The darker side of innovation

 

 

I’ve read recently that the Philippines has been ranked 90th in the 2013 Global Innovation Index (GDI) published by Cornell University, INSEAD business school, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Compared with other countries, the study said that innovation in the Philippines is only at par with Uganda and Botswana.

 

With a rating of 31.2, the Philippines is way below the top-ranked countries which have an average rating of 60.5. Surprisingly, the Philippines did not fare well among Asian countries, with lowly Mongolia even passing the Philippines with a higher rating of 35.8 and was number 72 among all countries.

 

Innovation. Photo courtesy of Dubey Classes of Innovation.



What does this latest GDI say about the Philippines? A new strain of AIDS has definitely hit us – Acute Innovation Deficiency Syndrome.

 

It’s not that we’re lacking in innovation or creativity as a people, but it’s somehow misplaced on matters that do not lift us a society, whether in business, politics or other endeavours. We have, as Nick Joaquin rightfully pointed out, a heritage of smallness.

 

One of the 84 indicators used by GDI in measuring innovation is the quality of higher education available in a country. The University of the Philippines used to be among the top-ranked universities in the whole of Asia, maybe between 1900 and 1950 or later. Now, UP is nowhere to be found among the top 100 of the inaugural Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings for 2013, although it ranked 67th among the top 100 Asian universities in the QS University Rankings for Asia, 2013.

 

A consolation of sorts to all diehard UP students and alumni is the news that three students from the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) were crowned this year's Asian debate champions after beating the National University of Singapore (NUS) in the final round of one of Asia's biggest debate tournaments. Ah, debating, we’re good at this. Just look at our own Congress where there are plenty of debaters of different stripes who walk all over the place. Here they can debate to death whether to eliminate the pork barrel system of allotting government money to members of Congress that traditionally are earmarked for improvements in their bailiwicks but sometimes surreptitiously end in their pockets. We call it “pork barrel” while the US Congress calls it “earmarks.”

 

Another consolation of a kind, this time to diehard Marcos fanatics, is the renaming of the UP College of Business Administration to Cesar EA Virata School of Business. Those who are young not to remember, Cesar Virata was the prime minister and finance minister during the Marcos martial law regime. Even UP bureaucrats have short memories of the oppressive Marcos dictatorship that it would honour one of the dictator’s devoted underlings.

 

We’re not lacking in innovation, for sure.

 

But all this talk about innovation and creativity could be overrated. In his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the Austrian-American economist, Joseph Schumpeter, developed a theory of economic innovation and business cycle based on the early works of Karl Marx which he called creative destruction. Schumpeter adapted his theory of innovation derived from Marxist economic theory, where it refers to the linked processes of the accumulation and annihilation of wealth under capitalism.

 

According to Schumpeter, the creative-destructive forces unleashed by capitalism would eventually lead to its demise as a system. Marx implied in his early works, notably in the 1848 Communist Manifesto, that capitalism not only destroys and reconfigures previous economic regimes, but it also continuously devalues existing wealth through events such as war, dereliction or regular and periodic economic crises which are necessary for the creation of new wealth. In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels described the crisis tendencies of capitalism in terms of “the enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces.”

 

While Marx admired capitalism’s creativity, he strongly emphasized its self-destructiveness. On the other hand, as Schumpeter praised and glorified capitalism’s endless creativity, he treated its destructiveness as simply a matter that relates to the normal costs of doing business.

 

The spirit of creativity and the concept of creative destruction could also explain how the human imagination ceaselessly continues to destroy things only to create new ones. For example, the scarcity of wood as fuel forced the discovery and invention of substitutes, such as the use of coal for heating, or the invention of coke for the production of iron.

 

Schumpeter envisaged the “innovative entry of entrepreneurs as the disruptive force that sustained economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies and laborers that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power derived from previous technological, organizational, regulatory, and economic paradigms.”

 

A modern example of how this creative destruction works is the story of Polaroid. Polaroid instant cameras have disappeared almost completely with the spread of digital photography.

 

As early as 1949, Schumpeter foretold the “railroadization” of the Middle West in America through the Illinois Central. While Illinois Central meant good business, it also spelled the demise of the old agriculture of the West.

