Chancellor Edgardo Carlo Vistan’s vision for UP Diliman is still far from being realized, approaching two years into his term. The bedrock of UP education’s honor and excellence, the core curriculum, is under threat of revision. The campus’s status as a cultural haven is unachievable through deals inked with state forces. Supposed sustainable development has metamorphosed into unending commercialization in the campus.
Perhaps it is unfair to judge Vistan based on these developments. After all, most of these have come at the behest of the system administration above him. But the fact remains that the effects of UP President Angelo Jimenez’s measures are felt strongly in UP Diliman, whether it be the maintenance of unjust lease deals as exemplified in the DiliMall contract, failure to expedite long-delayed academic infrastructures, or the entry of military forces in the campus through a cooperation agreement signed by Jimenez.
Whatever power dynamics exist between the president‘s and the chancellor’s administrations, Vistan’s primary commitment is to his Diliman constituents. His words should echo the calls of the sectors and promote the holistic development of the campus, as he forwarded in his three-point agenda. His actions should aim to defend the community, not to appease the administration or the board across Quezon Hall. If these are the standards by which Vistan is to be judged, then he has surely failed.
Vistan’s muted leadership has only harmed the already beleaguered community. His own officials have further entrenched campus commercialization through clearing operations, unconsulted jeepney modernization efforts, and the conversion of student spaces into profit-oriented hubs. Without any guardrails from the Diliman administration, sectors have had to defend themselves alone from the system’s detrimental policies.
The community has banded together to fill the leadership void, through multisectoral alliances such as the Defend UP Network, UP Act Against Corruption Network, UP Not For Sale Network, and the UP Multisectoral Alliance. But the presence of Diliman officials is sorely missed as sectors clash with the system administration, and with President Jimenez himself.
The chancellor cannot feign ignorance to these concerns since he already held multiple consultations and courtesy calls with the community. But with so few translating into concrete mechanisms and connections with existing networks, Vistan’s vision of a strengthened community becomes out of reach.
With one year left in his term, time is running out for the chancellor to stand with the sectors he purportedly wants to serve. Such action could start by providing proper spaces to students, faculty, and staff affected by delays in the Faculty Center, Main Library, and other infrastructure projects. For projects outside of his control, the administration’s resources, such as the Diliman Legal Office, could also review how these delayed projects can be brought back into the hands of UP Diliman. Vistan is also in a position to champion student welfare and support by effectively streamlining bureaucratic processes in the disbursement of wages of student and graduate assistants and institutionalizing PsycServ.
Equally important is the chancellor’s capability to bring these issues to the Board of Regents through the University Council, of which he is the chairperson. If the council can speak out on the opaque selection process of officials, Jimenez’s silence on charter change, and Duterte’s arrest by the International Criminal Court, then the chancellor should also lead the council in speaking out against the issues that beset the Diliman community.
Reactive actions are not enough against a system administration hellbent on reshaping the campus in its twisted vision of a global but gentrified university. Vistan instead must shed his muted style, pick up the megaphone, and amplify the calls of the sectors to both the Board of Regents and the system administration.
Vistan only has one year left in his term to materialize his envisioned community-centered leadership. Time is running out for him to rewrite his legacy. ●
First published in the April 8, 2025, print edition of the Collegian.
