Only 19 members of the UP Diliman Police (UPDP) protect and oversee UP Diliman’s (UPD) 493-hectare campus, putting into question the university's capability of securing its constituents amid threats affecting the academe. And on top of it, the university’s own law enforcement agents also have to endure delays in their already measly salary.

The UPD administration said it has already requested additional items with higher wages for UPDP, but such a request remains in limbo, considering that the national government has proposed a P2.5-billion budget cut for UP in 2023.

While the UPDP is not the sole office responsible for safety and security on campus, the Special Services Brigade (SSB) and security guards likewise face similar woes—contractualization, and low and delayed compensation.

Labor Issues

A member of the UPDP receives a daily salary of P867, with no additional benefits, for an eight-hour shift. Meanwhile, a captain of the UPDP collects at least P29,798 per month. In comparison, an entry-level police officer in the Philippine National Police (PNP) receives P29,668 per month, just slightly lower than what a captain in the UPDP gets.

“Halos isa’t kalahating buwan bago kami sumasahod. Napakahirap sa amin kasi dati, every 15 days nakakasuweldo na kami o kaya kung ma-delay man, five days lang. Pero itong UP, medyo bumagal po yung proseso ng aming pangkabuhayan,” said a member of the university police who requested anonymity.

He said his wife takes care of their two children, making him the sole working member of the family. The eldest child is still in first grade while the youngest is an infant.

“May bayarin kami bawat araw, kailangan ng pamasahe’t pagkain ng pamilya namin. So, yung isa’t kalahating buwan, napakabigat kung sasahod kami nang ganun lang kababa. Napakabagal pa ng sistema ng pagpapasuweldo,” he added.

He has been an employee of the university for 19 years and is already accustomed to working long shifts. However, what sets him back, along with his coworkers, is the snail-paced system of salary processing. He said he has been paid only once over the course of working for two months due to delays.

“Dapat napapabilis naman sana kasi yung [daily time record] namin noong isang kinsenas pa nasa kanila. So anong mangyayari, bago pa dumating ang accounting, yung proseso, two weeks mahigit din. So napakabagal ng sistema ng pagpapasuweldo,” he lamented.

It is not just the UPDP as SSB members also face a similar predicament. In 2019, 83 members of the SSB took turns for three shifts in a day. However, when the university closed in 2020 due to the pandemic, a large number of employees were cut back as per the new terms of reference of their employment contracts.

The exact situation was faced by security guards. In June, hundreds of guards were laid off as the Femjeg Security Agency took over, after the contract with Grand Meritus Security Agency expired.

Collectively, the UPDP, SSB, and security guards form part of the university’s security forces. The UPDP was mandated when the UP-DND Accord was signed in 1989. Under the pact, UP was required to “strengthen [its] own security, police and fire-fighting capabilities … to leave no vacuum that can be exploited by malefactors or criminal elements.”

Communal Effort

For Edgie Francis Uyanguren, director of the Public Safety and Security Office (PSSO), safety and security on campus is everyone’s responsibility, and is not merely exclusive to the university’s security officers. The PSSO is the office responsible for campus security, and supervises the UPDP, SSB, and security guards.

To fill the lack of security force, the PSSO is sending out requests to the university to hire personnel who would become the next UPDP officers. However, with UPD’s status as a government entity, it is, ultimately, the national government’s decision to allocate plantilla items and budget for the hiring of employees.

Since in-person classes are expected in the coming semester, adapting a communal approach to campus security is the PSSO’s temporary fix. The “old ways” of the security personnel as the sole bearers for safety, Uyanguren said, will not be feasible to accommodate the influx of people entering university grounds.

And so, Uyanguren is advocating for “empowering everyone to do their part and informing people that they can actually report any dubious behavior.”

Under such a security framework, the UPDP is asking the university community to immediately report concerns or suspicious activities to their official Facebook page, hotlines, or proceed directly to their office. Details of the platforms where they can be contacted are posted on their page, UP Diliman Police.