 

Many companies that once revolutionized and dominated new industries have seen their profits fall as rival companies launched improved designs or cut manufacturing costs. Xerox in copiers is a good example. The cassette tape replaced the 8-track, only to be replaced in turn by the compact disc, which was undercut by MP3 players, which will in turn eventually be replaced by newer technologies. Companies which made money out of technology which becomes obsolete do not necessarily adapt well to the business environment created by the new technologies.

 

The power of the internet has acted as a catalyst for creative destruction. It has allowed businesses to compete in markets outside of their geographic location, reach more consumers, create efficiencies and cut costs in manual processes as well as pioneer new techniques for doing business.

Newsroom of the Future, courtesy of Pablo Maria Ramirez Banares.

Huffington Post and Zero Hedge have been creatively destroying the domain of the traditional newspaper. Many newspapers and magazines, such as the Christian Science Monitor, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Newsweek, have stopped publishing their paper edition and gone online. Traditional alumni networks that typically charge members to network online are in danger of being wiped out by free professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Viadeo.

 

There is no limit to the human imagination. All because we put so much value on innovation and creativity. Anything goes, the sky is the limit.

 

This is true in our attitude to our environment and our resources. As Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote in The Ingenuity Gap, “the beliefs in the unlimited substitutability of resources, in the primacy of economic institutions and policies, and in the exceptionalism of human beings and their modern markets often combine to produce what I can call unbridled hubris.”

 

The steadfast belief in the market as the core of every economic activity drives the impulse for innovation. It also creates a sour distaste for government, that government and all its regulatory powers are the antithesis of the free market. We want innovation that is free from all forms of infringement and encroachment by the State. Little do we realize that new growth or progress, as Homer Dixon argues, is fueled not by just “ideas that reconfigure the rock, soil, wood, water and air around us into miraculous things that serve our needs” – but it is a consequence also of “social factors like the political struggles that shape market institutions and policies.”

 

The innovation powerhouse called modern science indeed plays a huge part in the story of human prosperity. The perils that innovation brings, which we simply ignore as the costs of doing business, may also be the engine to destroy those things we have created so we can keep our innovative spirit running. Innovation may be largely responsible for our extraordinary flexibility in overcoming resource scarcities and other technical challenges, but there are certain social consequences that can cause economic distress, such as layoffs and massive unemployment due to obsolescence of working skills, economic imbalance and disparity between countries as a result of globalization, and other hardships that could push the free market into periodic paroxysms of crises which we have experienced from the recent Wall Street meltdown.

 

Marshall Berman devoted a whole chapter on “Innovative Self-Destruction” in his book, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, where he described the profound and cultural consequences of the processes at work within modernity.

 

Berman wrote: “The truth of the matter, as Marx sees, is that everything that bourgeois society builds is built to be torn down. All that is solid -- are made to be broken tomorrow, smashed or shredded or pulverized or dissolved, so they can be recycled or replaced next week, and the whole process can go on again and again, hopefully forever, in ever more profitable forms.”

No sympathy for the poor

 

 

In the Philippines, a country so full of promise but has not really taken off to the next stage, most Filipino families consider their children’s college education as a viable option out of poverty. The paradox is you have to be well-off to get a college education today in the Philippines.

 

Despite the economic downturn, people continue to remain optimistic that a college degree is the key to a good job. It is the contemporary belief that we educate ourselves to get a job; that education could determine one’s economic destiny.

 

In an interview after his daughter Kristel Tejada, a first year Behavioural Sciences student at the University of the Philippines (Manila), committed suicide for failing to pay her school tuition, Christopher Tejada repeatedly stressed that it was his daughter’s hope and dream to finish college so she could lift the family out of the claws of poverty. The Tejadas, most particularly Kristel, saw education as a means to a better life, a tool to rewrite their story. Poor families share with the better-off and the rich this aspiration for upward mobility through education. This is true anywhere in the world, whether in rich or poor societies.

 

In an outpouring of support, students from the University of the Philippines join
a vigil for Kristel Tejada. Photo courtesy of the Philippine Star. Click image to
view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejKua6x3hxU, Kristel Tejada laid to rest.

