The campaign season has come to an end and students are now tasked with choosing the next set of leaders in the University Student Council (USC). The two parties vying for seats in the USC have been holding daily campaign efforts for the past 19 days, scrambling to reach as many constituents as possible through their screens.

For its part, the UP Alyansa ng mga Mag-aaral para sa Panlipunang Katwiran at Kaunlaran (Alyansa) revolved its campaign on the slogan of “Let’s Redefine Normal.” The pitch is to “continue building on our [students’] strength and reject the normal that is being forced upon us.”

Over the past 10 years, the majority of Alyansa's USC electoral bets have been championing for change, such as in 2017 when the party won under the slogan “Pagbabagong Gusto Natin.” Now, they chose to incorporate the pandemic’s buzz-phrase of a “new normal” into their agenda for change.

But, as the health crisis blurs the lines of perceived normalcy before and during the pandemic, it begs the question of what norms must be changed. More importantly, is Alyansa's vision of a redefined normal reflective of what UP stakeholders want?

Why Redefine Normal?

A "new normal" seems to be the catchphrase of politicians in an attempt to create a pseudo-sense of progress in handling the pandemic while capitalizing on Filipinos’ resilience. To redefine this is well-meaning, but there have been confusions about what “normal” Alyansa wants to change: Is it just the present realities, or does it include the blunders of the pre-pandemic time?

“The new normal involves a mismanaged pandemic response that has kept us locked in our homes for more than a year and a remote learning setup that just forces us to submit outputs for the sake of meeting deadlines without actually digesting what we learn,” said Belle Ginez, former chairperson and now alumna of Alyansa.

Ginez’s takeaway from the party’s slogan is a redefinition of the country’s dire state shared among voters during the pandemic. However, a response to just the impacts of a year in quarantine is short-sighted, and in fact the party clarifies that its vision does not end there.

“Even the normal that we had before the pandemic, we were experiencing so many political and social issues under the Duterte administration, which have been exacerbated because of the health crisis,” Dana Mica “Daine” Torregosa, Alyansa's bet for USC chairperson, told the Collegian. “We cannot accept this as our new normal.”

More than the mobility restrictions and threats to health, the pandemic shone a spotlight on the longstanding plight of many Filipinos. The threats to democracy, Duterte’s misogyny, state harassment, and violence are just some of the examples that Torregosa cited.

The party is not alone in this perspective because, even at the onset of the pandemic, the opposing party has already pointed out that people’s struggles have always been there. “This is not the time to redefine normal. What is there to be defined when the masses have already defined, for the longest time, what they want and fight for,” said Izabelle “Iza” Dolores, the opposition’s bet for vice chairperson, during the UPFront 2021 debate.

STAND UP, the opposing party, has prided itself on its efforts to immerse with marginalized sectors. Alyansa, for its part, claims to have made strides in being one with the community, having, for one, partnered with SENTRO, a workers’ organization, according to one of its bets for councilor, Nicko Gabriel Gonzales, during UPFront.

The party has also included a platform in its Specific Plans of Action (SPOA) for consultation with university vendors and personnel, in what seems to be a response to previous criticisms of past Alyansa-dominated USCs over their lack of sectoral campaigns, specifically for UP workers.

“Wala nang nangyayari sa mga napagkasunduan ng mga lider-estudyante. Puro dialogue lang, wala namang mga aksyon,” Edna Sinoy, former president of the Samahan ng mga Manininda sa UP Campus, was quoted to have said of the Benjie Aquino-led USC, from 2017 to 2018, in a previous Collegian report.

The challenge, then, for the next USC leaders, is to bridge the gap between students and other sectors they purport to serve and, for this election’s candidates, to ensure that what they fight for comes across as clear and pertinent to the voters, even from a screen away.

