Only rage and revulsion must meet the questionable selection of Angelo Jimenez to be the next UP president. Only militancy and the strongest assertion of our demands must meet his administration. There will be no time for dithering once Jimenez assumes the presidency in February 2023.
Until the end, it seemed like the presidential selection would go our way. After all, only chants in support of UP Diliman Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo reverberated through Quezon Hall the entire December 9. But our demands fell on deaf ears as politics, not merit; brotherhood, not the community; secrecy, not transparency prevailed again in the boardroom. Jimenez’s selection was only made possible by an unrepresentative UP Board of Regents (BOR).
According to the student regent, Nemenzo was unable to proceed to the succeeding rounds of voting. In the end, our sectoral regents had no choice but to vote between Jimenez and former UP Los Baños (UPLB) Chancellor Fernando Sanchez Jr. as they were the remaining nominees in the subsequent balloting. Our representatives in the board were left with no choice but to pick between the candidates who were not even supported–and even condemned–by the UP community.
Sanchez, for instance, has been vehemently opposed by the students due to his anti-student policies during his time as UPLB chancellor. He presided over the failed implementation of the SAIS and notoriously rejected hundreds of readmission applications. Jimenez had likewise shown a similar distaste for students during his time as a Malacañang regent. In 2020, the former regent consistently voted against mass promotion and academic easing policies in the BOR. He was also part of the BOR that approved an honorary UP degree for Rodrigo Duterte, only to have the plan aborted after massive condemnation.
Jimenez’s position against the UP-DND Accord–that it has been rendered null by the UP-DILG Accord–must be sufficient justification to continue our strong condemnation of his selection. As a former student leader in the late 1980s, Jimenez should have been at the forefront in understanding how students’ democratic and human rights can easily be snatched when state forces are allowed to encroach on the university.
Jimenez’s aversion to the UP-DND Accord is an invitation writ large for the military to permeate the campus. Be it in the guise of “gardening” or any other supposed innocent activities, the university’s lack of protection from military incursions remains a threat. Jimenez risks UP’s academic freedom. At a time when UP should be at the forefront of opposing the Marcos regime, the incoming president’s disregard for the protection offered by the UP-DND Accord is appalling and contravenes his duty to uphold UP’s autonomy.
A Jimenez administration not only risks our safety and security but also imperils communities and workers’ rights. His disdain for regularizing all UP workers because there are “certain jobs that are not permanent” is abominable. The university’s need for job orders or “emergency workers” is itself a manifestation of poor planning and lack of foresight of the university’s needs. If it will be business as usual, we can expect the number of contractuals, lecturers, and job orders to continue rising under his presidency.
In the long term, ultimately, it will be the communities who will be at the losing end of a Jimenez presidency. Mere hours after his selection, the president-select faced an emotional Ate Bebang, a longtime Pook Malinis community leader, who asked Jimenez about his stance on the urban poor residents on campus. Far from reassuring, Jimenez’s answer resorted to legalese, saying UP lands must be used by the university alone–strikingly similar to the current UP administration’s construction compulsion at the expense of displacing communities.
The danger of an unabated and unrelenting Jimenez administration cannot be overstated. Even during Jimenez’s first dialogue, organized by the student regent, with the UP community earlier, he remained noncommittal to our nonnegotiables: the institutionalization of the UP-DND Accord, support for student formations, strengthened workers’ rights, and humane treatment of our communities. Should Jimenez remain obstinate in his contentious stances, he is effectively abandoning his duty as the leader of the national university.
With our indignation still vigorous, it becomes essential to consolidate our ranks and unite anew to assert our well-meaning demands and campaigns to the upcoming administration. A constant watching eye and our collective militancy will be our only defense against a regressive UP presidency–and we can only do such if we have the numbers. As we mobilize ourselves, it is equally important to incessantly broaden our ranks by tirelessly organizing across students, workers, faculty, and communities.
We shall surround Quezon Hall with vigilance—from Jimenez’s appointments of university officials, voting record in the BOR, and even his own fraternity. We shall guard the gates and barricade Quezon Hall to extract commitment and assurance that our demands will be met.
While the tragedy of our campaign to select a better UP president remains fresh, this is also the time to assess our past efforts, reckon with our mishaps, and move forward. Beyond the president selection, the UP community will still have to deal with the equally vital selection of the chancellors of Diliman, Los Baños, Manila, and Visayas next year.
In a few months, Jimenez will have the power to drastically change the national university in one stroke of a pen. But with our strong assertion and collective efforts, we can wield our power to decide for ourselves the path that UP will take–notwithstanding the regents or what their backers dictate. After all, neither the regents nor Jimenez’s cohorts can prevent our uproars from being heeded beyond his office and beyond the boardroom. ●
