¨We live a simple life,” Supsupin said. “My parents have always supported me no matter what dreams or goals I choose to pursue. They do their best to encourage and stand by me.”

At Benguet National High School (BeNHS) where the student population reaches the thousands, Supsupin joined other home economics (HE) students in a new organization called The Pink Plate and eventually served as its president. 

The Pink Plate is the brainchild of Froilan Shyr Aroco, now coordinator of HE and Industrial Arts at BeNHS. He set it up in 2017 “to hone the skills of senior high school students,” he said. “They take what they learned in the classroom and apply these at actual events.”

Supsupin said he gained “valuable knowledge and first-hand exposure to real-world scenarios” from the opportunities brought by The Pink Plate. “Being in those situations helped me grow personally and professionally and prepared me for competitions and future work,” he added.

In 2018, Supsupin emerged as cookery champion at the National Festival of Talents Technolympics held in Dumaguete City. In 2022, he won a medallion of excellence in the cooking category of the WorldSkills Competition Special Edition held in Switzerland. 

High ratings

Dressed in their signature bright pink uniform, The Pink Plate members accomplish tasks ranging from planning to set-up to food preparation at various occasions. They started with school functions attended by government officials but have since branched out to catering weddings and other events in Benguet. For the latter, they collaborate with members of the Salt and Pepper Club, composed of students in food and beverage services. Aside from basic skills, they have learned the importance of teamwork, communication, resilience, and diskarte (innovation)—all valuable in the professional world.

Since 2017, The Pink Plate has consistently earned ratings of 98% and above from the Department of Education (DepEd).

The reality of limited classrooms and teaching staff in public schools means that TVL-HE students learn through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous lessons–a practice carried over from the pandemic. Because there are 236 students in Grade 11 and 258 in Grade 12, students attend classes in two batches: one on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the other on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They switch in-person class days weekly. 

But hands-on experience and practice are vital to their field, and purchasing raw ingredients for cooking and baking entails huge expenses. Upon the students’ enrolment, Aroco (who teaches bread and pastry production) and Novlyn Suerte (who teaches cookery) orient the parents on the costs that the training (which involves trial and error) will incur. 

Most of the time, the parents’ contributions do not suffice. So Aroco and Suerte solicit funds from their co-teachers and DepEd staff members. Some alumni—who have been in the same boat—also send contributions. Countless times, Aroco and Suerte have had to dip into their resources to fill in the difference. 

According to Suerte, they are both members of the LGBTQIA community and do not have families of their own to spend money on, so their financial help is “wholehearted.”

“The biggest contributor to our funds was Chef Aroco,” Supsupin confided.

Doing extra 

Aroco and Suerte get to know their students well because of the time spent decorating, kneading, stirring mixtures, and waiting for timers to go off. Interaction is how they build rapport with the students, and the students with each other.

“Our lessons take up two hours each day, so we get to know them on a more personal level. Those times are when we discover their family situations and we can account for different behaviors that otherwise would be missed,” Suerte said.

For example, Aroco and Suerte realize that a student is often late for classes because he does not have parents around to make sure he gets to school on time. In many cases, students learn to trust them enough to confide apprehensions and fears. More than just teach, they also counsel and listen to students who feel the need for someone to talk to about troubled home lives. 

The students’ active participation in The Pink Plate also gives them access to opportunities like scholarships for college courses and side gigs. Some restaurants have called on the members to help during peak tourist seasons, and have been sufficiently remunerated.  

Aroco regrets that, sometimes, due to large class sizes, some students’ talents are discovered only in the last few months before they graduate. Still, he said, it helps that each block retains the same adviser throughout senior high because advisers like himself are better able to monitor the students’ development.

Real-world rigor

Suerte clarified that they do not coddle but call out students to correct mistakes—all in preparation for the workplace. They manage expectations at the outset, telling the students that when they point out mistakes, they expect to be listened to. The students are then given the chance to reason out. Correcting the students shows the teachers’ concern and desire to help them improve, both professionally and personally. 

“I learned from Sir Aroco not to take anything personally,” Suerte said, adding that those who have not been scolded hardly ever make it in life: “Sino ba ang ‘di pinagalitan na naging successful sa buhay?”

But not all graduates have entered the food and beverage industry. Aroco cited one former student who started selling succulents online during the pandemic, and who continues to grow the business today.

Aroco said that after guiding several batches of The Pink Plate members, the bonds they have formed with the alumni stay strong over time. The alumni come back to visit and, at some events, don their pink uniforms again to augment their income, or even just to satisfy their nostalgia.

“They move up, you move on” is a lesson Aroco has learned after 15 years at BeNHS. “I just hope the knowledge and confidence that they gained will remain with them,” he said.

Supsupin is now 25 and a restaurant manager at a resort in the Ilocos. ‘Working in the food and beverage and hospitality industries has been life-changing!” he said. “It has not only improved our financial situation but also given me a sense of purpose and pride. It taught me resilience and creativity. It feels rewarding to be part of an industry that brings joy to people.”

The post How a high school org in Benguet preps students for life appeared first on CoverStory.

In what was dubbed “First Day Rage,” students, faculty members, workers, community residents and other sectors assembled on Jan. 21, the first day of classes for the second semester of academic year 2024–2025 at UP Diliman, for an outdoor forum on pressing issues concerning not only the university but also the nation. 

“The day highlights our issues as students and how we can perform our role as ‘Iskolar ng Bayan’ in confronting even bigger national issues,” UP Student Regent Francesca Duran said in Filipino at the forum held on the steps of Palma Hall. 

Rallies and assemblies were also held on UP campuses in Clark, Cebu, Manila and the Visayas in Iloilo on Jan. 20. UP Tacloban conducted a program on Jan. 17. 

“I think it’s the continuation of UP’s important role in mobilizing students that led eventually to the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. [in 1986]. We still seek to continue this tradition in UP to constantly mobilize students,” Duran said.

2025 budget 

The cut on education in the P6.326-trillion national budget of 2025 was discussed, and calls were raised for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte and for the accountability of the Marcos family for alleged abuses. The assembly also criticized UP’s apparent thrust toward commercialization and the lack of student spaces and dorm slots.

Speaking in Filipino, Francezca Kwe, a professor and the vice president of the All UP Academic Employees Union chapter in Diliman, described the 2025 budget as “the most corrupted national budget.” She said “the budget was bloated due to the pork barrel and the CIF (confidential and intelligence funds) to be spent in the May elections.”   

The 2025 General Appropriations Act includes a P26-billion allocation for the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program or Akap, which is expected to be used by politicians during the election campaign.  

Unprogrammed budget items worth P363.665 billion also raised concerns, such as the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Modernization Program. By definition, these do not get on-the-go funds but can only access their allocation if the government treasury records high revenue. 

Experts deem this year’s budget unconstitutional for its supposed violation of Article XIV of the 1987 Constitution, which states that education should receive the highest budget. 

According to the Department of Budget and Management, the education sector should receive P1.055 trillion, the highest among all sectors. But this allocation includes nontraditional academies such as the Philippine National Police Academy, Philippine Military Academy and Philippine Science High School System. Removing the amounts for these institutions from the total gives the education sector not more than P1 trillion, which is lower than the P1.114 trillion for the Department of Public Works and Highways. 

