I wish to convey this message to our fellow Iskolar ng Bayan to clarify on the matter of my tenure as Chairperson of the University Student Council of UP Diliman and hopefully lay to rest the issue so we may focus on the more pressing concerns of our University. It is my hope that this be forwarded to every student.
On the matter of my academic standing. Yes, it is true that I have been dismissed from the Psychology Department of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and am no longer a Student of the BS Psychology Program. I have been readmitted into the University and to the college on a Non-Major status and on the condition that I find a suitable degree program in the University to shift-in to. Now I plan to shift into the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature in the College of Arts and Letters in the Philippines Studies Program, in fact I have enrolled the courses required by the degree program I plan to shift-in to.
On the matter of my tenure as chair. I wish to reassure our fellow Iskolar ng Bayan that our USC and myself as chair are still working within the mandate of the students who we have sworn to serve as well as within the bounds of the USC constitution. While it has been brought to our attention that we should uphold the Electoral Code, we uphold the primacy and jurisdiction of the USC Constitution.
Personal circumstances, public implications. I understand that as a member of the USC–as Chairperson, my personal circumstances inevitably have public implications. At any rate I wish to reassure our fellow Iskolar ng Bayan that our institution–the USC, and our representation remains uncompromised*.
In the end we, as a community would need to rely on our collective action and principled stand to advance our interests. We have proven the strength of our united action especially in the previous month when we asserted for greater state subsidy and opposed the decreasing budgetary prioritization afforded to the education sector and other SUCs. Now that the 2011 National Budget has been approved our unity as a community will once again be tested as the State pushes Universities and other public institutions such as ours to shut its doors from the people it should serve, we are again faced with challenges to our unity as the State continues to promulgate policies to undermine our solidarity. With the entrance of a new UP President–Hon. Alfredo Pascual, and the upcoming selection of a new UP Diliman Chancellor we are asked to answer to a call to principled unity for UP as a Public University of the People in order to advance our practice and therefore our struggle for an education that is truly nationalistic, humanistic, and pro-people.
Chairperson
astin_rainy03@yahoo.com.ph
*Note on the correction: paumanhin sa typo error, ang intention po talaga ay sabihing UNcompromised and not compromised.
U.P. ISSUES 
Posted on January 25, 2011
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