I was almost too convinced to vote “Yes” in the upcoming UP System-wide referendum next next week.
Why? Well, it would be because even though my academics eats nine-tenths of my time almost everytime, I still have eyes and I am not blind to the posters I’ve seen around the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) grounds regarding the “Defend the OSR” campaign. I was most definitely not blind to the protests held both here in Manila and in Diliman regarding the supposed threat to the Office of the Student Regent (OSR), the sole representation of UP students to the Board of Regents (BOR). This threat is none other than the upcoming referendum. This was what they were calling ‘the obstacle’ to the selection of the new Student Regent (SR) and ultimately to UP student representation and rights.
If you attended the Centennial Lantern Parade last december, students protesting this joined the parade and even had their “moment” in front of Quezon Hall, where the lanterns where presented to the judges. Back then, even though they were really an eyesore, I thought the Lantern Parade would not have been complete without any protest.
Now, these protest have campaigned for a “Yes” vote in the referendum, which according to them, would save the OSR from being vacant in case the “No” votes win or a quota of 50% + 1 was not reached. And you see, in UP, with the BOR being the highest policy-making body, no representation could also mean another possible Tuition Fee Increase (TFI) or another commercialization plan. And that would be scary.
See, I think even though my patriotism and love for current events have continued to lose its spark within me, I still have enough left to be disturbed whenever things like this happen. I unconsciously get information about what’s happening by reading posters, listening briefly to protest speeches, reading placards held up high by activists, etc. This keeps me updated on the issue.
Now, I think what UP has that other schools like Ateneo don’t is that issues like this is not as boring as you think it would always be. Sometimes, an issue is just too cool that even I, with two biology 30 exams tomorrow, would not even resist making a blog entry about it. Sometimes, it just gets better and more exciting.
The posters I read and the portest I heard could be pretty much summed up by: “Defend the OSR by voting yes to the referendum or else we will lose the office and the office would be vacant.”
With this in mind, I was so sure that I would not ignore next next week’s referendum and even convince my classmates to vote. After all, it is our social responsibility. And since I think many would come with me to vote since we are now facing a possible Med TFI, which we were not informed about and which makes us very, very angry. Really.
But see, the twist in the story happened because I still haven’t quit the Medicine Student Council’s (MSC) e-group even though I already resigned from my volunteered position last semester. And this is the reason why I was able to get a new face to the “Defend the OSR” issue.
One person emailed what I think is a blog entry that details things that happened, which I think proponents of the “Defend the OSR” campaign have biasedly mentioned. I won’t really go into the details, but the email presented a very interesting twist to the story: Apparently, a ‘no’ vote in the referendum was not necessarily a threat to the OSR, but only rather a threat to the existing Codified Rules for Student Regent Selection (CRSRS), which a General Assembly of Student Councils (GASC) use to select the new SR.
This is big. This is really big.
See, it turns out that a ‘yes’ vote to the referendum would just mean that the student population agrees to the existing CRSRS and that selection of a new SR can proceed. A ‘no’ vote would just mean that the student population disagrees with the existing CRSRS and that ammendments should be made to it so as to eventually subject it to a new referendum. It would not mean, however, that the OSR would be vacant for, according to the letter I read from the e-group which was a reply from VP for Legal Affairs Theodore Te, the law abhors vacuum in government positions. The OSR is a government position and, therefore, if the referendum decides that the existing CRSRS is not fit as basis for the selection of the new SR, the incumbent SR would have to stay in position. If in any case the incumbent resigns or had the need to leave the office, the previous CRSRS would be used to select a new SR.
So what’s the point? This just means that the “Defend the OSR” campaign for students to vote yes in the referendum to prevent the OSR from being vacant was VERY fallacious and misleading. It was not telling the students the real implication of their vote, especially because the OSR, after all, was in no way threatened to be vacant.
And that’s just the beginning. Apparently, the current SR also ignored the proposed ammendments to the CRSRS that student councils presented in the GASC held last year. The ammendments included a grade requirement for the SR, a “one vote per college” policy, which allows each UP unit to have the number of votes they are entitled to proportional to their size, and removal of a certain organization that is an alliance of only a number of student councils in UP as partner of the OSR. Just a note, I agree with theses ammendments.
The point is, some people think that the CRSRS or the process of how students are able to get a new SR has its flaws, which should be ammended. Now, if this is so, then you’d expect that some people would vote ‘no’ to the referendum in case they knew that this would allow ammendments to the CRSRS. But, if you tell the same people that if they vote other than ‘yes’ in the referendum, the OSR would be left vacant and student representation would be impaired, they would most definitely change their minds. Even though what you said was false.
And, that, my friend, would be a deception.
Even the report in The Manila Collegian about the said issue was either VERY biased or too uninformed of the other side of the story. The article, “OSR referendum to be Conducted System-Wide,” clearly had either just on source or a number of sources that had the same point of view. Now, I know with two years of journalism that this is both bad especially for a news report. I know that the Manila Kule has almost always been leftist, but, seriously, does it have to be this biased or uninformed? That article proved to me that not everything you read gives you the big picture. Some, like this article, give you just half.
See. Isn’t it exciting that as early as in the University-level we can clearly see examples of how people can deceive other people into doing something? And in real life too! I thought I could only experience this on TV! But no, some UP students just had to disappoint me and taint my admiration of this supposed benchmark for excellence.
I don’t know if it was intentional to prevent ammendments in the CRSRS or if the same people in the “Defend the OSR” campaign just really wrongly believed that the OSR was in deep shit once the referendum fails. I do hope it was not intentional.
If it was just a matter of people believing something wrong, then people just didn’t bother to ask for what would really legally happen and that they just made assumptions. That would be sick. Seriously. All those sincere effort to campaign for something that no one bothered to verify? That’s stupid. I can quote Pito here saying: “After all, you can be SINCERELY wrong.”
With this, I’d take back what I typed and hope rather that it WAS intentional. At least, they won’t be stupid and our reputation of having intelligence won't be tainted. Although, they’d be UP students that have BAD motives.
So now, I feel great that I’d be voting a big ‘no’ in that upcoming referendum.