Education is a right proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, it shall be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages, and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

 

But here comes an uninformed and somewhat skewed opinion from Jose Montelibano who writes a column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer where he challenges the basis for subsidizing public education (See http://opinion.inquirer.net/49217/college-subsidy-for-whom-for-what). Subsidized scholarship, he says, is “an extension of an old tradition when benefactors choose to support the most deserving who cannot afford a college education. This has less to do with education and more about rewarding talent, or an act of charity.”

 

Obviously, Montelibano doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

 

Education has never been, in our colonial past or present, a charitable act. When the state provides funding to a public higher institution of learning like the University of the Philippines (UP), it is not doling charity to its students, but it is performing a fundamental obligation to make education accessible to its citizens. There is a big difference between charity and obligation which Montelibano apparently doesn’t seem to understand.

 

While the state recognizes education as a right, it must also be aware that higher education cannot be for everyone. The self-evident truth is that higher education also discriminates. Education will help everyone to improve their lot, this is almost a universal truth. But not everyone can enter university or college because there are standards that must be met. There are other ways the rest of society who are not accepted to institutions of higher learning can have real opportunities for improving their lives. Not everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, an accountant or a nurse. In the same way as not everyone can have the skills and aptitude of a mechanic, an electrician, a carpenter, or a plumber.

 

Montelibano writes: “Government scholars, though, must have a different criteria [sic], a standard that demands service to the people ahead of service to the self or family. The state must help those who are determined to help the common good, who are committed to become models of good citizens.”

 

However, this is not the purpose for the establishment of the University of the Philippines.

 

The expectation is noble and dignified that when they graduate, Iskolars ng Bayan will reciprocate the government for its assistance. But imposing it as a student’s contractual obligation is not a fair quid pro quo when it is the government’s fundamental responsibility to make education accessible. Service to the people is a loose concept that could include students joining protest rallies against the government for its anti-poor policies, for its incompetence in governance, or against a do-nothing Congress, or demanding minimum wage increases and improving working conditions.

 

It is the emphasis on contractual thinking based on commercial or private agreements that is rotting the core of the subsidized or socialized tuition policy of public universities such as UP.

 

Because the institution has adopted a policy to subsidize or socialize tuition, there is an implied authority that it can restructure and readjust tuition anytime on permissible grounds like the effect of inflation on the cost of running the university. The idea of restructuring tuition rates on the basis of inflation is essentially a commercial argument, a justification that comports with concerns for the bottom line. But it is not that simple since it is the obligation of the state to make education accessible that it must consider all other revenue options rather than conveniently impose on the students and their families the burden of equalizing cost with revenue.

 

The declaration of policy for the establishment of the University of the Philippines is very clear that “the State shall promote, foster, nurture and protect the right of all citizens to accessible quality education.”

 

Under Section 9 of its Charter, UP has a mandate to take affirmative steps to enhance the admission of disadvantaged, poor and deserving students. This should be what we must be concerned about, not Montelibano’s suggestion that state-sponsored scholars should not use their education for themselves but for the people, an arrogant idea that comes from the smugness of a privileged life.

 

A World Bank study has pointed to inequality in access to higher education in the Philippines as a continuing problem, together with the glaring gap between the labour requirements in the market and the quality of graduates produced by local colleges. The study also found out that although more and more students are entering college and universities over the years, the growth is concentrated on people belonging to higher-income households. To address this inequality, the Work Bank proposed that there should be more grants of scholarships and loans to deserving students.

 

But more access to student loans does not guarantee completion of a college degree, and finding a good paying job after graduation.

 

In the United States, steep hikes in student tuition and fees have increased the debt levels of both students and universities. The cost of university per student in the U.S. has risen by almost five times the rate of inflation, making it less affordable and increasing the amount of debt a student must take on. Even though student loans are often available, the idea of repaying student loan debt, with high interest rates and low job prospects, is a significant roadblock for many.

 

So, if availability of student loans is not a guaranteed formula in equalizing access to higher education, what can be?

