The CSSP Student Council spearheaded the first KAPPulungan+ for the current academic year, an annual dialogue between the CSSP administration and students on September 24, Friday.
The CSSP student body expressed concerns and demands that had been raised during the Student Assembly held last August 26.
CSSP SC discussed the summary of the responses and resolutions for student concerns on academics, health and economic grievances, and democratic rights. They also presented student demands for academic ease, in-person classes and fieldwork, easier org recognition processes, increased org funding, better student aid and services, and support for campus publications, in promoting press freedom, and other formations.
On Org Recognition Processes
The calls for the lowering of the required number of faculty advisors for org recognition was addressed. Students conveyed their difficulties in getting faculty members to agree in becoming advisors of their respective orgs. In response to this, CSSP OSA Coordinator Jay-Ar Igno stated that the guidelines for org recognition have been made easier; organizations do not need to find two advisors; however, it is still highly recommended for them to do so.
“Hindi naman talaga totally required na dalawa ang adviser, we highly encourage lang. Para kapag hindi available ‘yung isa, pwede ‘yung isa ‘yung pumunta sa mga activities,”said Igno.
CSSP OSA Coordinator Igno also announced the extensions for org interviews.
On Student Representation and Special Elections
As the position for the Anthropology Department Representative remains vacant, the concerns and grievances of its students remain underrepresented in the student council. On the other hand, the CSSP SC Constitution Article VIII Section 8, special elections must be conducted so that the interests of Anthropology students can be accomodated and considered in all the decision making processes of the student council.
In line with this, Igno stated that the OSA has already filed a request of assistance to the OVCSA for the process of the special elections. According to him, the earliest timeline of the elections would be in the first week of October.
On Org Funding and SC Plans for Student Needs
CSSP organizations, most particularly, SINAG, raised issues regarding the publication’s lack of funds.
CSSP Dean Maria Bernadette Abrera stated that the office will help follow-up the funding concerns to the OVCSA; however, Abrera stated that UP no longer collects fees from its students since the enactment of the Free Tuition Law; hence, the administration can only demand the budget from CHED.
She further revealed that CHED still has “outstanding balances” to UP and there are no guaranteed updates regarding funding issues.
Furthermore, Dean Abrera inquired about the student council’s plans for student concerns; however, according to CSSP SC Chairperson Neo Aison, the summary of issues, contexts, and demands have already been emailed beforehand.
On Face-to-Face Classes
The student council also presented the calls for in-person classes and fieldwork for CSSP majors. However, although the Dean has talkezd with the faculty about plans concerning the timeline and framework for face-to-face classes, its feasibility remains in question.
“Napakastringent when we asked for face-to-face activities. Maraming layers yan. Napakatindi ng requirements”,Dean Abrera stated, citing the supposed one-week seminar by a certain CSSP Department and the incoming Bar Exam in November.
According to the Dean, in-person classes for the second semester of this academic year are unlikely.
On Student Democratic Rights
Recently, SINAG became the target of mass reports from state-sponsored online trolls which led to unwarranted sanctions on Facebook and a permanent suspension on Twitter. As such, SINAG demands certification from the administration recognizing that they are a legitimate student publication in CSSP and UP.
As per CSSP OSA Coordinator Igno, the incidents of red-tagging towards the publication is said to have already been forwarded to the UP Security Committee for investigation. He also said that SINAG’s certification has already been signed to help assert the publication’s legitimacy.
Dean Abrera, on the other hand, suggested that SINAG communicate with their faculty advisors to assess and evaluate how the publication can work around the existence of online trolls.
However, the publication has repeatedly struggled through the shut down of their platforms, while consistently appealing to both Facebook and Twitter. Consequently, SINAG has raised this matter to the administration yet, any active response remains bleak.
Several CSSP organizations also asserted their demands for institutional support, especially since press freedom remains under threat. They demanded the release of a strongly-worded statement from the CSSP administration pertaining to the red-tagging attacks that students and formations from CSSP have experienced.
However, Dean Abrera stated that the issuance of statements for incidents of red-tagging would be on a case-to-case basis.
According to the Dean, the College Executive Board (CEB) has decided that there will be no automatic release of statements for these kinds of incidents as it would “water down” the essence and impact for which the letter is intended to.
“You report it first to the OSA. Tapos ‘yung OSA ang magkakaroon ng evaluation and investigation into the incident. And then it will advise the College Executive Board about the details of the incident,”said Dean Abrera.
Responding to this, SINAG Managing Director Angelo Marfil questioned the inconsistency of the administration’s policy on releasing statements.
“Hindi po namin ma-gets [kung] ano po ‘yung rationale kung nawawala ‘yung essence sa ka-everytime na maglalabas ng statements kung harm has been done already to students of the college? It wouldn’t be so much [of a] burden for the administration to support its students even in the level of a strongly-worded statement kasi malaking moral support po ‘yun sa amin,”Marfil stated, citing experiences of state terror and red-tagging.
“We continue to fight because alam namin na kailangan natin magbuo pa ng mga unities …. Kasi ‘yung gravity po at ‘yung pagiging common or madalas ng mga atakeng ito, it necessitates a statement from the college that we know na sinusuportahan kami, hindi lang ‘dun sa formal processes but also the values that we are united,”Marfil added.
While the organizations reiterated their calls for administrative support, citing the previous attacks on the college and its students, no specific answers were received nor were there concrete action steps that were raised.
Although Dean Abrera admits that the last CSSP statement issued was during the arrests of Joshua Marcial and Jim Magno last May 1, 2020, the Dean made no commitments of issuing a statement to address the red-tagging of the state on members of the CSSP community.
Featured image courtesy of Angelo Marfil