Jose Monfred Sy, a professor and leader of Contend-UP (or the Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy-UP), lamented that educators have taken the brunt of insufficient pay and lack of facilities. 

Despite the consistent call for wage increases, the national government has instead granted a service recognition incentive (or SRI), a one-time grant worth P20,000 distributed to all regular, contractual or “casual” government employees before the end of 2024. 

This amount is insufficient, Kwe said. “What we demand is the increase in salaries of all teachers because the majority of our workers in the university are contractual,” she said. 

Duran pointed out that “in this present context where the university is facing so many crises, the national government has responded with a budget cut, intensifying manifestations of corruption, and lack of attention to basic social services.” 

UP’s budget for this year was cut by P2 billion, the biggest drop in the university allocation in nine years. 

Anticorruption network 

To expose the “systemic assault on the education sector and the broader public welfare under the Marcos administration,” faculty members, students, workers, community residents and other constituents have launched the UP Act Against Corruption Network (UP Action) as initiated by the Office of the UP Student Regent. 

“We the sectoral regents see it proper to unite the entire UP community, not just the students and faculty but everyone, in the fight against corruption and in calling for state responsibility and accountability,” Duran said. 

In a statement, UP Action sought the immediate impeachment of the Vice President and other Dutertes’ accountability for alleged crimes. Three impeachment complaints against the Vice President, filed on grounds of violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, and threatening President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., are pending in the House of Representatives. 

Congress is investigating her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, for supposed human rights violations arising from his administration’s “war on drugs.” Last Jan. 17, the human rights group Karapatan, along with relatives of victims of extrajudicial killings during the bloody antidrug campaign, filed a disbarment case against the former president at the Supreme Court. 

Rodrigo Duterte announced that  he was taking full legal and moral responsibility for the war on drugs during his appearances late last year at hearings in the Senate and the House.

UP Action also demanded accountability from President Marcos Jr. for his supposed “role in enabling corruption, impunity, and the systemic neglect of education and social services.”

The post ‘First Day Rage’ stirs UP campuses appeared first on CoverStory.

Building on the successes of conferences honoring the late Edel Garcellano in 2018, 2019, and 2023, we organized a fourth iteration aimed at preserving his legacy as PUP’s foremost literary critic, poet, and scholar.

This year’s theme diverged from the earlier focus on literary and cultural studies, but the shift toward exploring PUP’s broader literary and intellectual history remains deeply aligned with Edel Garcellano’s impact on the university’s landscape. This initiative sought to spotlight the contributions of PUP thinkers and writers, including those who intersected with his academic journey—who he had known, debated with, or influenced.  

The plan, through the pioneering efforts of PUP’s Institute of Social History, is to document and critically examine the rich intellectual tradition of the “Sintang Paaralan”—an endeavor that remains both timely and necessary.

The conference was made possible through the collaborative efforts of PUP and the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP) officials, alongside key institutional units, including the PUP Research Institute for Culture and Language, the Center for Creative Writing (CCW), and the Center for Philippine Studies (CPS), in partnership with the NRCP Humanities Division, as well as the support of Edel Garcellano’s family. 

Research production

After a series of productive meetings with the NRCP Humanities Division to finalize the event details, we set our sights on fostering a deeper research culture and mentorship, primarily aimed at encouraging PUP faculty to actively engage in research production while also promoting membership in the NRCP Humanities Division.

These efforts culminated in the 4th Edel Garcellano Conference on Philippine Studies and Intellectual History, held last Nov. 12 at the PUP Theatre in the College of Communication Building, PUP Sta. Mesa, Manila. 

The conference offered a full day of insightful discussions, featuring a keynote address, a plenary talk, and research presentations alongside conversations, with hybrid sessions also conducted via Zoom.

The scholars Dr. Romeo P. Peña and Dr. Charlie S. Veric discussed their perspectives on Philippine Studies. 

Peña delivered the keynote address titled “Ang PUP, ang Social History, at si Edel Garcellano,” which traced the establishment of the PUP Center for Social History and the influences of Edel Garcellano. In his own paper titled “How the US Invented Filipinization: 1898-1946,” Veric examined the impact of US colonialism on Filipino identity formation. 

The conference also honored the outstanding contributions of PUP faculty, staff, and students with the PUP Literary Incentives Award, a recognition to foster excellence in literary production and research.  

Insight and collaboration

Key sessions showcasing research by PUP faculty were central to the conference’s program, enriched by insight from NRCP Humanities Division rapporteurs. These discussions spanned diverse topics. 

Prof. Jomar G. Adaya’s paper, “Mula Institute of Social History Patungong Center for Philippine Studies: Ilang Tala sa Kasaysayan ng Sentrong Pampananaliksik ng PUP” traced the origin and depth of CPS as a research center and was guided by comments from Veric.

Prof. Lenin Carlos M. Mirasol’s discussion on “Si Dominador B. Mirasol at Ang Utopya sa Agos ng Kanyang mga Katha, 1960s – 1998” received thoughtful feedback from Dr. Ma. Crisanta Nelmida. 

Prof. MJ Rafal paper, “Realismo Bilang Utopya: Ang Kaso ng ‘Buhawi’ ni Rogelio L. Ordoñez,” an analysis of the author’s work, was further refined by comments from Dr. Louie Jon A. Sanchez.

The anthology “Mga Agos sa Disyerto,” which featured the socially relevant works of Dominador Mirasol and Rogelio Ordoñez, marked a turning point in Philippine literature. In various ways, their works shaped the literary tradition and left a lasting influence on today’s generation of PUP writers.

Adding to the discourse, Prof. John Paolo Sarce explored the intersection of soundscapes and gender in “The Soundscape in City: Constructing Philippine Cities through Sound and Music in Cuenca’s Night Music and Song of the Black Opal.” Dr. Joyce L. Arriola provided recommendations for further development.  

Prof. Marvin M. Lobos presented his work, “Si Rogelio L. Ordoñez at ang PUP – Linangan sa Paggawa at Ugnayang Industriyal: Paunang Tala sa Kasaysayang Intelektuwal ng Politeknikong Unibersidad ng Pilipinas bilang Pamantasan ng Uring Anakpawis,” and Prof. Rosemarie O. Roque introduced the potential of documentary theater in her paper, “Breaking Ground: Introducing Documentary Theater as a Creative Practice at PUP.” The two presentations received insightful critiques from Dr. Glecy C. Atienza.

This conference emphasized conversations with PUP faculty members, aimed at helping them navigate their academic trajectories and address gaps in fields that remain underexplored. 

The collaboration, which also marked the beginning of a sustained effort to enrich the university’s research culture, will continue to grow and deepen as the research projects presented evolve into published works.

Looking ahead 

As the CCW chief, Prof. Merdeka “Dekki” Morales, often emphasized in our conversations, there is a pressing need to dedicate effort to studying the lives and contributions of PUP’s scholars, particularly women writers and revolutionary martyrs, who have profoundly shaped the university’s identity and ethos.  

Too often overlooked, these individuals play a pivotal role in PUP’s history and the broader cultural narrative—something students and the next generation ought to study and appreciate.  

These lines from Edel Garcellano on writing and reading and the ways by which we navigate our chosen paths are a constant reminder of the responsibility of politically committed writing: “Delikado ba ang mga sinusulat mo? Ang mga binabasa mo? Kung sirkero ka at nadulas ka habang naglalakad sa alambre, malalaglag ka ba diretso sa lupa o may safety net na sasalo sa ‘yo?”

