On April 29, 2008, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed the new UP Charter in UPV Cebu College, Cebu City.
In time for the University’s Centennial Celebration this year, the signed charter basically means the long-awaited salary increase for its faculty and research professionals as it exempts the university’s employees from the the Salary Standardization Curse of all government workers. UP has long been suffering from brain drain as a lot of its most brilliant assets skip the fence and go to private universities here and abroad in pursuit of happyness (that means more money, lots and lots of it).
Since forever, UP pays its people a meager rent money which is only one-half or even one-third of what the people in Ateneo or La Salle earn. This is why probably, UP professors are labeled as weirdos because the altruism in them is often misconstrued as a crazy streak–why would a scholar with a hard-earned education stay in a school that have blotchy blackboards, rickety wooden chairs and have CRs reminiscent of Moaning Myrtle’s Hogwarts’ CR, when s/he can go to Ateneo and afford a car and teach comfortably sitting in a respectable teacher’s chair in a nice air-conditioned room conducive to learning?
I myself was recently whacked with the reality of my employer’s utter poverty when I went to neighboring Miriam College for a 3-day conference. They have drinking fountains spurting cold water! They have a multi-media center, with every room furnished with top-of-the-line desktop computers (all with Windows software not Linux mind you), and giant TV sets! Ha! I felt like a provinciana stepping into the city for the first time!
Anyway, digressions aside, the salary increase needs to be implemented very soon.
Aside from putting into practice the new UP Charter, the people up there in Quezon Hall would have to take account of the humongous 300% tuition fee increase. Other than seeing new street signs with the centennial logo on them, the UP Community is clamoring for tangible and visible results of the havoc the Board of Regents have wrought on the parents’ pockets and on the Centennial Thang everybody is so gaga about.
Everybody is talking about improvements, and the brilliant people of UP (yes, there’s sarcasm in my voice) have these brilliant ideas of tiling the academic oval (yes, it means tiles, floor tiles, duh?) and restoring the UP Carillon (these are bells, duh?) as among their foremost projects for the Centennial Celebration. Well I personally have nothing against these beautification and restoration projects, but these are projects for, well– the brain dead! No wonder UP was ranked 398th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Rankings. These stupid projects are not important and should not be put in the front page of the UP website as if its an urgent thing asking for an alumni’s attention and donation! Talk about priorities! Talk about poverty! Of ideas, that is!
And talk about democratization! Talk about government subsidies (or better, the lack of it)! UP as “National University”? National University my ass! This new UP Charter which I have mixed feelings about (which should be obvious by now), doesn’t guarantee an increased state subsidy and doesn’t democratize the process of policy making for the sake of justice. While it promises to raise employees’ salaries, diminishes Malacanang’s power in the BOR (this is debatable also), and opens the BOR to the staff and REPS with the addition of a Staff Regent, it still keeps the decision-making to a few. We’ve seen that these consultative assemblies are bogus in the recent TFI, should we expect they hear the students’ dissent on their mind-boggling policies?
What to expect in the next 100 years?
