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In a few days, Dr. Fidel Nemenzo will settle in Quezon Hall’s south wing as UP Diliman’s 10th chancellor. While his appointment is seen as a victory for the community, the campaign to sway the UP Board of Regents (BOR) to heed sectoral concerns had been prompted by anxiety about a process that has often eluded genuine participation.

Throughout its history, the race for chancellorship has not only been one of careerism, but more importantly, one of ideological and political struggles. Whoever emerges victorious would steer the university either through a path toward subservience to the state or one of service to the people.

𝗗𝗼𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 D𝗼𝘂𝗯𝘁

Skepticism toward the chancellorship originated from an interrogation of the position itself. By 1983, the multi-campus setup of the UP system necessitated decentralization that saw the institution of a chancellor as head of each autonomous campus. In Diliman, UP President Edgardo Angara first held the position while awaiting the appointment of a regular chancellor.

Outside the campus, the Marcos regime was starting to wane, opposed overwhelmingly by UP which, over the last decade, had been forced to take a stand at the precipice.

Turbulent ground-bred controversy. When Angara constituted a search committee to select the next chancellor, the League of College Councils requested deferral of the selection until further analysis had been done. It worried that the position might “probably add to the ‘bureaucratic’ red tape of the university.”

Yet Angara’s decision was inevitable. Late in 1983, he nominated acting vice chancellor for community affairs Ernesto Tabujara as acting chancellor. Tabujara began his five-year term in 1985, reiterating pro-student concerns.

But when students demanded to freeze all fee increases after an initial hike, Tabujara argued how imposing a 169-percent tuition increase staggered throughout four semesters was “a kind gesture on the part of the administration.

While students participated actively in the tumult of 1986, the administration’s role seemed to have been marginal. Some faculty opted to hold teach-ins amid the Marcos ouster, but days later Tabujara issued a back-to-school order. Prof. Felipe Miranda, chair of the faculty organization UP Academic Community, said such an attitude that insisted everything could go back to normal “oversimplifies realities.”

Toward the end, Tabujara faced accusations of graft which he claimed were part of a ploy to pressure university officials to resign so that President Jose Abueva, who had been appointed through President Corazon Aquino’s intervention, may have a “free hand” in creating his team. Such claims provide insight into the power play that lingers in the high halls of the university.

𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗳 C𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲

With the chancellorship now embedded in UP’s administrative infrastructure and subject to its power dynamics, scrutiny focused on term transitions.

Tabujara’s end of term in 1990 allowed Abueva to experiment with a “unified leadership” where he would be Diliman chancellor and president simultaneously, in a bid to streamline policies like the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program (STFAP), a bracketing system based on a student’s socioeconomic status.

Qualms about “limited democracy” compelled Abueva to consult with the faculty after a year of his proposed setup. Their reservations were confirmed as 472 of the 863 faculty voted against its continuation.

The ensuing search process had straw polls assist the BOR’s decision. But this display of democracy was dubious; for one, faculty preference carried 60 percent more weight compared with other sectors. A Collegian article, then, noted that, according to an anonymous source, the inhibition of some constituents from voting and the polls’ shifting schedule prevented a truly representative result.

Prof. Emerlinda Roman, who then became chancellor with 3,040 votes, said in a recent interview: “I don’t necessarily completely agree na that is how it should be done, kasi there has got to be a more scientific way of determining sino ang choice.” By the time of her appointment, Roman had already mastered the tricks of the trade, having navigated the ranks, including vice chancellor and UP secretary posts.

She proved to favor income generation and commercial leasing. In 1992, facing protests for sectoral demands, she seemed to foreshadow what was to come within a decade: “Financial constraint, whether we like it or not, is a reality.”

The next year, Dr. Roger Posadas became Roman’s successor after a search bereft of straw polls—only public forums, sectoral consultations, and interviews. Protests spurned his appointment in light of President Emil Javier’s controversial election despite the latter’s alleged misuse of funds during his stint as UP Los Baños chancellor. For the protesters, to accept Posadas’s appointment was to recognize Javier’s credibility.