Despite having only 19 officers in the UPDP, Uyanguren said his team is working efficiently with all they have, even if it means that “the work that 100 people should be doing is being done by one to two persons." Skills training is also being conducted to update the police’s abilities in terms of security and safety to “cultivate a culture of safety in the campus,” notwithstanding the small number of personnel.

Uyanguren does not deny that there have been reports of crimes on campus, and so the team maps the risk areas in UPD and sees to it that there are security personnel present and deployed in those areas, in addition to having roving teams coordinating surprise visits and regular vicinity checks.

UP’s supposed failure to prevent crimes on campus has been one of the government’s reasons in unilaterally abrogating the UP-DND Accord, an agreement that required the military and police to seek prior notification before entering UP campuses. Immediately after the termination, the PNP called UP a “hotspot for crime” and even claimed that a so-called shabu laboratory was located inside the campus. UP refuted the baseless accusations.

Among the crimes recorded in the Brgy. UP Campus, only 1 percent was related to drugs and none of those incidents involved members of the academic community. There was even a 63-percent decrease in the crime rate, from 247 in 2019 to 91 in 2020, according to UP's statement.

Despite the relatively low crime occurrence, the university still needs to hire more security personnel as new infrastructure are being built, such as the College of Arts and Letters building and the new portal near the College of Fine Arts, said Uyanguren.

The UPD Human Resource Development Office (HRDO) is responsible for reviewing the duties and responsibilities of the personnel. Uyanguren is hoping that HRDO takes the welfare of the police force into account in reforming the position and compensation of the UPDP to alleviate concerns on salary and personnel shortage.

Reforms Remain a Work in Progress

Uyanguren said that a holistic approach must be employed in responding to UPD’s lack of police. “Security is not only about fighting the bad people, but it's also taking care of the community, and the community includes the security teams. Dumadami yung threats sa Marcos regime, so we need to really strengthen our own,” he added.

The university is not new to being branded as subversive and anti-government. This form of intimidation calls for tighter security to maintain the peace of the academic and residential communities in UP, added Uyanguren.

In response to this, UPD has protocols in place to address red-tagging situations involving students by having them coordinate with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs (OVCSA), which serves as the crisis manager for an incident, overseeing each action to guide and ensure a student's safety.

"Security has something to do with the collective practices, dapat may say ang bawat isa sa community. Kapag maganda yung partnership ng UPDP sa community, information and communication can be facilitated from it, reports would come in, di na parang natatago lang kasi natatakot sila," said Uyanguren.

Aside from maintaining peace and order, the UPDP has also been investing effort in improving training to handle special cases, like alloting an additional women and children’s desk. Accordingly, the police force is practicing proper management of cases to build a good rapport with the UP community.

However, the UPDP’s efforts to connect with the community will remain futile if equipment and personnel shortage persist and calls to bridge the gap continue to be unheard. “Wag sana i-replace, kundi i-complement yung mga tao gamit ang mga makabagong gamit. Better facilities mean better service,” said Uyanguren.

Uyanguren is calling for the cooperation of the university administration in looking into directly hiring personnel rather than coordinating with different security agencies every year. He said the UP administration may consider revisiting the policies on contractualization to create better opportunities for the university’s security sector. The scheme of directly hiring security personnel is currently being studied by the UPD administration.

Amid the calls for paradigm shifts and communal efforts, the UPDP continues to face setbacks like delayed salary and inadequate compensation. For members of the UPDP, their primary concern is their wages which they are hoping to receive on time.

“Dalawang buwan na [ang nakalipas], pero isang beses pa lang kami sumesuweldo. Hinihintay na namin yung suweldo. Karamihan sa aming matatagal na, may pamilya rin na umaasa lang din naman dito, naghihirap sa ngayon,” said the member of UPDP. “Nahihirapan na kami.” ●

With contribution from Elan Samuel Lunas.