Approved!

The University of the Philippines' new charter is now approved. Fellow teachers and students have been thinking of what kind of new UP we will now have and serve. Teachers feel that with the exemption from the salary standardization law, we'll at least have a decent wage soon, with the possibility of a hefty pay later. Problem is that the university and the national government is not dealing with the issue of a just and living wage for its 'educators'. By circumventing the rule of standardized pay that it itself set out for public employees, UP and the Arroyo administration cut off the university employees from the rest of the poorly paid workers, effecting: (1) a kind of a labor aristocracy - the professors from the now national university are a cut above the rest (this is savored by those who want to separate themselves from the 'mediocre' and 'unintelligent' teachers from other state-funded institutions; consider this: oblation not humbly, nakedly serving the people but simply looking up, up and away from the people; this is elitist, (2) the admission that government pay is a pittance and the way out is to be exempted, struggle you must to free yourself from their chains! and (3) the maximization of earning money so that a fraction would be apportioned to your workers - this paves way for commercialization that shouldn't be the business of a public office. Dapat makisama ang mga guro ng bayan sa pagkamit ng tamang sahod kasama ng mga empleyado ng pamahalaan at mga manggagawa ng pribadong sektor. Ang ginhawa ng iilan (kumpara sa kalakhan) ay kalugian ng nakararami.

We are now entering a new stage in the history of the university and education in this country. Pundits say that if we have to compete globally, we have to follow the standards set by those who excel. Looking at various university rankings (Times Higher Education Supplement, Shanghai Jiao Tong University's academic ranking, Newsweek, etc.) one sees that the common denominator is the size of the university's endowment, the richest are the 'best'. Certainly, more money that is used well (apportioned equally in the democratic sense, invested profitably in the market sense) translates to better facilities and the hiring of excellent professors. Painful truth is that public universities that do not offer themselves up to the free market lose in this game. Observe how the good European public universities of old lose out. America's private universities are tops because they can: buy out 'star' teachers to the detriment of the rest who struggle to teach, study and research but are in the margins of the academic field; acquire huge lands and build more facilities; attract international students that they want and; invest a part of their endowment in business ventures. It's cyclical! Wealth and prestige translate to more wealth and prestige and the synonymous tag of being best.

This is the reason why public universities must increase their tuition. The state cannot sustain the education that its own people need. What more, state/public/government institutions are being paired against private ones because they are in a level playing field. Public funding may now also go to private schools for research and development, as is the norm in highly-industrialized countries. So you see, government play a serious role here. They are not soft and weak and irrelevant; on the contrary, they decide whether public and general good will be determined by the public themselves. They pave way for the development of the private sector, and also privatize public institutions. For the government to be pro-people and democratic, it must subsidize its social service well and enough.

UP, and soon PUP and the rest of the state colleges and universities must now utilize profitably its assets - its land, its facilities, its teachers, its students and its research output. Those who are all out for earning money and those who still have that social democratic and or welfare advocacy oppose the stand of the many progressive organizations and groups opposing commercialization. Truth is: we can only commercizalize, sell, gain profit, trade our resources and creative and intellectual output only with a pre-determined bargain: this is that our labor will only be exploited to produce capital that will in the end be appropriated (expropriated) out of the public good. Why is it that the products of human ingenuity, and in this case, time, intellect and labor-intensive research are not available to many? Think of medicine, health operation, inventions that will solve perennial agricultural troubles, prevent environmental disaster, solve hunger. Because they have a huge price! And they are out of reach of those who need them most. I may sound rhetorical here but I believe that before we get deluded by calls for wealth creation, we must answer the fundamental question of equality: for whom?

3:55 am
thursday, 1 may 2008