UP Diliman (UPD) on Thursday became the third constituent university (CU) to form a body that will review and craft policies to promote the “basic freedoms and rights” of the university community.

Chancellor Edgardo Carlo Vistan signed an administrative order creating the Committee on the Protection of Freedoms and Rights on February 26. The committee, tasked to craft policies and programs, formally began its work on Friday and must submit its initial recommendations by April 30. 

It is to be chaired by Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs Roehl Jamon, and composed of other heads of UPD offices, representatives from the University Student Council, All UP Academic Employees Union, and All UP Workers Union, and the UP Campus barangay captain.

“These freedoms and rights … enable the University's constituents to work towards fulfilling the University's mandate. Unfortunately … members of the UP Diliman community have been at the receiving end of various forms of harassment and similar threats to or violations of their freedoms and rights,” read the administrative order signed by Vistan. 

The proposal to create a Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Academic Freedom and Human Rights (CAFHR), on both a CU and system level, was adopted on February 2, 2023, during the Tipunan assembly of the Office of the Faculty Regent (OFR). It was proposed following cases of abduction, surveillance, and red-tagging of UP constituents.

UP Cebu had already established such a committee in August 2022, while UP Manila was the first to institute one after the Tipunan assembly. 

Official statements of support for the committee were also released by the University Councils (UC) of UP Baguio and UP Visayas in 2023, and then UP Mindanao on Thursday. The UC is the highest academic body of a CU. 

Despite these calls, however, the UP administration has yet to initiate the institutionalization of the CAFHR across the system. The OFR and other sectors elevated the proposal to UP President Angelo Jimenez on April 26, 2023, but the committee has still yet to gain traction on a systemwide level.

“The University needs to do more to protect its faculty, staff, and students in the conduct of their academic and public service, and to ensure that our campuses remain a safe haven for political thought and action,” said Faculty Regent Carl Marc Ramota on the third anniversary of the unilateral abrogation of the UP-DND accord on January 18. ●