Open Letter to VC Gregorio & CMC Admin

An Open Letter to Vice-Chancellor Cynthia Gregorio & The College of Mass Communication Administration

As early as the first week of April, it has come to the USC’s attention that 11 residents from Village B, UP Diliman will be affected by the planned demolition in the said area to give way to the rehabilitation of the DZUP tower. As student body representatives that recognizes the importance of the different sectors of the UP community, the USC decided that it would be best to study the whole situation in order to protect the rights and welfare of Village B residents, while not having to sacrifice the improvement of broadcast services to be rendered by the rehabilitation of the DZUP tower.

In cooperation with Anakbayan, the USC Community Rights and Welfare committee (USC CRAW) held regular meetings with Village B residents to consult them and to offer any help that the USC can provide. Meanwhile, the USC also submitted a letter last April 16, 2008, addressed to Prof. Rose Feliciano of the Broadcast Communication Department of the College of Mass Communication requesting for pertinent documents regarding the DZUP project. In the letter, the USC stated the reasons for such request:

We are humbly requesting your kind office for copies of pertinent documents relating to the project, so that we may study carefully the context, the facts, and the justifications for its various implementations, and that we may fairly dispense to our constituents and to the university community our stand and position with regards to the issue, and the action that we shall be taking.

A few days after, when the USC and the CMC Student Council (CMC SC) followed up on the status of the request, the involvement of these student institutions in community affairs was questioned. Nevertheless, we asserted that these community issues are also students’ concerns, and therefore, demand action from the USC and CMC SC.

Last April 28, 2008, a dialogue between the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs with the CMC administration and Village B residents, with the USC, College of Arts & Letters Student Council (CAL SC), CMC SC, and All-UP Workers Union transpired with regards to the demolition of Village B to give way for the installment of a new DZUP transmitter.

In the course of the dialogue, the student councils, in order to effectively study the situation and dispense a fair and justified action thereafter, requested a moratorium on the demolition and further asserted for copies of pertinent documents relating to the project. Beforehand, there were already licensed engineers, who volunteered to take part in the study and were already waiting for the copies of these documents.

The request for this documents, however, was turned down. According to the administration, the refusal was due to the reason that such documents are too detailed and technical for the student representatives to acquire and understand.

We would like to express our utter disappointment at this rejection. The matters on hand are matters of interest to the UP community: from the students of CMC, to the residents of Village B, and other similar sectors in our campus facing similar situations and challenges. As the official student representative body, the USC would like to assert its right to information with regards to matters that concern our constituents and the university community. Such documents, as such related to transactions and issues within the premiere State University, must be considered public documents, which should be available to the public for critical scrutiny. Thus, we reiterate our demand for the documents pertaining to the demolition of Village B and the installment of the new DZUP transmitter.

Furthermore, we would also like to reiterate that the USC firmly stands in its principle of giving service and representation to the marginalized sectors of the UP community. We recognize that our university is not an institution exclusively academic. The different sectors are components of our everyday activities in our campus, and therefore, it is important to conscienticize ourselves in their real situations and be integrated with their present concerns. In the present condition where these sectors lack adequate representation to policy and decision-making bodies of our university, the USC pledges to be a student institution that will uphold their democratic rights, alongside of the students’.

We hope that the different offices in our campus find these assertions a move to help in the establishment of a more democratic governance in our university. Let us all work hand together in the pursuit of the interests of our constituents, not as contending sectors, but as one whole UP community.

Respectfully Yours,
University Student Council - UP Diliman