They strike a deep chord in me: a call to be resolute in our writing, and to realize that there is much work to be done. 

In looking ahead, the CCW is committed to once more build on the success of this year’s conference. Anchored on the enduring legacy of Edel Garcellano and PUP’s literary and intellectual history, the conference series promises to remain vibrant for the years to come.

Jenna Dolovino is a media correspondent for Manila Today and a staff member of the PUP Center for Creative Writing. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in sociology and nurtures a passion for creating zines that highlight the experiences of women and workers.

Read more: The crisis in Philippine education began 120 years ago

The post Timely and necessary conversations appeared first on CoverStory.

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 accord.

In a statement issued on Sept. 25, the university’s highest academic policymaking body composed of professors of all ranks of the largest unit in the UP System called the DOC an “assault on the independence of our university and on academic freedom.”

“We challenge President Angelo A. Jimenez to show his wisdom and faithfulness to the university’s mandate by nullifying the declaration of cooperation with the AFP,” it said. (See https://tinyurl.com/24drvsj8)

In an interview on Oct. 7 with CoverStory.ph, Jimenez gave no sign that he would back down, but said he was still open to dialogue with various sectors in UP.  He said the university should “never fear to engage.”  

The UC said the university administration committed the entire UP System to working with the AFP without prior consultation with its constituents despite the military’s decades-long adversarial stance toward UP.

It said the DOC “whitewashes the escalating repression in UP and other educational institutions” which had been done through Red-tagging, enforced disappearances and harassment of student, faculty and staff leaders.

“A declaration of cooperation sends all the wrong messages: that UP can serve as a think tank for the military and that the goals of UP and the AFP can be in ‘strategic alignment,’” the UC said. “Militarization is fundamentally incompatible with a free public university.”

The UC statement was prepared in time for the Sept. 26 meeting of the 11-member Board of Regents (BOR), the university’s main policymaking body.

Caught by surprise

Faculty regent Carl Marc Ramota, an assistant professor of political science at UP Manila and former chair of All UP Academic Employees Union, said the university was caught by surprise because the DOC was made public by the AFP on Aug. 8, ahead of an official announcement by UP.

Ramota said that during a BOR meeting on Aug. 30, he raised the DOC as a “policy question,” and the regents recommended further discussions with UP constituents.

The UP authorities should listen to the University Council, he said, adding: “At the end of the day, the university is an academic institution.”

During a dialogue on Sept. 16 between representatives of various student, faculty and staff organizations, and Jimenez and other university officials, the administration made no commitment to rescind the declaration, insisting that “the document remained sound,” according to Ramota.

In a statement on Sept. 26, the UP administration indicated that it was unmoved by the UC’s position.

While it reiterated that the DOC was “non-binding and exploratory,” it said the arrangement would also be “beneficial precisely because it provides a framework for the University to share its knowledge and expertise towards contributing to the broader advocacy for security sector reform in our country.”

The DOC is intended to “provide a framework for cooperation between the AFP and UP in order to foster the development of possible collaborative projects and activities in the field of strategic studies through research, publication, training,” and conferences and visits.

The research projects would be jointly conducted by the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies (UP CIDS) and the AFP’s Office of Strategic Studies and Strategy Management (OSSSM).

Each side could solicit articles for publication in either the Philippine Journal of Public Policy of the CIDS or the Quarterly Digest of the OSSSM.

‘Based on fear’

Speaking with CoverStory.ph, Jimenez said the opposition to the DOC is “based on fear,” which he granted has some roots in “history.”

But he does not want UP “to move based on fear,” he said. “I want us to move based on our commitment, our courage.” 

Jimenez also said the university cannot not “engage” with the military as both UP and the AFP are public institutions. “We will not engage out of fear, but we should never fear to engage,” he said. “And it is UP’s opportunity to influence the thinking of a national security establishment.” 

Being openly engaged with other institutions but not with the military is “unjustified exceptionalism,” according to Jimenez. He cited the difference between the institution and individual acts committed by its people—or between the AFP and human rights violations by particular soldiers and officers.

Dr. Leo Cubillan, UP vice president for academic affairs who signed the DOC on behalf of Jimenez, told CoverStory that there was no need to consult “everyone” as those who would be involved in the research are the experts from CIDS and OSSSM.

“There’s always independence and autonomy in terms of research content. Hindi talaga po siya kasama sa consultation (That’s really not included in the consultation),” Cubillan said.

But for policymaking, all stakeholders would have to be consulted, he said.

He explained that since CIDS is directly under the UP System, and not a part of a particular UP unit like Diliman, such an agreement would have to be approved and signed by the UP president himself as the top official of the entire university.

Cubillan, an ophthalmologist who was deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, said the DOC is a broad memorandum of understanding, one of over 350 between UP and other entities, including those abroad.

Specific research would have to be governed by a memorandum of agreement. If one side disagrees with the terms, no research will be possible, he said.

‘Common practice’

Such joint university-military research projects are a “common practice” especially in the United States, between the Pentagon and top schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, according to Temario Rivera, the late retired chair of UP’s Department of Political Science who headed the Center for People Empowerment in Governance.

“In our case, it is not as prominent because in the past, perhaps, there was no necessity,” Rivera said in an interview with CoverStory about a month before his death on Sept. 18.

He acknowledged that “the elephant in the room is the perception that the military is an oppressive institution,” which complicates the possibility of engagement.

Rivera, an activist teacher who was incarcerated for five years during the Marcos martial law regime, said that “in theory and practice, there is no reason why UP should not engage the military in these kinds of activities, especially if we see that they could help the country.”

He proposed two immediate research topics—the South China Sea conflict and the resolution of the more-than-half-a-century-old communist insurgency.

“Isn’t that very important? In fact, we should influence the military that they should not be stuck with a military-driven response to the [maritime] crisis,” Rivera said.

He said UP could make a very important contribution to the peace process: Its “comparative research insights” on its success in other countries, but not in the Philippines, would be very helpful to the resolution of the armed conflict.

For the military, the peace process is not urgent, according to Rivera. “That is another reason why we should impress on them the urgency of research on the peace process because how can we effectively respond to an external threat if an internal threat remains on the ground?” he said. To achieve a “unified national response” to an external threat, he added, “we should find a way to finally resolve” the insurgency problem.

Insensitivity

Sylvia Estrada Claudio, a professor emerita of UP Diliman who has a PhD in psychology, said that as a national university, UP should provide expertise for the national good.

The former dean of the UP College of Social Work and Community Development, who is also a medical doctor and outspoken feminist, welcomes policymakers who listen to experts in making plans and programs. But what bothers her about the DOC is that “it doesn’t have sensitivity” to the history of UP and its “difficult relationship” with the military.

Claudio is particularly piqued by the lack of consultation with the UP community prior to the making of the declaration. Those involved in crafting the DOC did not realize that it would be difficult to implement after skipping that process, she said.

The document itself is “innocuous” except for the clause that keeps everything confidential. “But you don’t sign a piece of paper like that without paying attention to the context of the two institutions,” she said. “We have been angry with each other for decades, we have been adversarial for decades, and suddenly we agree to research together when battle lines are still drawn?”

