Warns UP admin against retracting decision to stop tuition collection
Youth group Anakbayan lauds the students of the University of the Philippines for pushing the university administration to stop tuition and other fees collection in UP Diliman.
This tactical victory is ultimately a product of the students’ long history collective action and unwavering commitment to uphold the Filipino youth and people’s right to education.
In the past days, iskolars ng bayan walked out of their midterm classes in their hundreds in spite of the break in regular classes.
UP Diliman Chancellor Michael Tan announced last night to a mass of students still gathered in protest at the Quezon Hall after a day-long protest that no tuition and miscellaneous fees shall be collected from UP Diliman students this coming enrolment.
“There will be no tuition collection until government is clear about their plan. They are not clear yet as to how much subsidy there will be: partial or complete, and who will be eligible. Until they clarify we will not collect any amount from students,” said Chancellor Tan.
The UP Presidential Advisory Council has also reportedly recommended the implementation of a no tuition collection policy for the whole UP system.
We call on iskolars ng bayan to not let up the pressure on the UP administration lest it retracts UP Diliman’s decision to stop tuition collection. We warn of massive protests, walkouts, student strikes, barricades, and campus occupations should such treachery takes place.
Whether this measure will push through is now up to the intensified mass struggles of iskolars ng bayan, in concert with the rest of the UP community and the Filipino, to defend this tactical gain.
Free tuition implementation in UP should also serve as a final call for the immediate junking of the deceptive socialized tuition system in UP. This scam has resulted in tuition rates to increase from P40 per unit in 1989 to the current base tuition of P1,500 per unit, which has made UP gravely inaccessible to the poor majority.
The struggle against neoliberal attacks on education that has intensified UP’s role as a privatized profit-making institution and as a producer of cheap semi-skilled and skilled labor for export continues.
Nevertheless, this is one more step towards achieving a truly nationalist, scientific, and mass-oriented education. Its full attainment lies in the struggle to transform a rotten ruling system that denies the right to education.