New year (of dissent)?

Last December 15, the University of the Philippines Board of Regents (BOR) approved the 300% tuition fee increase for the whole system. In was done amidst protest of several sectors of the UP community. I remember getting a sms message from one of my friends saying that the BOR approved the proposal without the Student Regent (SR) and the Faculty Regent (FR)-both were pretty vocal with their opposition to the proposal at the onset. So, this friend of mine, after a directing truckload of swear words directed at the BOR and apologizing for it after apparently sending it in a fit of rage, warned that come January, the University will be witness to protest actions in the level of the Diliman Commune. Putting it bluntly, the Diliman Commune, which happened in the 70’s, was where UP Diliman was virtually blockaded during protests against oil price hikes, to the point that authorities had to send their men to the University in the middle of the night and ignite a huge fire to try to scare the dissenters.

I wasn’t supposed to write on this, I mean, by the time the students got back from their Christmas break, they would know that the increase was approved by only 7 members of the board (there’s a rumor that there were only 6, but I’ve yet to find a more credible source) in about 20 minutes only. They would also know that the members present that time cowardly holed themselves up in a room in the College of Law (if it was really there, no one would ever know), in order to avoid the people barricading Quezon Hall.

Quite frankly, I had to laugh when I heard the news. Don’t get me wrong, of course I’m against the increase, it’s just that it’s funny when you think about how the proposal was passed. I can almost imagine the board members sneaking away from Quezon Hall, and quietly getting into their cars to go the Quezon Hall and approve the increase. It’s absolutely pathetic. They were not being hunted down with knives and pitchforks by the protesters, nor were they the impending victims in some medieval witch-hunt, with people chanting ‘burn them, burn them!’ The people were there because of one or all of the following reasons: a) they didn’t approve of the impending passing of the proposal b) they wanted to have their unanswered questions answered by the board and c) they were infuriated because the annual lantern parade was suddenly called off because of ‘terrorist’ threats (totally unrelated, but hey, most have been preparing for the event for months only to have it cancelled at the last minute).

Makes me want to read what Mareng Winnie has to say about this. After her article in the Inquirer all but lambasted the people against the proposal, (which not only infuriated me, but also a lot of people I know, like the Student Council chair, and the ‘moderate’ ones like my boss) I’m eager to find out how she would defend the actions of the board. I’m even more eager to find out, in a waiting-for-the-climax-in-a-movie-thriller kind of way, if she would cowardly hide away in some room of the College of Economics or in some dressing room of GMA-7. That’d be some spectacle.

Anyway, I’m not gonna go about giving more details about the whole incident anymore. There’re a lot of things written about it already, from the newspapers, to the news on TV (I heard ABS-CBN has an interesting footage of the march to Quezon Hall by the way), to the forums at peyups. You may wanna read what a poster had to say about computations the administration made to determine what STFAP bracket a student will belong to. If I understood it right, if the student has a scooter rather than a car, he will have a bigger multiplier for the computation. Why it’s the case is beyond my understanding.

What I’m most likely to do is, if ever this will be like another Diliman Commune, be there if and when it happens. I may be beyond my taking-to-the-streets-in-protest phase in life, but I won’t miss it for the world. I may not be in UP anymore, but at least I can say that I was part it, especially if we succeed.

Being at EDSA dos made me part of history. I won’t let that chance to be again part of history pass me by.