Aug 8, 2010

Davao youth opposes ROTC revival

Davao City --- Progressive youth group League of Filipino Students and Anakbayan – SMR express its strong opposition against plans of the Aquino administration and the AFP to revive mandatory Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).

Karlos Manlupig, LFS-Southern Mindanao Regional Spokesperson, explained that the maneuvering of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Department of National Defense (DND) to resurrect the mandatory ROTC is an expression of the state’s militarist bent especially in reviving once again its plan to train young students for combat, intelligence and other military-related purposes.

Mandatory ROTC was abolished in 2001 after waves of massive protests were staged nationwide due to longstanding complaints of corruption, hazing, mental abuses and harassments of student leaders and activists. The ROTC abolition was also triggered by the murder of one Mark Chua, a student at the University of Sto. Tomas, in March 2001.

Chua exposed the corruption in the ROTC corps in the UST’s college newspaper, an expose which resulted in the relief of the ROTC commandant and his staff. As a result of his courageous act, he got death threats and was later assigned to undergo security training in Fort Bonifacio. He was killed a few days later, when his body was found floating in the Pasig river; his body bore torture marks, hands hogtied and face wrapped with packing tape

“Mandatory ROTC will resurrect once again the evils which Chua exposed, and which thousands of students have experienced. It will also foster campus militarization, mental and physical abuses, and additional financial burden to students and their families who are hardly able to cope with skyrocketing prices of tuition fees,” said Manlupig.

“There is no need for students to undergo ROTC because the purported trainings, as being justified by the AFP for the revival of the ROTC, are already being conducted under the NSTP-CWTS program. All students who underwent this program will automatically be reserve volunteers that may be deployed in times of calamities and emergencies,” said Manlupig.

The youth groups also lambasted the AFP’s logic that ROTC is the most effective program in teaching patriotism and discipline.

“Fascism is not synonymous to patriotism and discipline. If the government is sincere in teaching the youth patriotism, the most plausible option is to overhaul the colonial structure of our education system from and change it one that is nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented,” Manlupig said.

He added, “The people, particularly the youth, has rejected ROTC already. We cannot afford to see another Mark Chua who will die brutally under the hands of ROTC and the military personnel,” Manlupig said.#

Aug 2, 2010

Youth alarmed over Pnoy's public-private partnership, says it will make education less accessible

The youth raises the alarm today after failing to hear from Aquino concrete plans to address the education crisis in his first ever State of the Nations Address.

“Instead of providing solutions to the dismal state of the country’s education system, Pnoy ironically prioritized public-private partnership and foreign investments,” said Karlos Manlupig, League of Filipino Students Regional Spokesperson.

The group expressed its fear that Aquino's public-private partnerships will open our gates to gross foreign exploitation and will only intensify the commercialization and privatization of education.

According to KABATAAN Partylist Representative Raymond Palatino, “Opening further the education sector to private and foreign investors would only make education less accessible to the youth. It does not at all address the need for higher state subsidy nor the yearly tuition and other fee hikes that hound the education sector."

The youth solon said that the present education crisis is characterized mainly by the commercialization of public education in order to cope with low government spending. "The burden of budget cuts and poor education spending is being shouldered by students through exorbitant tuition and other fee hikes. Aquino failed to present this sorry state of Philippine education in his speech."

“We urge Aquino to seriously consider and review the youth's education agenda:
• Increase state spending on education to six (6) percent of the GDP.
• Implement a three-year moratorium on tuition and other fee increases in all levels.
• Promote a nationalist curriculum.
• Uphold democratic rights of students
• Improve teachers’ welfare.
• Improve science, research and technology development.
• Promote transparency and sanction corruption cases in education programs and contracts.
• Review existing policies and institutions of education.

a. Repeal Education Act of 1982.
b. Repeal Campus Journalism Act of 1991.
c. Revamp the government policy of reducing the budget of state universities and colleges.
d. Review and strengthen the regulatory powers of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Department of Education (DepEd)

In Davao City, existence of repressive policies like the BASE 20 Policy in the University of Mindanao are affecting thousands of students.

“Noy said “pwede ng muling mangarap.” But to merely dream is folly amidst the realities we are facing. The supposed hope of the nation-- the youth-- do no want to merely dream. We want concrete solutions to the economic, political and cultural realities that are posing obstacles to us being the hope of the nation,” Manlupig concluded. ###

Photo: Pinoy Weekly (Boy Bagwis)