Learning comes with militancy at the University of the Philippines (UP) right from the start of academic classes at UP Diliman and other campuses.

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.”