Redefinition of Campaign

While the party has struggled to field questions about the scope and adequacy of its campaigns, it has got the drift of digital campaigning down pat. As tarpaulins and flyers turned into videos and infographics, the blue party did not shy away from boasting of its well-thought-out paraphernalia. From its professionally rendered video releases to a website that consolidates its SPOAs, credentials, and party history, its message is clear: Alyansa came into the election prepared.

A montage of a pre-pandemic UP Diliman, set to the tune of “Minsan” by Eraserheads, brings familiar scenes of the campus—joggers running around the Academic Oval, students going in and out of Palma Hall, people waiting for Ikot jeepneys to arrive. Alyansa's first campaign video displays side-by-side scenes of what has changed since the pandemic, showing Zoom rooms, laptop screens, and the now-empty classrooms and org lounges. 

Another video, released a week after the first one, asks UP constituents “What should normal look like?” Similarly, it highlights the changes brought on by the pandemic, except, here, they show a more rounded perspective: a teacher and graduate student talking about the difficulties of a work-from-home setup, a UP security personnel showing how empty the College of Arts and Letters building is now, an artist sharing how her room has become a studio instead of a place for rest.

“We wanted to put focus on the struggles of the UP students in this new normal,” Julie Corridor, Alyansa's electoral committee head, told the Collegian. “Gusto naming i-emphasize na yung normal na meron tayo ngayon ay isang pahirap lamang sa mga estudyante.”

But, more than the struggles of the students, these two campaign videos seem to have focused more on the nostalgia for the pre-pandemic UP life. “I miss UP Diliman. The video clips reminded me of the campus,” shared Esel Nanci Heeler, a third-year student, prefacing that despite appreciating Alyansa's campaign materials, she was not a supporter of the party.

Most of the party’s social media posts appeared as sponsored ads, which, as Torregosa clarified during UPFront, was due largely to their alumni’s donations. Within the first week of the campaign period, it has also flaunted on its official Facebook channels long and detailed lists of the bets’ credentials, which range from academic achievements to affiliations and even donation activities during the pandemic. This could prove a prudent strategy seeing as, based on the Collegian’s analysis of previous election cycles, UP students often consider more the individual candidates’ merits, than just the party’s, when deciding whom to vote for.

The party’s candidates also incorporated individual strategies such as song covers, Q&A video introductions, and even trendy TikTok videos that they relate to social issues—a gimmick present in both Alyansa and STAND candidates’ campaigns. They elaborated in these videos on the party’s SPOA, which, however, was a bit of an overdue move as they only did so in the last week of the campaign season.

In lieu of the room-to-room (RTR) campaigns, both parties have also given out Google forms for invites to introduce their slate and SPOA in classes, organizations, and even in cliques. Alyansa has received over 50 invites during the first week of campaign season alone, and during the RTRs, the party listened to the stories of the students—something that they kept on referencing during UPFront.

“I’d like to share a story” was how they often started their answers in the debate, then proceeding to relay a personal anecdote or one they had heard from RTRs. Striving for relatability is consistent with the party’s campaign strategies of showing how the candidates themselves share the dilemmas that ordinary students face.

The campaign season has revealed that the blue party has well-adjusted to the landscape of online campaigning. Whether its strategies will ultimately pay off in terms of votes is another story, one that also depends on how students perceive the principles of the party.

Redefinition of the Party

For a party that seeks a redefinition of normal, it is only imperative that, within its ranks, principles appear coherent and aligned with the sectors to whom, after all, the redefinition the party aspires to is directed.

Alyansa has long anchored its plans on progressive multi-perspective activism. But critics have pointed out how it dilutes responses to social issues, especially those that need immediate actions from the USC.

“It’s very untrue that we do not have concrete solutions on key issues. We recognize that the issues are multifaceted and require not only a single solution,” Torregosa said, during UPFront, when asked about their pluralistic approach. “Walang one-size-fits-all na solution.”