Claudio supports a “productive dialogue” with the military, but within the proper historical context.

“We do want that,” she said. “But if you ignore the context, the issues at hand, the deep resentment of large sections of the university with the military that goes back to 50 years or more, how can you say that you made an agreement that would start a productive dialogue?”

In its statement on Sept. 26, the UP administration said it was taking “the sentiments of the University Council of Diliman into serious consideration as we work on potential areas of critical collaboration with the peace and development sector that will ensure the primacy of human rights and academic freedom.”

The University Councils of the other UP units have not yet responded to this issue.

Both substance and optics

Sol Iglesias, assistant professor of political science, expressed the concern of the UP faculty about “both the substance and the optics” of the DOC, saying it could be interpreted as “turning a blind eye” to human rights violations by the military that had “disproportionately targeted” UP over the years.

“There’s not even a word of general concern over human rights,” Iglesias said. “This agreement has probably fewer benefits to the university than it has to sort of burnish the image and reputation of the AFP. It looks like rapprochement.”

In their statement, the UC members said they have nothing against faculty and scholars engaging with private or public entities as individuals, and that the military is free to access the university’s publicly available research products.

These individual research initiatives are “well-defined in scope” and do not need a “broad declaration of institutional cooperation,” the UC members said.

Iglesias said that if UP does not withdraw from the DOC, ethical questions would arise concerning UP-AFP research projects, given all the issues raised against it.

Julius Lustro, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and fluid mechanics, said the DOC is unheard of.

“Where in the world have we seen a university, which takes pride in its tradition of academic freedom and social criticism, sign a ‘declaration of cooperation’ with the military?” Lustro said in a statement during a press conference following the disclosure of the DOC.

Literature and creative writing professor Rommel Rodriguez, who has been Red-tagged, denounced Jimenez for “betraying the long history and tradition” of UP as an academic institution that advances human rights and academic freedom, as well as the cloud of secrecy over the DOC.

“Is this scholarship or intelligence work?” Rodriguez said. “Is this for the interest of the UP community or the AFP?”

Journalism professor Danilo Arao expressed doubts over the quality of scholarship that the AFP could contribute to any joint research with the UP.

“If the institution is a purveyor of disinformation, how can you expect genuine scholarship to happen?” Arao said.

At the time the University Council of UP Diliman issued its statement against the DOC, more than 1,300 people had already signed a petition demanding that Jimenez withdraw from the declaration. The petition-signing has continued, with 1,371 signatories so far, according to Rodriguez.

Read more: Sure, let’s discuss so-called ‘grade inflation’

The post UP admin and University Council still at odds on UP-AFP accord appeared first on CoverStory.

In a statement issued on Sept. 25, the university’s highest academic policymaking body composed of professors of all ranks of the largest unit in the UP System called the DOC an “assault on the independence of our university and on academic freedom.”

“We challenge President Angelo A. Jimenez to show his wisdom and faithfulness to the university’s mandate by nullifying the declaration of cooperation with the AFP,” it said. (See https://tinyurl.com/24drvsj8)

The UC said the university administration committed the entire UP System to working with the AFP without prior consultation with its constituents despite the military’s decades-long adversarial stance toward UP.

It said the DOC “whitewashes the escalating repression in UP and other educational institutions” through Red-tagging, enforced disappearances and harassment of student, faculty and staff leaders.

“A declaration of cooperation sends all the wrong messages: that UP can serve as a think tank for the military and that the goals of UP and the AFP can be in ‘strategic alignment,’” the UC said. “Militarization is fundamentally incompatible with a free public university.”

The UC statement was prepared in time for the Sept. 26 meeting of the 11-member Board of Regents (BOR), the university’s main policymaking body.

Caught by surprise

Faculty regent Carl Marc Ramota, an assistant professor of political science at UP Manila and former chair of All UP Academic Employees Union, said the university was caught by surprise because the DOC was made public by the AFP on Aug. 8, ahead of an official announcement by UP.

Ramota said that during a BOR meeting on Aug. 30, he raised the DOC as a “policy question,” and the regents recommended further discussions with UP constituents.

The UP authorities should listen to the University Council, he said, adding: “At the end of the day, the university is an academic institution.”

During a dialogue on Sept. 16 between representatives of various student, faculty and staff organizations and Jimenez and other university officials, the administration made no commitment to rescind the declaration, insisting that “the document remained sound,” according to Ramota.

In a statement on Thursday (Sept. 16), the UP administration indicated that it was unmoved by the UC’s position.

While it reiterated that the DOC was “non-binding and exploratory,” it said the arrangement would also be “beneficial precisely because it provides a framework for the University to share its knowledge and expertise towards contributing to the broader advocacy for security sector reform in our country.”

The DOC is intended to “provide a framework for cooperation between the AFP and UP in order to foster the development of possible collaborative projects and activities in the field of strategic studies through research, publication, training,” and conferences and visits.

The research projects would be jointly conducted by the UP Center for Integrative  and Development Studies (UP CIDS) and the AFP’s Office of Strategic Studies and Strategy Management (OSSSM).

In addition to joint research, each side could solicit articles for publication in either the Philippine Journal of Public Policy of the CIDS or the Quarterly Digest of the OSSSM.

‘Common practice’

Such joint university-military research projects are a “common practice” especially in the United States, between the Pentagon and top schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, according to Temario Rivera, the late retired chair of UP’s Department of Political Science who headed the Center for People Empowerment in Governance.

“In our case, it is not as prominent because in the past, perhaps, there was no necessity,” Rivera said in an interview with CoverStory.ph about a month before his death on Sept. 18.

He acknowledged that “the elephant in the room is the perception that the military is an oppressive institution,” which complicates the possibility of engagement.

Rivera, an activist teacher who was incarcerated for five years during the Marcos martial law regime, said that “in theory and practice, there is no reason why UP should not engage the military in these kinds of activities, especially if we see that they could help the country.”

He proposed two immediate research topics—the South China Sea conflict and the resolution of the more-than-half-century-old communist insurgency.

“Isn’t that very important? In fact, we should influence the military that they should not be stuck with a military-driven response to the [maritime] crisis,” Rivera said.

He said UP could make a very important contribution to the peace process: Its “comparative research insights” on its success in other countries but not in the Philippines would be very helpful to the resolution of the armed conflict.

For the military, the peace process is not urgent, according to Rivera. “That is another reason why we should impress on them the urgency of research on the peace process because how can we effectively respond to an external threat if an internal threat remains on the ground?” he said. To achieve a “unified national response” to an external threat, he added, “we should find a way to finally resolve” the insurgency problem.

Insensitivity

Sylvia Estrada Claudio, a professor emerita of UP Diliman who has a PhD in psychology, said that as a national university, UP should provide expertise for the national good.

The former dean of the UP College of Social Work and Community Development, who is also a medical doctor and outspoken feminist, said she welcomes policymakers who listen to experts in making plans and programs. But what bothers her about the DOC is that “it doesn’t have sensitivity” to the history of UP and its “difficult relationship” with the military.

Claudio is particularly piqued by the lack of consultation with the UP community prior to the making of the declaration. Those involved in crafting the DOC did not realize that it would be difficult to implement after skipping that process, she said.

The document itself is “innocuous” except for the clause that keeps everything confidential, Claudio said. “But you don’t sign a piece of paper like that without paying attention to the context of the two institutions. We have been angry with each other for decades, we have been adversarial for decades, and suddenly we agree to research together when battle lines are still drawn?”

