This coming year, we, the students, are yet again challenged to make our voices heard, use our individual beliefs and principles to make a united move, and solidify a stand that we never thought we would ever need to make since the inception of the Office of the Student Regent in 1987. In fact, personally, I deem this instance more vital, in every essence of the word, than casting our votes for the student council elections.

The Office of the Student Regent is under threat. It has, in fact, unknowingly been subjected to threat since the implementation of the New UP Charter early 2008. Where a certain provision, suddenly rendered the Codified Rules for Student Regent Selection, temporarily futile until it is voted upon in a referendum (Sec. 12.,g.).

The inclusion of the referendum, in itself without proper consultation with student representatives, who are the biggest stakeholders in this charter, is in itself an abomination of the quintessence of the University of the Philippines, and the history/rationale behind the inception of the Office of the Student Regent.

It is stated clearly, in the CRSRS, which have been used efficiently for 10 years, producing great Student Regents who have been defenders of students' rights, that the selection of the Student Regent should purely be a student affair, and no administrative intervention will be allowed, except for the ministerial duty of the incumbent President to merely appoint the student-selected regent to the position for procedural sake.

The mere inclusion of such a provision, appalls me, to the very core, that lawmakers, and graduates of this university, would obscure their vision and pretend that securing a referendum would be so easy, considering the structure of the UP system. Even the ambiguity of the provision itself, proves their lack of foresight and sincere concern to actually guide the students in executing this referendum.

With the total population of the whole UP system, councils need to work thrice harder, in order to deliver the 50% + 1 affirmative votes we need to secure our representation in the Board of Regents. An exploit, we would only dare because of the challenge opposed to us.
This is our primary goal for the coming year.

You would notice that I, as a member of the Student Council, rarely write down my views/opinions indiscriminately, i mostly do them out in the open, in propaganda actions within the college, or other events, because ( as i have admitted many times over) I see myself as not much of a writer.

But the current events have awaken in me a nagging concern to make the brevity and urgency of the matter known to the students. This is after all, our mandate, as duly elected council leaders, but beyond that, I believe, that securing our representation in the Board of Regents is our mandate as "Iskolars ng Bayan", and that securing this seat where we know that democratic rights of future "Iskolars ng Bayan" are fought to the death is our mandate as a Filipino people.

E: ok lang ba sa'yo kung magiging kami?

M: e gagu ka pala oo naman, happy for you. :)