Editor’s Note: This report, originally run on Sept. 26, 2024, has been updated with interviews with the UP president and vice president for academic affairs. More than a month since the University of the Philippines (UP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) signed a “declaration of cooperation” (DOC) to conduct joint strategic research,...
Category: Education
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UP University Council thumbs down declaration of cooperation between UP and AFP
It has been more than a month since the University of the Philippines (UP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) signed a “declaration of cooperation” (DOC) to conduct joint strategic research, and even before the first research topic was announced, the University Council (UC) of UP Diliman put its foot down on the...
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Computer donation to benefit 53 schools in Angeles City
Operating on the principle that access to computers is essential for students, iQor Philippines, a managed services provider of customer engagement and technology-enabled business process outsourcing solutions, has donated 413 refurbished computers to the Department of Education (DepEd), benefiting 53 schools in Angeles City, Pampanga. The handover event, titled “Empowering Communities Through Education: iQor and...
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Sure, let’s discuss so-called ‘grade inflation’
A week after the commencement exercises of the University of the Philippines, an article in Rappler by UP faculty member and proud summa cum laude graduate JC Punongbayan titled “Let’s discuss grade inflation in the Philippines” made the rounds in social media. It eventually reached my own Facebook feed because my newly graduated former students, many...
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Digital martial law library launched, ‘to ensure that all Filipinos will remember’
With the click of a button, you’ll find a copy of Proclamation 1081; read excerpts of hard-to-find memoirs, including Benigno Aquino Jr.’s “Testament from A Prison Cell”; or view videos of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in the heyday of martial law. The possibilities are endless when you visit the Ateneo Martial Law Library and Museum...
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To nourish a legacy of criticism and scholarship in the academe
In this age where power continuously redefines and reinvents itself, the response of an enlightened academe is clear: to critique, interrogate, and resist. It was in September when the secretariat started planning for the 3rd Edel Garcellano Conference on Literary and Cultural Studies at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Santa Mesa, Manila....
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Punlaan School provides fertile ground for women empowerment
Long before women empowerment became a global movement, Filipino women had been holding their own in the home and the community. In precolonial times, they held equal status with men. Colonizers may have redefined their role in society, but they strove to defy their demotion, asserting their rights and capabilities while rallying around one another. ...
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University student’s tragic death prompts calls for academic reforms
Some 100 members of the Far Eastern University (FEU) community gathered on the night of July 20 for a prayer vigil for Keilo Acuin, a 22-year-old medical technology student who fell to his death from a nearby footbridge on España Boulevard and P. Campa Street in Sampaloc, Manila. Before the assembly, hundreds of students were...
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Media criticism linked to low trust in news—Digital News Report 2023
An overwhelming majority of adult Filipinos have come across people criticizing journalists or the news media in the country, with nearly half of them tagging politicians and ordinary people as the leading sources. The high level of criticism is associated with low trust in the media in the Philippines and several other countries, according to...
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UP academic community in disquiet, laments ‘loss’ of democratic governance
The recent appointment of the new chancellor of the University of the Philippines Diliman has been disquieting for the academic community of students, faculty and staff in the country’s premier university, and the growing resentment against the selection process could turn into resistance to the administration of the new UP president, Angelo Jimenez. On April...