Claudio supports a “productive dialogue” with the military, but within the proper historical context.

“We do want that,” she said. “But if you ignore the context, the issues at hand, the deep resentment of large sections of the university with the military that goes back to 50 years or more, how can you say that you made an agreement that would start a productive dialogue?”

In its statement on Thursday, the UP administration said it was taking “the sentiments of the University Council of Diliman into serious consideration as we work on potential areas of critical collaboration with the peace and development sector that will ensure the primacy of human rights and academic freedom.”

The University Councils of the other UP units have not yet responded to this issue.

Both substance and optics

Sol Iglesias, assistant professor of political science, expressed the concern of the UP faculty about “both the substance and the optics” of the DOC, saying it could be interpreted as “turning a blind eye” to human rights violations by the military that had “disproportionately targeted” UP over the years.

“There’s not even a word of general concern over human rights,” Iglesias said. “This agreement has probably fewer benefits to the university than it has to sort of burnish the image and reputation of the AFP. It looks like rapprochement.”

In their statement, the UC members said they have nothing against faculty and scholars engaging with private or public entities as individuals, and that the military is free to access the university’s publicly available research products.

These individual research initiatives are “well-defined in scope” and do not need a “broad declaration of institutional cooperation,” the UC members said.

Iglesias said that if UP does not withdraw from the DOC, ethical questions would arise concerning UP-AFP research projects, given all the issues raised against it.

Julius Lustro, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and fluid mechanics, said the DOC is unheard of.

“Where in the world have we seen a university, which takes pride in its tradition of academic freedom and social criticism, sign a ‘declaration of cooperation’ with the military?” Lustro said in a statement during a press conference last month.

Literature and creative writing professor Rommel Rodriguez, who has been Red-tagged, denounced Jimenez for “betraying the long history and tradition” of UP as an academic institution that advances human rights and academic freedom, as well as the cloud of secrecy over the DOC.

“Is this scholarship or intelligence work?” Rodriguez said. “Is this for the interest of the UP community or the AFP?”

Journalism professor Danilo Arao expressed doubt over the quality of scholarship that the AFP could contribute to any joint research with the UP.

“If the institution is a purveyor of disinformation, how can you expect genuine scholarship to happen?” Arao said.

According to Rodriguez, who is also vice president for faculty of the All UP Academic Employees Union and a member of the Defend UP Network, a petition to rescind the DOC has been signed by 1,344 people as of Sept. 25.

The UP president and the AFP spokesperson have yet to agree to requests for an interview. This report will be updated when they do so. —ED.

Read more: Sure, let’s discuss so-called ‘grade inflation’

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The handover event, titled “Empowering Communities Through Education: iQor and RapidTech Sustainable Donation,” was held last Aug. 14.

The initiative was intended to provide students with the tools to enhance their learning experience, advance digital literacy, and prepare them for opportunities in today’s technology-driven society. The computers are allocated to elementary, junior, and senior high schools, as identified by the DepEd regional office. 

The donation aligns with iQor’s sustainability strategy, which aims to make a positive impact in the communities where it operates and on the environment. “We believe our business is only as strong as our community,” said Rod Hoddinott, iQor Philippines country lead. “This initiative is a way for us to give back to the Angeles community that has supported our growth in the city. We are grateful to be able to contribute to the development of students and, at the same time, do good for the environment by reducing our waste and carbon footprint. We will continue with our commitment to do our share in creating a sustainable future for the next generation.”

iQor’s project partner, Rapid Technologies Inc. (Rapid Tech), an expert in providing enterprise-grade Microsoft-certified refurbished IT hardware solutions, refurbished the computers to suit the beneficiaries’ learning needs, installed the necessary software, and provided the keyboard and mouse sets. 

The proponents view this collaboration as an example of how the private sector can contribute to improving educational resources in the Philippines.

The official handover of the computers was formalized through the signing of a deed of donation between iQor (represented by Hoddinott and chief people officer Fleurette Navarro) and Angeles City (represented by Vice Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting). The local government unit collaborated with the DepEd in distributing the computer units and peripherals.

“iQor remains committed to making a meaningful difference in the lives of young learners,” said Navarro. “By providing these computers, we aim to empower students with the essential tools they need to thrive in their educational journey. This donation is about more than just technology—it’s about unlocking opportunities and paving the way for the next generation to reach their full potential.”

The guests at the handover event included Raphaela Kercee Vendel Pineda Lazatin, officer in charge of the Angeles City Information Office; Rapid Tech executives led by general manager Kristin Santos; and DepEd officials headed by assistant division schools superintendent Enrique Angeles Jr. and senior education program specialist Alberto M. Otchengco.

iQor (iQor.com) is a global business process outsourcing organization with 40,000 employees in 10 countries all over the world. In the Philippines, it has 17 contact centers nationwide. Interested parties may visit https://apply.iqor.com.

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It eventually reached my own Facebook feed because my newly graduated former students, many of whom are recipients of Latin honors themselves, shared their own views on the opinion piece that seems to be putting a question mark on the recognition of their academic performance (despite Punongbayan’s insistence that this is not his intention). 

The regrettable use of the term “grade inflation” suggests that measures of academic performance are analogous to market prices, ergo academic work is commodity production. The term also conjures up the idea of devaluation, which almost ensures a negative framing of the topic. Is Punongbayan really inviting an honest discussion? 

Frankly speaking, a cross-period comparison of grades done in the same manner as a cross-period comparison of market prices is of little analytic value because grades and the academic performances they purport to measure emerge from different contexts. Instead of viewing them as hard measures of a phenomenon, grades are better interpreted as discourses—narratives in quantitative form—that are products of a particular point in a society’s history.

Flashpoint

Let’s train the spotlight on the grades of the batch that graduated from UP in 2022, a year which Punongbayan identifies as a flashpoint of grade inflation because of the spike in the number of summa cum laude graduates. Punongbayan is not alone in voicing his grade-inflation sentiment; I distinctly remember many other faculty members at the time (and even to this day) raising this as a matter of concern. They ask: Are the faculty members becoming too kind and too lenient? Are we lowering our standards? 

A cursory scan of changes in Philippine higher education at the time can give us a number of tentative explanations for the higher grades of this cohort of students that seem more plausible than the implied explanations of the alarmists.

First, most of the college graduates of 2022 come from the first cohort of students who underwent the K-12 basic education program. They went through senior high school, so they had two more years of formal preparation for college education than the earlier batches of students. Aside from the additional years, they also went through academic tracks with specialized courses that aligned better with the degree programs they planned to take in college.

I remember my early encounters with these students who went through senior high school. I was pleasantly surprised that many already had some knowledge of C. Wright Mills’ “The Sociological Imagination” and the ideas of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim even before they took Socio 101 (general sociology). In the survey-methods classes that I have been handling these past few years, I had students sharing practical insights from surveys they implemented before college, leading to better research design in their class projects. 

Students who went through senior high school are thus better prepared for college education. That was the point of the K-12 reform, regardless of one’s position on its practical and moral necessity. Why then should we be surprised that better prepared students translated to better performance, which in turn translated to higher grades?