The UP Multi-Sectoral Assembly and the University Student Council demurred to the selection process—calling it “skewed and defective,” with most search committee members of senior faculty—and, to no avail, proposed an alternative involving open nominations, straw polls, symposiums and forums, and another straw balloting.

Taking its cue from Roman’s, Posadas’s administration created the 1994 Land Use Plan which reserved 17.8 percent of Diliman's land, including that along Commonwealth Avenue, for income generation.

But what gave Posadas’s term its distinction were his clashes with President Emil Javier, whose vision of UP’s future, outlined in UP Plan 2008, contradicted Posadas’s. He also criticized a UP Code provision granting the president power to review lower bodies’ decisions, pointing out implications on the units’ autonomy.

The tenuous relationship proved detrimental for Posadas who sought a second term but lost to chemistry professor Claro Llaguno in 1996. The enmity between the president and chancellor would not end here; it would culminate in Posadas’s dismissal over charges of graft.

Such a struggle depicts how connections in corridors of power determine who gets to be in the room. Llaguno proved smoother an instrument in Javier’s machinery, voicing no strong opposition to the UP Plan and arguing that “conversion of an idle property into something useful [is not] commercialization.”

𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗼𝗳 C𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘁

In surrender to state prescriptions, the momentum the UP bureaucracy maintained has long been challenged by the sectoral movements it has enraged. And where this apparatus allows for a modicum of participation, it becomes a struggle not only over titles but also between different political and ideological persuasions.

Roman became chancellor again for two terms and all throughout championed fiscal autonomy vis-a-vis President Gloria Arroyo’s request for Diliman’s self-sufficiency. She again hoisted plans to lease UP’s assets, including replacing the Shopping Center (SC) with a four-storey mall—because it “has become an eyesore.” Her plans also included developing the Commonwealth lot into a Science and Technology Park to strengthen links with the private sector, planting the seeds for the construction of the UP AyalaTechnoHub years later.

Her penchant for raising revenue manifested even in matters of academic concern, as in the approval of the Revitalized General Education Program (RGEP), which was premised on allowing students to choose their subjects. It was criticized as diluting the promotion of nationalism and social awareness, as well as an income-generation scheme where private companies could fund new subjects.

The first six chancellors before the turn of the new millennium shared a common thrust to modernize UP through commercialization. Such is the tradition that Nemenzo must either carry on with or run counter to.

Had those from 1983 come back to UP two decades after, many would find their worries confirmed. The chancellorship has become complicit with administrators trumping up schemes behind closed doors. While they continued to challenge the chancellor to speak out against the UP administration’s interests, the sectors knew their hopes found little resonance in halls indifferent to demands down below.

Yet for someone who has once barely missed death from the violence of state forces, having been shot at a protest rally in 1984, Nemenzo finds himself at a critical juncture. And in his own words, here where the situation requires taking a stand, he is challenged to take a stand.

Nemenzo had already graduated when the first chancellor became full-time in 1985. But since his return in the 90s, he has witnessed Diliman change with different chancellors at its helm, responding, by and large, to the same problems with the same solutions that have often proved injurious to the community.

Nemenzo will take on this role, no thanks to the BOR’s prudence. Rather, he was ushered into this position by the UP community’s sheer determination to assert its choice with a resolve to contend with a disputably democratic process, to hold the board accountable should it falter to listen.

While he has outlined a plan for Diliman’s future, Nemenzo must work conscientiously to avoid the missteps of his predecessors. His thrust to modernize the university and stimulate the synergy of disciplines must not come at the expense of UP’s public character, as many others who have come before him have done.

As the new chancellor takes strides toward excellence, he must not forget to anchor these on UP’s utmost duty to serve the people. He is invited to remember how once he marched on precarious roads, together with hundreds fighting for their rights, amid flags and chants of the unrelenting fervor to be free. ● 

First published in the Collegian on February 29, 2020.