To serve UP
The University of the Philippines has picked its 22nd president: lawyer and former regent Angelo “Jijil” Jimenez whose six-year term will be from February 2023 to February 2029.
Jimenez will serve at a time when the state university’s independence is being questioned and is under attack, and its role in shaping the country’s future leaders into critical thinkers and innovators is more crucial than ever. He will also have to address issues that have been raised against him when he was a labor attaché and clarify his stand on matters that affect the UP community.
The selection of UP’s president may be “local” in that it covers a limited constituency, but its relevance is obvious: The university, after all, has produced many of the country’s leaders, including presidents (seven have studied at the university), senators, other elected officials, as well as members of the Cabinet. The institution is a bastion of critical thought and academic freedom, but has been the subject of Red-tagging, particularly by the previous administration. Some have also referred to the university as a microcosm of the country. It is for these reasons why the process of selecting the next president of the university, which has given many disadvantaged students access to quality education, should be a matter of national interest.
A matrix posted by the Philippine Collegian of the six presidential candidates’ stances on critical issues showed that Jimenez opposed full face to face learning and the institutionalization of the UP-DND accord, and was in favor of commercialization of UP spaces and contractualization of workers.
The Friday announcement of Jimenez’s election — unanimous according to the 11-member Board of Regents (BOR) — was met with protests from students and workers. The Alliance of Concerned Students UP Baguio (ACS UPB), for one, stated on their Facebook page: “Ang isang UP President, bilang hawak ang pinakamataas na posisyon sa Unibersidad, ay dapat na lubog sa kalagayan hindi lamang ng UP kundi pati ng mas malawak na lipunan sa labas nito. Malinaw na ang katangiang ito ay hindi taglay ni Jijil Jimenez. (A UP President, as someone who holds the highest position in the university, must be immersed in the condition not only of UP but also of the wider society outside it. It is clear that this quality is not possessed by Jijil Jimenez.)” Aside from his stance on issues mentioned above, ACS UPB also raised concerns over Jimenez’s alleged opposition to include Marcos Studies in the GE courses.
In his column “The search for the 22nd UP president” (Public Lives, 11/13/22) in this paper, UP professor emeritus Randy David warned: “… [A] president who is appointed with blithe disregard for the sentiments of the academic community, or primarily for his/her connections to the powers-that-be, will find it difficult to govern. For a university that is worth its name as an academic institution will always be jealous of its autonomy—its capacity to determine its own affairs and to choose its own leaders.” David further referred to UP’s historical role as the “nation’s conscience” that the institution cannot abandon, as well as the “Tatak UP” mindset, which, he wrote, sums up nonconformism, idealism, and the habit of criticism.
The challenges for Jimenez, who served in the BOR twice — in 1992 as a student regent, and in 2016 to 2021 as a regent—are manifold: He must protect the university’s academic integrity and freedom, maintain his independence from political pressures, and address the primary concerns of his constituents.
In his vision statement submitted to the BOR, Jimenez’s “big vision” was for UP to “become a global university that asks the big questions of our time and, acting locally, strive to solve the problems of the world.” He promised to give priority to research through resource generation and allocation, collaborate with government and industry, promote an open data policy, and close the quality gap to education by helping improve the quality of undergraduate education in other state universities and colleges.
In a speech after the announcement of his appointment, Jimenez said: “I’m promising, I will defend academic freedom. I will defend the independence of the institutions according to the law. … One of my most ardent devotions is to protect our freedoms. Ideas are the life blood of the university and academic freedom is the cardiovascular system. We have to protect the cardiovascular system so that ideas can flow and make a very healthy university and institution.”
He also ended his vision statement with these words: “I have no personal vested interest in UP, only service. I enjoy the independence that is crucial in balancing competing interests and making fast and hard decisions. … I want to serve UP.”
Jimenez should be steadfast in his duty to protect and fight for the interests of the university that has prided itself as a space for critical thinking and innovation.