Click link below to view  College Tuition: 1k to 75k per semester with graphic
showing the wide range of tuition at private and state universities in the
Philippines, courtesy of GMA News Online.
 http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/300312/news/nation/college-tuition-1k-to-75k-per-semester

The University of the Philippines has in place what it calls a Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program, or STFAP for short. Under this policy, every UP student regardless of capacity to pay and financial need is subsidized since tuition and other fees are much less than the direct cost of their education. Furthermore, it socializes tuition through grants and subsidies for tuition, miscellaneous and laboratory fees based on ability to pay and financial need of the student.

 

On paper, the STFAP sounds adequate and a decent program. In practice, however, it doesn’t work.

 

Since everyone is subsidized, students from economically privileged families enjoy this benefit even if they don’t need the subsidy. They pay tuition that is substantially way lower if they would enrol in a private university that offers the same quality of education. For example, the average cost per semester for a course in civil engineering or computer science at UP is P20,000. In Ateneo, the cost would be between P75,000 to P80,000. Only children from well-to-do families can go to Ateneo, so the high tuition is not a financial concern. In UP, even the poorest but bright students will not cut it for a year, a situation that befell Kristel Tejada.

 

UP’s STFAP assigns brackets for students based on family income and other family characteristics and socio-economic indicators. These brackets are good for one year, which is unrealistic because it does not take into account the changing economic conditions of families and society as a whole like the possibility of unemployment as a result of lay-offs or economic slowdowns. Kristel Tejada’s father was laid off from his job but Kristel remained slotted in her bracket although the family has lost its declared income.

 

What UP should be doing is to charge wealthy students the equivalent rates prescribed by comparable private universities and use the difference as additional amounts available for subsidies to economically disadvantaged students. This, to my mind, is the right way to socialize tuition, not to apply the subsidies across the board that also benefits the wealthy. But as tuition is steadily increasing at a record-breaking pace in the last two decades, it is even feared that children from wealthy families might consider enrolling in public universities, a fact that UP’s STFAP has not considered into account. This raises the spectre of student quotas in addition to economic brackets, which could possibly displace slots for needy students, thus making the socialized tuition program even more irrelevant.

 

To address the crisis in higher education in the Philippines, President Noynoy Aquino has developed its government’s response called Road Map for Higher Education Reform (RMHER), which identifies three fundamental problems: lack of overall vision, deteriorating quality, and limited access. But instead of eliminating barriers to entry to college education, Aquino’s RMHER simply continues the emphasis of his predecessors (Ramos and Macapagal-Arroyo) on the eventual commercialization of higher education, its subservience to the needs of the global market, and gradual abandonment of state-funding. RMHER intends to focus on five priority areas, which include agri-fisheries, mining, electronics, services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

 

During the term of President Fidel Ramos, the government implemented a Long-term Higher Education Development Plan (LTHEDP) which stressed cost-efficiency and global competitiveness. Ramos also signed the Higher Education Modernization Act (HEMA) allowing state universities and colleges to embark on joint business ventures with the private sector, privatize management of non-academic services and determine their own tuition and other fees. As these institutions started generating higher internal income, government funding of higher education also begun to fall.

 

When President Gloria Arroyo assumed the presidency, she revised the LTHEDP to make public universities and colleges self-sustaining, with the ultimate goal of abandoning state funding for higher education. President Aquino’s higher education reforms are already in the LTHEDP, and nothing in the RMHER is new. It merely reiterates past proposals which have already been enacted but rejected by students.

 

Aquino’s RMHER intends to socialize tuition for all state universities and colleges following the UP’s STFAP model that emphasizes cost recovery without limiting access among the poor. As mentioned here earlier, the experience of UP in socialized tuition resulted in periodic restructuring of tuition fees. Instead of widening access, the STFAP has become instrumental in excluding many indigent but deserving students, of which Kristel Tejada is the latest victim. A study of the STFAP shows that in two decades it has decreased the percent of student population enjoying free tuition, from 20 percent in 1991, to less than a percent at present.

 

There is a much bigger picture than Kristel Tejada’s suicide, but the young student’s death symbolizes the fast accelerating exclusion of the poor from access to higher education such as the University of the Philippines. Kristel wasn’t alone in her financial predicament, but UP and the government don’t seem to care.