With this tendency to account for all outlooks on an issue, some Alyansa candidates have found themselves in hot water. For example, during UPFront, they were all for reforming and revising rather than junking the K-12 program. “In theory, we (Alyansa) believe K-12 has provisions that can be helpful for the education system. I highly value the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) program because we recognize that indigenous languages are in danger,” said Aaron Julius “AJ” Torres, one of the party’s bets for councilor, during the debate. UP students online responded to ALYANSA’s stance, saying that the MTB-MLE program need not be part of K-12 to be effective.

The timing of this stance could not come at a worse time, landing, as it does, right in the throes of a pandemic that has doubly made challenging the learning of university students borne of K-12 education, which has already left many of them behind.

The approach to agrarian justice is another diverging point between the two parties. While this issue has figured prominently in previous elections, it was not tackled in this year’s USC debates. It was, however, briefly talked about in Pasabog: The CSSP Elections Debate, where Buklod CSSP, a member organization of ALYANSA, was asked a yes-or-no question on the junking of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER). The party refused to give a direct answer, saying that the issue is complex and cannot be condensed to just Yes or No.

Historically, Alyansa has supported CARPER. Most farmers’ groups, however, oppose the law, which they believe retains some of the same loopholes that land owners exploit to cheat small farmers and farm workers.

The peasant sector, which has been the poorest of the poor for years, deserves to have their struggles, especially during the pandemic, highlighted more on the youth’s agenda for change. Alyansa would do well to align its perspective with the sector to help realize a “farmers-oriented long-term agrarian reform program,” as the party says so in its SPOA.

Just as the pandemic has forced among political actors a rethinking of principles and practices, so too must the norms of Alyansa's stances be redefined, as is expected of parties that adapt to their constituents’ concerns and the changing times. The people they aim to serve demands that of its future leaders.

Redefinition of the USC

Years and years of the Collegian’s assessments of USC terms have pointed to the lack of unity within as one of the barriers to an effective and efficient response from the highest student representation on campus.

For Torregosa, the next USC should focus on how to collaborate with and empower each other despite differences. “For this year, it goes beyond STAND and Alyansa,” she said. “Passionate leaders are running now—people who want to serve. So regardless of who wins, we should focus on points of unity.”

However, she also noted that students should vote based on a candidate’s merit and on the political party. By merit, she clarified that credentials like grades, extracurriculars, and others are some, but not all, the measures of one’s principles and work ethic; and by political party, she explained that a candidate’s affiliation is telling of their principles and preferences.

Indeed, the differences in principles have been the main reason for clashing party stances. On the heels of this year’s campaign period, another issue closer to home has once again surfaced. On June 5, Kenneth Eser Jose, former USC chairperson and STAND UP alumnus, posted on Facebook to call into question Alyansa's claim that only the party delivered in the previous council’s term, especially on the promise of the Magna Carta on Students’ Rights, a document that hopes to enshrine a legal basis for the formal declaration of the rights of UPD students.

“We [Alyansa] didn't fail to deliver our promises. Regarding the Magna Carta, we never claimed nor discredited the efforts of the USC,” Torregosa said in response, during UPFront. The issue has long split political parties in the university, with Alyansa and KAISA in favor of its passing. Only STAND UP expressed resistance to the Magna Carta’s initial draft, which the red party believed ultimately surrenders the assertion and interpretation of students’ rights to the UP Board of Regents despite the policymaking body’s history of enacting anti-student policies.

Some UP students have also expressed their disappointment in Alyansa's push for the Magna Carta, which they say the party only ever brings up during election season. This year, the party reiterated in its SPOA the need for the Magna Carta, citing academic ease as an example of what the document could have institutionalized as a student right.

Beyond assurances and platitudes, a united USC is what all students need and look forward to, especially in the face of the larger battles outside the university. With human rights under siege, the USC needs strong and compassionate voices to forward the calls of its constituents. It is a challenge to those running, especially Alyansa, to show that a redefined normal is possible without leaving anyone behind. ●