Service Professional, 80.6%, 1964. Not to forget: I am the one-and-only “Outstanding Alumnus For Creative Writing” awarded by the UPLB Alumni Association – I was UP’s historical first such alumnus in 2011 and still the only one in UP System’s 115-year history so far.  

As a teacher, I note that “Academic Freedom” is always the battlecry of the UP faculty & studentry. Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo says (“What Is Academic Freedom And Why The Fuss?” 02 March 2021, University of the Philippines, up.edu.ph):

While the 1987 Philippine Constitution states in Article XIV, Section 5 (2) that “Academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher learning”, it does not define academic freedom.

And thereby lies the unexamined life in the academe, especially in my beloved UP System: UP does not intelligently define Academic Freedom except as the freedom to protest, for faculty and students to survive with their dissenting voices.

The educational failure of the UP System itself is its insistence on “Academic Freedom” that does not presume “Educational Freedom.”

As a teacher, I will now define “Academic Freedom” as “right to education,” which is “right to teach/learn how to think intelligently.” Not simply the right to protest, as is “Academic Freedom” equated with 100%.
(Images: “Oblation” from foursquare.com, “Right to” from right-to-education.org)

My friend JAQ sent me the Internet link to Mel Matthew Doctor’s article, “Vistan Named Dean Of UP College Of Law” (15 March 2023, The POST, thepost.net.ph). He says he does not understand why the UP Board of Regents chose Edgardo Vistan II as next UP Diliman Chancellor over incumbent Fidel Nemenzo, both lawyers. About that, Anna Cristina Tuazon says, “UP Diliman’s Top-Down Leadership” (06 April 2023, Inquirer, inqm.news). By “top-down leadership,” Ms Anna means “dictatorship” – not listening to the “voice of the people” or the loud UP community.

As a teacher and creative writer, this news has opened my eyes to the sad fact that UP itself as the premier educational system in the Philippines has not differentiated between “Academic Freedom” and “Educational Freedom” – and does not seem to care at all.

Ms Anna says, “Incoming Chancellor Vistan has a huge gap to reconcile. He has been appointed by the UP Board of Regents. He was not appointed by the people. To be a genuine leader of this headstrong multicultural community of fierce independent thinkers, he needs to realize sooner rather than later that his power will not come from the BOR but through the trust he will earn from the people he will serve.”

Ah my dear Anna, what you yourself is practicing is what I will now call “Journalistic Freedom” – but not “Educational Freedom,” which comprises 2 interdependent freedoms: the freedom of the teacher to teach how to think, and the freedom of the student to be taught how to think! Your practice of Journalistic Freedom is like UP's practice of Academic Freedom – self-limited thinking!@517