 

If Noynoy Aquino has extended his sympathy to the Tejada family for the loss of their daughter, that, Mr. Montelibano, is a charitable act. But the president seems to have no place for charity in his heart.

A university of the people

 

 

The recent suicide of Kristel Tejada, a freshman at the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila, for her inability to pay her tuition is a clear indictment against a university that has, as a whole, failed itself badly.

 

To any reasonable person, UP is culpable on at least two significant counts. One, on the policy level, both in strategic and administrative/procedural terms. And second, on the matter of being a public university devoted to social causes such as education for the people.

 

UP Manila Chancellor Manuel Agulto told a press conference on Monday, March
18, they did everything they could  to help Kristel Tejada, the 16-year-old freshman
who committed suicide reportedly over failure to pay tuition on time. Click link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjsOg3dL9gA to view University of the
Philippines press conference  on death of Kristel Tejada.

As an administrative/procedural issue, it is surprising that UP still adheres to the impractical and useless medieval practice of disallowing students to attend classes if they have not paid their tuition fees. As if it will compel students to pay or discourage non-paying students from attending classes for which they are not welcome. Here in Canada and in the United States, or even in U.P. during our troubled days in the late ’60s, practically anybody can attend classes, but only those who are enrolled and have matriculated will earn credits for attending. For as long as you do not disrupt classes or assassinate the professor or your seatmate, I have not heard of anyone being disbarred from a classroom. In other words, the operative word must not be the non-payment of tuition, but non-granting of credit to those not enrolled or have failed to pay tuition, which makes sense. Period.

 

Corollary to this impractical policy of not admitting students for failure to pay tuition is the even sillier procedure of requiring students to go on a leave of absence if unable to pay their tuition. Leave of absence is usually resorted to in extenuating circumstances in order not to lose student status; otherwise a student has to apply for re-admission if his or her status is lost. Financial difficulty is not generally an acceptable reason for going on a leave of absence. This type of leave is reserved for cases like medical and compassionate grounds, e.g., student illness which may include surgery or therapy, or a close family relative is ill and requires care by the student.

 

A more effective way to compel students to pay on time is to penalize them with fines for late payment of fees or to withhold their final grades. This will encourage students to budget their financial resources more responsibly. Private universities adopt this common practice of imposing fines for late payments, a practice banks also impose when loan or mortgage payments are late.

 

But the abject failure of the university to address the strategic policy of subsidizing education for bright and intelligent but financially indigent students is as tragic and unjustifiable as Kristel’s suicide. In some schools in the United States, this concern is dealt through an affirmative action program. Here in Canada, the government heavily subsidizes tertiary education and many universities offer bursaries, scholarships and other forms of assistance, while both federal and provincial governments also offer generous loans which students pay after finding work when they graduate.

 

In Quebec, students are serious about the idea of free tuition as it has deep roots written in the most fundamental text of the Quebec educational system that there should be free education. The underlying narrative is about making university a fee-less service like health care. The student strikes in Montreal which started last autumn and continue until now are dubbed as the Maple Spring comparing them to the Arab Spring that toppled dictatorships in the Middle East. Quebecers are known to be more aspirational when it comes to social rights and, to them, any hike in tuition signals a weakening of government commitment.

 

At present, UP has what is called the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program or STFAP. In December 2006, the UP Board of Regents restructured the STFAP by increasing tuition and miscellaneous fees due to inflation and for the purpose of serving the needs of students who are most deserving of financial assistance. Obviously, this did not mitigate the financial difficulties of Kristel Tejada that she saw taking her own life as the only option for failing to pay tuition for the second semester.

 

Under the STFAP, UP students are assigned brackets based on their family income and other family characteristics and socio-economic indicators. According to reports, Kristel was classified under bracket D with an annual family income between P135,001 to P250,000 and was required to pay P300 per unit, or a total of P4,500 for 15 units per semester, the normal student load.