Second, in 2018, UP had a system-wide curricular revision of undergraduate degree programs in response to the K-12 transition in basic education. Most departments took this chance to formulate clear program learning outcomes and redesigned their courses to better align with the achievement of these outcomes. Faculty members were then asked to construct detailed syllabi to complement the curricular revisions. The days of faculty members handing out one to two pages of a list of topics or assigned readings masquerading as a syllabus were over. If the curricula of undergraduate degree programs and the syllabi of undergraduate courses were revised for improvement, shouldn’t a corresponding improvement in students’ performance be expected?

Third, during the pandemic, faculty members were asked to prepare detailed course packs. To facilitate learning in difficult remote conditions, we were asked to meticulously write in detail the learning activities, the expected outputs, and, most important, a clear rubric on how these outputs will be assessed and graded. With class expectations and evaluation criteria made explicit, the pathway towards high grades was demystified. 

Elitist gatekeeping

The requirement to spell out clear assessment criteria exposed how much of our previous grading practices were informed by misguided elitist gatekeeping posing as maintaining the high standards of our prestigious university. Some faculty members actually carry with pride the inability of students to get high grades in their class. Now, we can rightfully ask, WHY? The higher grades could then be explained not as a result of lowered standards but of greater clarity and accountability to students.

Lastly, even before the pandemic hit, the education system has increasingly acknowledged the validity of mental health concerns. Many faculty members are now more aware of the need to be attuned to the concerns and personal circumstances of students under their supervision. Students, on the other hand, have become less wary of openly acknowledging their struggles and asking for help. In this regard, the claim that faculty members today may be kinder could be true. 

But what’s wrong with that? Is the emergence of a more nurturing and caring learning environment a bad thing? I guess only in the minds of those who think good grades helped in part by a better understanding of mental health is a sign of declining academic excellence.

Many grade-inflation alarmists are obsessed with the presumed linkage between grades and academic performance. The ironic thing is, if such a linkage is substantive, why is it that a numeric grade is not used in the assessment of a doctoral dissertation or a master’s thesis, the pinnacle of all academic student output? Is it because a numeric grade, a crude representation that lacks depth and humanistic quality, cannot capture the excellence, the effort, and the passion poured in such academic work? 

Instead of discussing grade inflation, why don’t we instead discuss why we still use numeric grades? Imagine a system where, instead of using numeric grades, we certify students as achieving specific outcomes, signaling that they learned what they needed to learn and thus are ready to take the next step in their educational journey. Imagine a system that is focused solely on ascertaining that learning took place and not on ranking and pitting students against one another. Bragging and unhealthy competitive behavior would not be reinforced in school. Solidarity between students may actually have more chances of taking root by designing outcomes that can only be achieved through cooperative effort, something which would be harder to do if ranked assessment systems remain in place. 

In closing his piece, Punongbayan eventually blurted out his real concern about grade inflation: “Persistent grade inflation will likely devalue grades and honors as useful signals of merits and skills outside the university.” If one performs a functional analysis of modern society, the education system does fulfill the function of a caste system. Through numeric grading, Latin honors, and university rankings, we comfort ourselves with the “legitimacy” of the way we decide who ends up with precarious slave-like jobs with barely livable wages, who ends up in choice positions that profit off the hard work of others, and who falls in the middle with the duty of ensuring the smooth operation and reproduction of this modern-day caste system. 

What better way to perpetuate the legitimacy of hierarchic societal organization than to embed and normalize it in our system of education in the guise of numeric meritocracy?

Erwin F. Rafael is assistant professor of sociology at the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman.

Read more: Surviving burnouts as a UP student and cadet officer

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The possibilities are endless when you visit the Ateneo Martial Law Library and Museum (library.martiallawmuseum.ph), a digital archive of documentary, literary and visual records and other resources on martial law. 

A collaborative project of the Ateneo de Manila University, the Rizal Library and the University of Hawaii, the digital library was launched on April 8 at the Rizal Library on the Ateneo campus. 

“By creating the digital library and archive, we hope to ensure that all Filipinos will remember the atrocities of the past and never forget the horrors of the Marcos dictatorship, so that the youth of today especially will not allow these adversities to happen again,” Maria Luz Vilches, Ateneo vice president for higher education, said at the launch that was also livestreamed on Zoom.  

Treasure trove

It’s a navigable library that offers a treasure trove of materials, divided into primary sources (diaries, testimonies and journals, government documents, memoirs, newspaper articles), secondary sources (biographies, books, essays), and art, literature, films and photography. 

By making the digitized materials available to all, the digital library seeks to preserve history, and make the younger generation of Filipinos “understand and learn from the experiences’’ of that dark period in history, Vilches said, adding:    

“ … [A]nd no better time than today should we insist on raising awareness given a rising tide of political authoritarianism around the globe.” 

At least 3,240 people were killed by the military and police out of the 107,240 victims of human rights violations during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. that saw the first family amassing $5 billion in ill-gotten wealth on top of $683 million in assets stashed in Swiss banks, the library noted in its summary of the Marcos legacy.

Two professors, a university librarian and a web developer conceptualized the digital library at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 out of a sheer need for a “searchable one-stop archive’’ of primary sources on martial law. 

“I teach about the martial law period, and I always wanted to teach with primary source documents, and then I remember thinking: ‘How can I find out about these different documents about martial law?” Vina Lanzona, associate professor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, said during the roundtable discussion.

“So I Googled … Proclamation 1081, and all the documents related to the period itself, and I thought, ‘Why can’t we have a website where we can access all this information about martial law, and …. these different types of resources, right?” she said.

And that’s how the idea of a digital library began. 

Lanzona next contacted her friend, Vernon Totanes, then a director at the Rizal Library, who in turn linked her up with Miguel Paolo Rivera, past immediate coordinator of the Martial Law Museum and Library. It was Liezl Cabrera, a partner at Dapat Studio, who developed the website.  

Logical follow-up

“Putting up a martial law online was the most logical follow-up to having a martial law museum. That’s why I thought of connecting Vina with Migs,” said Totanes, now university librarian at Ateneo. 

Rivera, a lecturer at Ateneo’s Department of Political Science, said: “This idea of a library is something that people have mentioned, but they couldn’t seem to do it. So we just decided, why not go against the odds and do it?”

The presidential election as well as the 50th anniversary of the imposition of martial law in 2022 loomed on the horizon, making the idea “urgent and relevant,” according to Lanzona.  

“As both historian and educator, it was really important to me to ensure accurately depicting martial law, because it wasn’t something that was fictional,” she said. 

Both Lanzona and Rivera spoke through Zoom, while Totanes spoke on stage at the Rizal Library during the forum.  

Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s landslide victory in the May 2022 presidential vote sent authors into a frenzy of scanning their books on martial law, for obvious reasons.  

“All of a sudden, many people were worried about their books,” Totanes said, chuckling. “I was getting all sorts of emails, and, you know, offers to digitize books and documents, and preserve them in the Rizal Library. And I was actually having secret meetings, but I could not tell anyone because just in case, we didn’t want anyone else to know that these papers were in the Rizal Library. I don’t know if I should be saying that now.” 

He added: “But part of it also was, some people became ‘scanning happy’—they were scanning entire books and making these available in Google drives. Are there lawyers in the house? But I was the one saying, ‘No, no, we can’t do that’!” 

With the permission of copyright owners, some books can be read in full. But for the rest, only the first chapters can be accessed. 

