Manifesto on the Acad Oval Policy
Below is a manifesto prepared by the University Student Council’s Community Rights & Welfare Committee under CSWCD Rep. Carmela Lagang seeking for a moratorium on the “One-Way Acad Oval” traffic policy of the UP Admin.
MANIFESTO OF UNITY AGAINST THE UNDEMOCRATIC IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ONE-WAY ACADEMIC OVAL POLICY
University Student Council (Community Rights & Welfare Committee)
All-UP Workers Union (AUPWU)
Office of the Student Regent (OSR)
Samahan ng mga Manininda sa UP (SMUP)
All-UP Transportation Forum (AUPTF)
All-UP Academic Employees Union (AUPAEU)
We believe that the history of our University proves that as a community, we have a proud tradition of taking part in the struggles of the people in and out of the University. Different sectors of our community, from the students to the residents of the various communities in campus, to the jeepney drivers and operators, contribute greatly in the everyday flow of activities in our university. As such, it is our role to be acquainted with each other’s demands regarding our issues and concerns as a community.
At the last week of March this year, the UP Administration imposed a “one-way policy” around the Academic Oval inside our campus. The rationale behind this policy is to lessen the pollution in campus and the volume of vehicles inside. However, this kind of scheme does not significantly reduce the number of vehicles that enter the university every day and it may even produce more vehicular emissions due to lengthened routes for public and private vehicles.
This kind of policy has affected the livelihood of UP transport groups, especially the drivers and operators of the Toki and Katipunan franchises. There have been no formal consultations between the transport groups, the students, and other affected sectors of the UP community by the UP Administration before the implementation of the policy. The “one-way policy” of the UP Administration adds more to the diminution of their income and has also created lengthened routes that force additional consumption of oil in a time when oil price hikes are relentless. According to the jeepney drivers, their incomes have not been enough to sustain an average family size of six members, as there is also a prevailing economic and political crisis in our country.
Aside from these predicaments, various student organizations and individuals were also consulted by the University Student Council and has expressed the inconvenience that the policy has brought them. Because of the lengthening and limitations in transport routes, it has taken many students a longer time to go to their classes and other important destinations in campus.
We, members of the different sectors of the UP community, recognize the services jeepney drivers have rendered to us and to our community for many years. We are one with the UP transport groups in opposition to this “one-way policy” of the UP Administration and in the campaign to bring back the drivers’ previous routes. We demand for: dialogues with the Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs for the democratic consultation with consent from the affected sectors of the UP community; proper representation of jeepney drivers and students in the transport committee of the UP Administration; and the immediate resolution regarding the various conflicting issues on the implementation of the “one-way scheme” around the Academic Oval.
[…] After the deliberation of the Sports & Fitness Committee, the USC proceeded to discuss the manifesto presented by the Community Rights & Welfare Committee under CSWCD Rep. Carmela Lagang with […]
“[T]he campaign to bring back the drivers’ previous routes” is ill-informed. In the first place, jeepney routes (immediately prior to the existing ones) were not significantly shorter than present ones. How much time is saved in a student’s commute between old and new routes? The fact is SOME commutes are better done without the jeepneys. Take Kalayaan dorm to Math Building: goodluck if you get it in 20 minutes! But if you bike the distance, wew!, 7 minutes tops on a leisurely pace. No sweat there.
Sure, the jeepneys have rendered great service to the community. But lest we forget, they’re a BUSINESS. The University sets some rules for businesspeople to do their trade on campus, after probably hearing them out. But at the end of the day, businesspeople always take their business to where it is viable or profitable.
The UP Administration is not exactly a paragon of good moves. Frankly, some of its actions border on incompetence (if not idiocy). But sometimes UP Admin gets it right. I happen to see that the one-way oval traffic scheme is right: it’s a great start for a healthy, pedestrian friendly, environment friendly, secure university.
I believe there were some groups who were starting a rent-a-bike program in UP.
I’m not sure if it has been publicly declared but I know that the Administration aims for a carless UP, both in the inner and outer oval. They are slowly promoting cheap and environment-friendly alternative methods of transportation such as cycling and walking.
About the issue of Jeepney drivers having insufficient income for a family of six: They should be well informed that NO JOB is capable of supporting a family of six whether you’re a UP graduate or not.
@fs:
-> that would be the UP Mountaineers in the other post.
-> promotion is different from imposition. and implementations should have undergone feasibility studies that includes decisive consultations from the major stakeholders and those primarily affected by said implementations to ensure its being democratic.
-> so what would you propose? them simply giving up their families of six out of hopeless despair? that is beside the point that the policy has aggravated their already dismal livelihoods. and the fact is that it also has serious repercussions for those who render their services. if you intend to introduce new policies, you do it in a manner that it’s predetermined democratically and that it doesn’t have serious afflictions on UP’s constituents.
the reason that it doesn’t make the jeepney drivers and their service users’ situation any better is invalid. again, promotion (of biking) is completely different from imposition (of one-way policies). if it is transitional as claimed, it should be done with society’s limitations in its stages of development in context.
in addition, while it is true that income generation is far outstripped by expenses in our decrepit little country, it doesn’t mean that the AUPTA’s local fights should be ignored. kaya nga bitbit din nila sa grievances nila yung national issue of the oil price hikes. you simply can’t see them (the local and the national issues) seperately from each other.
i think both the promotion of bike use and the one way acad policy are related. you can’t see them separately from each other TOO.
