UP ROTC alumni express grave concern, ask DND to reconsider ending accord By TED CORDERO, GMA News
Published January 22, 2021 5:07pm The UP Vanguard Inc. is calling on the Department of National Defense (DND) to reconsider its termination of a 31-year-old agreement with the University of Philippines banning the entry into the university of military and police forces without prior coordination with UP officials. “The UP Vanguard Inc. joins the whole University of the Philippines (UP) community in expressing its grave concern on the unilateral abrogation by the Department of National Defense (DND) of the 1989 agreement with UP,” the organization said in a statement.
SunStar SJI s No Signal wins 2nd place at A Projected Vision film fest BACOLOD. In photo are Felicity Ibrado - Actress, Alberto Manuel O. Arceo IV - Director/Editor, Ken Joseph Ong - Co-Director/Videographer, Kately Sayson - Assistant and Potche Timtim- Driver. (Contributed photo)
BACOLOD. Recognition. (Contributed photo)
BACOLOD. Felicity Ibrado - Actress and Alberto Manuel O. Arceo IV - Director/Editor during their film shooting. (Contributed photo)
BACOLOD. The Film: No Signal. (Contributed photo)
BACOLOD. PORTRAIT of Alberto Manuel O. Arceo IV during his Rotary Exchange (Rotex) stint. (Contributed photo) BACOLOD. Alberto Manuel O. Arceo IV - Director/Editor and Ken Joseph Ong - Co-Director/Videographer, nominees for Best Film entitled: No Signal. (Contributed photo)
RJ Nieto
In a nutshell, the 1981 Soto-Enrile Accord is a document where then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile promised UP student activist Sonya Sotto that the military and police would not enter the University of the Philippines without advance notice to senior UP officials. The 1989 UP-DND Agreement is basically a reiteration of the 1981 accord.
The present controversy stems from government’s decision to cancel the agreement, with the Palace argueing that the conditions set in the documents unnecessarily encumber the government. The UP community disagreed and said the agreement is indispensable in ensuring academic freedom.
With these said, let me ask a few questions.
'We – UP administrators, professors, students, researchers, administrative and support staff, alumni, all academics in the country, and all Filipinos of good will – must all stand together against this travesty'
No safe space for Philippines’ Indigenous youth as military allowed on campus
by Mongabay.com on 22 January 2021
The Philippines’ Department of National Defense has unilaterally terminated an accord that ensured the 17 campuses of the University of the Philippines were off-limits to the military and police.
The defense secretary justified the move by alleging that insurgents from the banned communist party and its armed wing are using the campuses’ sanctuary status as cover for their recruitment and propaganda purposes.
The decision has alarmed displaced Indigenous students who are harboring at UP’s Quezon City campus after the military bombed or took over their schools in a counter-insurgency campaign that began in 2018.