The memoirs, autobiographies, novels, collections of poems, essays on martial law—the whole gamut—are a rare find even for non-students of history, and so are the rest of the documents, videos, films, and documentaries.

The digital library had its initial launch in September 2022 as part of Ateneo’s “awareness-raising campaign” on the declaration of martial law. 

Aquino Foundation

Francis “Kiko” Aquino Dee, deputy executive director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, said the launch of the digital Martial Law Library is “a big help to the work of the Aquino Foundation in particular, as it makes many of the primary sources that talk about our country’s journey back towards democracy, which is central to the stories of Ninoy and Cory, readily available.” 

“For the country as a whole, I hope that Filipinos, especially those who are more internet-savvy, can use this resource as we form our beliefs about our history and our current situation,” Dee said.   

The original idea of a digital museum on martial law at the university was broached by Erwin Tiongson, an Ateneo alumnus and a former senior economist at the World Bank, who was outraged by the “surreptitiously organized’’ burial of strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr. at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on Nov. 18, 2016, according to Vilches. 

“ … [W]e can demonstrate, we can lash out in anger, but we should also truly make sure that no one ever forgets about martial law,’’ Vilches quoted Tiongson as saying in an email he sent her immediately after Marcos’ burial.  
Dr. Mark Sanchez at Vanderbilt University and Lila Ramos-Shahani of the International Council of Monuments and Sites also delivered presentations during the launch. With a report from Minerva Generalao

Read more: Project Gunita et al.: ‘The truth will outshine the lies’

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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.

The conference, launched in 2018, was aimed at highlighting the pivotal role of criticism and scholarship in the Philippine academe, aligning with the significant research undertaken by theorists and literary scholars through the years.

When we issued our call for the submission of abstracts, we received tremendous response from scholars and researchers who approached the idea of utopia through an interdisciplinary lens and critiqued the prevailing dystopian trends. The conference would again be conducted in person after a challenging three-year pause caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

We scheduled the conference on Nov. 16-17 at Bulwagang Bonifacio and ICTO Lab 1 in the Ninoy Aquino Library and Resource Learning Center on campus. It was attended by students from PUP, writers, researchers, and other professionals from various institutions of higher learning, as well as members of Edel Garcellano’s family.

Support from the PUP Office of the Vice President for Research, Extension and Development ensured the provision of food and refreshments for the attendees. The conference’s success was the result of collaborative efforts between the Center for Creative Writing and the Center for Philippine Studies under the Research Institute for Culture and Language, and in partnership with the Gender and Development Office.

Why Edel Garcellano?

For nearly three decades, spanning 1987 to 2002 and again from 2012 to 2016, the novelist, poet and literary critic Edel Garcellano taught humanities and philosophy at PUP. His impact on his students was profound. He passed away on April 23, 2020, yet many still reminisce about his teaching methods and pedagogical approach with a sense of nostalgia.

Esteemed figures in Philippine criticism and literature, such as Caroline Hau, Neferti Tadiar, Bliss Cua-Lim, and John Blanco, acknowledge his influence on their work.

The decision to name the conference after him stemmed from his influence as PUP’s foremost literary critic and scholar. The conference continues to serve as a tribute to his legacy, honoring his enduring impact on the university’s intellectual landscape.

‘The Persistence of Utopian Imagination’

In its third iteration, the conference was organized in keeping with the essence of Edel Garcellano’s intellectual work of defying mainstream thought.

The theme was “The Persistence of Utopian Imagination,” which not only acknowledged his unexplored utopianism but also provided a platform for scholars, researchers and students who, like him, challenge conventional ways of thinking.

We divided the two-day conference into two keynote sessions and 12 panel sessions covering diverse topics related to utopias such as peasant experiences, feminism, hope, creative writing, social movements, gender studies, literary and visual cultures, archives, digital culture, philosophical interventions, and Edel Garcellano’s praxis.

The keynote speeches delivered by Dr. Jayson C. Jimenez from the Department of Philosophy and Humanities and Dr. Emanuel De Guzman from the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs on Nov. 16 and 17, respectively, offered insightful philosophical and sociological perspectives while exploring utopian ideas.

Both keynote speakers are scholars who made their mark in the academe and who consider Edel Garcellano as a sui generis writer and critic; the paper presenters in the sessions are some of the best young writers today who, in one way or another, have been influenced by his work.

The discussions and conversations in the open forums helped the students satisfy their piqued curiosity on possible research topics and gain a deeper understanding of the topics presented.

Imagining possibilities

At the end, Edel Garcellano’s wife delivered a message—titled “Encountering Edel while Imagining this Conference’s Possibilities”—in which she expressed appreciation for the event and “its planned theme of the imagined Utopia and locating his work in it.”

“Young people, you, young people,” the journalist Rosario Garcellano said, “because you are now the frontliners in the fight for a better future, have to be awake, correctly informed and contextually aware” in the face of the ever-shifting dynamics within society.

Much like how we carefully organized the conference, those who encountered Edel Garcellano would agree that his commitment to shedding light on the plight of the oppressed and to helping others understand systemic injustice resonated in the discourses he led, and in the classrooms he stood in. In and despite his constant critical stance, he wanted discourses like this conference to go beyond the academe, and to open doors of possibilities and hope—the last word, his wife recalled, in a short story that he wrote in his late 20s.

But now, “exhaustion sets in more often,” Rosario Garcellano admitted, “along with the sinking feeling that this continuing struggle is Sisyphean and ultimately meaningless.” Yet, she said, “it is during such low times that we must fight to come to terms with what we, you, are here for: to engage, to resist, to write, to produce.”

The legacy of Edel Garcellano lives on, not only in his scholarly works but also in the commitments he ignited. And just as he imparted his wisdom to young poets, so did Rosario Garcellano remind the next generation that “to write is already to choose,” a dictum that maintains resonance in this time of socioeconomic and political unrest.

Her words also echoed what Edel Garcellano constantly explained to his students and friends: “The condition that afflicts everyone oppressed and exploited by state power,” she said, “and the necessity of recognizing it, naming it, to begin the process of healing.”

“It’s an abiding hassle, to be blunt about it,” Rosario Garcellano conceded, “but surely and always it is a declaration of hope, a demonstration of a profound awareness: This is not right, this is unjust, this needs a principled stance, resistance.”

With the success of this conference, we believe as its organizers that it stands as one of the legacies of PUP in modern times. The conference’s emphasis on Edel Garcellano’s literary legacy and critical commentary on societal issues will help shape the future discourse within the academe and the struggle beyond it.

Jenna Dolovino is a media correspondent of Manila Today and a staff member of the PUP Center for Creative Writing. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in sociology, and nurtures a passion for creating zines that highlight the experiences of women and workers. —Ed.

Read more: The crisis in Philippine education began 120 years ago

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Look no further for evidence of this kinship: When a woman leaves home for work, she can count on the natural support system of her mother, sister, aunt, daughter, even grandmother.   

In the early 1970s, a group of wives in Manila put up a school for young women from underprivileged families. They drew inspiration from the teachings of Opus Dei founder St. Josemaria Escriva on women’s dignity and the sanctification of work.   

Punlaan School, located at 173 M. Paterno, Barangay Pasadena, San Juan, initially trained housewives and housekeepers in homemaking. 