Oh you do? Did you also stop to think that the bike lane and the one-way oval does not necessarily need the existence of the other to remain effective? Did you also stop to think the negative implications of a biking area not considered as traffic to pedestrian traffic (reference: )? Did you also stop to think that maybe, just maybe, the USC sees how divisive pitting the bikers against the drivers are when in fact their grievances (of both the environment/bike/health advocates and transport users) can be reconciled because their grievances suffer generally from the universal problem of lack of government support and subsidy?
these sectarian tendencies are rooted from elitist ideals. perceptions of the big picture also depends on whether the eyes are deliberately fogged, refusing to see the real implications of issues.
^pahabol: reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_cycling
I agree that the policy is complementary. The policy objective is a cleaner campus, with less congestion. The policy measures are (1) a One-Way Oval, and (2) Bike Use.
In policy discourse, there will always be people who will lose (i.e. those who wants to stick with the old ways of doing things). But there are those who, instead of losing, will see the new policy as a potential. They will not cling on to old ways of doing things, but rather ensure that they can derive the most benefit from these new policies. That is what we call innovation.
From where I stand, jeepney drivers can always win in this case. How? First is to go green. Ask their legislators to invest their pork barrels on manufacturing low-cost environmentally friendly engines. Or since they are organized groups and cooperatives, they can ask for funding for these endeavors.
Second is to study the optimal use of UP’s roads. Maybe there are routes that can be opened for them as alternatives.
to 05-21830: Please. You should know better than to cite wikipedia as a source and reference material…
I agree with sjsanjuan in saying that the jeepney drivers are not only the losing side. This system actually has potential to provide them with more income, because its ultimate goal is for people to be more dependent on public transportation and other means (aside from PRIVATE VEHICLES).
Francis Serina: “About the issue of Jeepney drivers having insufficient income for a family of six: They should be well informed that NO JOB is capable of supporting a family of six whether you’re a UP graduate or not.”
05-21830: “so what would you propose? them simply giving up their families of six out of hopeless despair?”
Me: Spread the word that there’s hope when families are small AND educated. When people reproduce like rabbits, they’re setting themselves up for trouble. Serina: 1, 05-21830: 0.
This discourse is democratic in nature, is it not? Then it should consider the fact that there users and providers of public transport within the UP campus are clearly substantial in number (as reflected in the relatively successful manifesto signing) and as such warrants the reconsideration of this policy that has been detrimental to them.
It is not as simpletonic as the traditional opposed to the liberal, it is more a question of what’s MORE practical in the conditions of the NOW. I’m pretty sure the solution to fuel dependency isn’t as easy as requesting for funding. Especially since you simply can’t focus on small parts of the transport system and thus need to make the change in a form of a systematic overhaul and not just isolated cases. Especially since green fuel is way more expensive than diesel, and that complete subsidy of a complete green transformation in the transport sector requires WAY more than partylist funding.
This is too naive, with too narrow thinking, since innovation isn’t a walk in the park, which also applies to biking. Although, again, I reiterate the thought that biking advocates and the JODAs as well as jeep users aren’t enemies in this situation, both are victims of what I percieve to be the UP admin’s trend of opportunism. While I do believe that biking alongside better public mass-transport systems are the future of trasportation, I do believe that this imposing yet premature one-way policy is best left to the future for now given the present conditions.
Anyway, this discourse has already been dulled out in the UP Padyak post. Why don’t you all read through my discourse with Panuhot? Maybe you’ll get a glimpse there of how biking and public commuting shouldn’t be contradicting each other.
05-21830: the reason why PLANNING is called such is pretty much because it looks to the FUTURE. not to the NOW. I think the plan pretty much has considered them
On the contrary, the plan isn’t narrow-thinking, but looking at a bigger picture. Please choose your words and the things you write next time.
Such planning that doesn’t take the present context in consideration is called idealist. How the hell would you know what’s good for the future if you don’t know the problems of the now? What good is a plan for the future if it ensures more problems for the now?
Had it really considered anything (or everything for that matter), shouldn’t have consultations be done to get conclusive validations of this policy? Do you honestly think a railroaded policy that only created notions about its effect on UP’s constituents out of pure vacuum is accurate?
You are too blinded in your worship of the Admin’s “omnipotence” that you haven’t stopped to consider its implications to other parts of UP’s society. You are not the center of the world, sir.
05-21830: have you considered that the problem on the NOW is probably because people just aren’t used to it? Change starts when there is an admission that the old scheme had problems or could be better. And it has come. I am not worshipping the Admin’s omnipotence, and I am against several of their acts (one of them being the change in school days) but I’m being fair by giving this POLICY a chance, because I see the potential it actually has. You on the other hand, my dear friend, see nothing but negativity in anything that the Admin does. Perhaps you are the biased one.
@para sa bayan: 05-21830 has already promised to bike on campus… hahaha… kaya kitakits na lang tayo sa 1-way oval. Makipadyak, wag matakot!
Francis Serina on June 13th, 2008 1:02 am
About the issue of Jeepney drivers having insufficient income for a family of six: They should be well informed that NO JOB is capable of supporting a family of six whether you’re a UP graduate or not.
– ano ba yan. didnt one year in the USC knock some sense into you? thats the average family size of a Filipino family.