Former UP president Alfredo Pascual is once again a member of UP’s highest governing body, the Board of Regents (BOR)—this time as an appointee of Malacañang, the UP Alumni Association announced Monday.
The former UP president enters a BOR under fire for its opaque governance and tacit approval of anti-community policies in the university, a trend that may only worsen given Pascual’s history of similar pro-commercialization and anti-student policies.
“Definitely we can expect another advocate for neoliberal policies sa loob ng BOR, sa usapin ng academic policies, tuition and other fees, and privatization of UP's assets. Definitely may semblance pa rin ng legacy niya as former President yung current state ng UP ngayon,” Student Regent Francesca Duran told the Collegian.
Under his term as UP president, Pascual pushed for the commercialization of the university’s assets, overseeing the opening of UP Town Center in 2013.
He also drew flak for his implementation of the social tuition and financial assistance program, marked by soaring tuition fees, bureaucratic applications, and policies against indigent students. In fact, it was only after the death of UP Manila student Kristel Tejada in 2013 that Pascual decided to lift the university’s no late payment policy.
It was also Pascual’s administration back in 2016, enacted by 2018, that proposed the latest cut to the university’s general education (GE) curriculum, cutting the required units from 45 to a minimum of 21. He will now be part of the decision-making body that will decide on the UP system administration’s UP Core Curriculum that seeks to cut the GE program further to a maximum of 30 units.
Pascual expressed support for the abolishment of GE courses in college and moving them to the senior high school curriculum as trade secretary back in 2022.
Pascual was a member of the board twice before, first as alumni regent from 2009 to 2010, then as UP president from 2011 to 2017. He served as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s trade secretary before resigning last year to “return to the private sector.”
He now returns to the BOR to replace another Malacañang appointee, Gladys S.J. Tiongco, whose term expired on Nov. 14, 2024. Marcos opted not to reappoint Tiongco despite an October 2024 BOR resolution urging him to do so.
“It seems like Pascual's time is not much different today. …The challenge remains for the University's highest decision-making body, the Board of Regents, to heed the calls of the community it is meant to serve, and to uphold the public character of UP that it is mandated upon,” Student Regent Duran said in a Facebook post. ●