Five decades on, it has evolved into a multiawarded institution offering a tuition-free program in hospitality and culinary arts with guaranteed job placement in the hotel and restaurant industry worldwide. 

It transformed its technical course in home arts into the dual training system in food and beverage (F&B) services, which it pioneered in partnership with a German foundation during the term of executive director Luz M. Filmer in the early 1990s. The dual system integrates classroom skills instruction and character formation with on-the-job training in a hotel or restaurant. It is accredited by Tesda (or the Technical Educational and Skills Development Authority), with National Certificate II qualifications. 

The government soon institutionalized the dual training system for vocational courses in the country, and upheld Punlaan as a model for its successful implementation. 

With over 3,000 graduates—among them F&B supervisors, restaurant managers, sous chefs and chefs de partie—now practicing their expertise in top-tier hospitality industry establishments here and abroad, Punlaan is a success story in women empowerment. 

7-story building

On Oct. 6, to mark its golden jubilee, the school will inaugurate a seven-story building that can accommodate 700 students. It has 180 scholars at present; it expects around 500 more in the next three or four years.

Along with the new building, Punlaan is introducing an apprenticeship program for pharmacy assistants, in partnership with Watsons. It will also open a one-year health care and wellness program in June 2024 and offer specialized short courses of up to 10 sessions in culinary and home management to tap the big market of young professionals, culinary enthusiasts, and mothers of all ages.  

The expansion is intended to meet the growing demand for high-quality education and skills training over the next 20 years. 

More and more young women aged 18-23 from disadvantaged families are looking to get an education and access to employment, according to Punlaan executive director Mila Araneta. The majority are daughters of seasonal workers such as drivers, carpenters, laborers, as well as unemployed parents. Those from the rural areas are daughters of farmers, fishers, and contractual workers.

The demand for job-ready graduates for the hospitality industry is also increasing as businesses are fully back to normal after the pandemic, and with tourism seen as one of the drivers of economic recovery, Araneta says in an email interview.  

Consider the impact of a scholarship, with a job placement to boot, on these women’s families. 

“Our graduates earn as much as P15,000 a month as entry-level workers and up to P50,000 after five years if they are working abroad. They become the family breadwinner; they are able to send their siblings to school, pay the rent, and in many cases build a new home,” she says.

Underscoring the multiple roles women play in the family and society, Araneta expresses the belief that “an educated woman or mother has greater possibilities of bringing up children of good character who hopefully will become good citizens.” Being employed enables them not only to provide for their dependents but also to participate in the building of a stable family and community. 

“Women from the poor sector should have the same opportunity to be part of the effort to transform individuals and build sustainable societies,“ she insists.

The group behind Punlaan subsequently opened more training centers for women (in the provinces of Laguna and Cebu) and organized the Foundation for Professional Training, Inc. (FPTI), which owns and operates the schools. The foundation is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bureau of Internal Revenue as a donee institution. 

Donations and other forms of support from industry partners as well as individual and corporate benefactors and other local foundations with a similar vision enable FPTI and its schools to finance their operations and the scholars’ tuition. The government provides some funding in the form of Tesda scholarships. 

State-of-the-art facilities 

The new building is equipped with the best housekeeping modules and what must be any budding chef’s dream—industry-standard, state-of-the art facilities and utensils for kitchen and baking laboratories. Ideally, the kitchenware should approximate what students will eventually be using on the job. 

Besides comfortable classrooms and offices, the new building also has an auditorium and an oratory (a small chapel usually for private worship).    

The increase in demand for staff is seen not only in the F&B services but also in hotel housekeeping. Given that the graduates come from simple backgrounds, the school is particularly circumspect in assessing requests for chambermaids. 

“We want to ensure the safety and welfare of these young women,” says FPTI director Cynthia Picazo in a phone interview. “Our graduates are also employed in cruise liners, so security is very important to their families, especially with the high incidence of human trafficking.” 

The other aspect of Punlaan training is character formation through personalized mentoring. Each student is assigned a mentor who assists her in identifying and communicating her academic needs so that these may be addressed and she can achieve her best. 

“This formation sets Punlaan apart from other technical schools,” says Picazo. “As it equips its students with academic and technical skills, it also imparts core values to enable them to fulfill their work and achieve the quality of life consistent with human dignity.” She highlights Christian virtues such as respect, courtesy, helpfulness, sincerity, integrity, humility, and selflessness.

The school’s industry partners have observed the students’ dedication and commitment, qualities that make them highly employable. 

Fighting chance

In an audiovisual presentation, some Punlaan scholars speak of their common aspiration for a better life for their families. Pastry chef Mary Ann Garcia Agajanian, sous chef Angelica Velasco, restaurant manager Rochelle Dequito, and graduating student Ragen Rome Vergara all acknowledge how Punlaan gave them a fighting chance and enabled them to attain their goals. 

Dequito quotes the poet and educator Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “Success is not something to wait for, it is something to work for.”

School director Anna Marie N. Jacinto remarks that Punlaan has truly adhered to the teaching of St. Josemaria Escriva, “who wanted to promote women empowerment.” 

Punlaan conducts information campaigns in public schools, barangays, and parishes. Applicants must be 18-23 years old, single, senior high school graduates with 80% grade average. They must pass the entrance exam and the interview for the scholarship.

More information is available at www.punlaanschool.edu.ph and facebook.com/punlaanschool, or call t8250-4534 local 1016.

Punlaan’s hotel partners are Grand Hyatt Manila, Hilton Clark/Manila, Conrad Manila, Herald Suites, Park Inn by Radissons, Seda Hotel, Fairmont Raffles, Ascott Makati, Diamond Hotel, Marco Polo, Bayview Park Hotel, The Bellevue Manila, Discovery Suites, New World Manila Bay Hotel, and New World Makati Hotel. 

Its restaurant partners are Cafe Mary Grace, Conti’s, I’m Angus Steakhouse, UCC Vienna Café, Amici, J.CO, BRTO, Pan de Manila, ALC Bistro Inc., Annabel’s, Barcino, Cafe Ysabel, Icings, Via Mare, Apartment1-B, Pancake House, Katherine’s Café, Mann Hann, Pico de Loro, Max’s Group, French Baker, Pasto, Bistro Remedios. 

Foreign institutions and sponsors are American Initiatives, Limmat Foundation of Switzerland, and Wonder Foundation, London. 

Donors will be present at the Oct. 6 inauguration of the new Punlaan building. They will be joined by FPTI chair/president Imelda G. Nibungco, Punlaan School director Theresa E. Nabatar, and Ana B. Pastelero, head of the Development Board of the New Punlaan Project. 

The special guests are Maria Gerty D. Pagaran, Tesda director for Pasig, Mandaluyong, Marikina; and San Juan Rep.  Maria J. Zamora. 

A Mass will be officiated by Rev. Fr. Julio Dieguez, Regional Vicar of Prelature Opus Dei. 

Seedbed  

“Punlaan is Tagalog for seedbed,” Araneta points out. “By providing skills training, character development and work values, Punlaan is planting seeds not only of economic well-being but also of moral and spiritual growth of the young women it nurtures.”   

The original Punlaan school was a humble two-story mostly wooden structure with a few classrooms and a kitchen. It used to be a private maternity hospital. 

With the new building and expanded teaching programs, the site is indeed a women’s domain.

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