 

There is only one wage-earner in Kristel’s family: her father who works as a taxi driver. Her mother is a homemaker, in other words, she looks after housekeeping and caregiving for her family while her husband works. We don’t know the size of Kristel’s family but it is highly unlikely for a taxi driver to earn as much as P250,000 annually. Realistically, Kristel should have been assigned a lower bracket, say P80,000 to P135,000, which would give her the benefit of free tuition, miscellaneous and laboratory fees, plus a standard stipend of P12,000 per semester.



Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4qfXuB6W_8
to watch interview of Kristel Tejada's father who said that his
daughter really aspired to finish her education at UP and how
much she was devastated in filing a leave of absence.

Kristel’s father found out the availability of a student loan only later, so when the family applied, the student loan office even reprimanded them for applying late. Because of bureaucratic red tape, Kristel never got a student loan. Not letting students know of the existence of student loans or other forms of assistance like available scholarships is a common shortcoming among public universities. Colleges in the United States, for instance, currently give little or no advantage in the admission process to low-income students, compared with more affluent students of the same race. A recent American study concluded that better colleges in the U.S. are failing to lure talented poor students despite a stated desire to recruit an economically diverse group of students.

 

Even with the STFAP in place, UP still fails miserably to inform financially indigent students that this program and other forms of assistance are available. Perhaps this shortcoming is not unintended because the UP Strategic Plan for 2011 to 2017 fails to address the growing problem of financial capability of some of the best and brightest students across the country who come from economically underprivileged families.

 

Assigning students to certain brackets is not necessarily an effective way of subsidizing education. As it is, it has become an instrument for periodic restructuring of school fees on the pretext of inflationary costs. Inversely, it also has the effect of favouring students from well-off families because even if they are slotted in the higher income brackets and thus required to pay full tuition, this has no effect on their admission at all. Their privileged economic status already guarantees their admission and a stress-free college life without the financial woes that weighed down on Kristel. As a result of economic bracketing, the tuition these well-off students pay is also subsidized since their fees are still way lower than those prescribed by private universities offering the same quality of education.

 

According to the UP Office of Scholarships and Student Services, a study of the STFAP in 2009 showed that only 1 in 100 students enjoys free tuition, which is very disturbing for a public university that is supposed to be accessible to the people. Under section 9 of the UP Charter, the university has the mandate to democratize access to this premier institution:

 

“The national university shall take affirmative steps which may take the form of an alternative and equitable admissions process to enhance the access of disadvantaged students, such as indigenous peoples, poor and deserving students, including but not limited to valedictorians and salutatorians of public high schools, and students from depressed areas, to its programs and services.

 

“No student shall be denied admission to the national university by reason solely of age, gender, nationality, religious belief, economic status, ethnicity, physical disability, or political opinion or affiliation.”

 

Those who presently run the university and are responsible in designing its strategic plan must review thoroughly the UP Charter so they will not lose sight of the original mandate given to them. It is not enough for the university to seize the leadership (a fact not lost that other private universities have apparently overtaken UP’s great tradition of excellence) in the making of a globally competitive Philippines. This type of aspiration speaks of the goals of a large public corporation. But UP is not simply a large corporation. While it must be managed and run with the most progressive and advanced business practices, the university is still mandated to provide a haven for those who cannot afford the high quality of college education it offers.

 

The university is being sidetracked by a singular focus on promoting academic excellence, strong research and creative capability, and building modernized physical facilities and technological infrastructure for teaching, research and administration. Undoubtedly, these are all legitimate concerns of a modern university. But achieving these goals should not be at the expense of paying lip service to the university’s mandate to democratize access by disadvantaged people or those without financial means.

 

There are many like me, pejoratively called Iskolar ng Bayan, who have benefited from a UP education despite my economic circumstances. Without access to scholarship opportunities, I would not have possibly obtained the best education at home that enabled me to pursue further studies abroad. After completing high school, I was faced with the most serious crisis in my young life. I had always wanted to pursue higher education but my family was so destitute they could not send me to university. It was a feeling of life and death similar to what Kristel must have felt. After missing the first semester at university, I had to weigh the benefit and hardship of accepting a missionary scholarship in a foreign country versus entering the workplace at a very young age. Fortunately, I was able to find a UP scholarship opportunity, but only after a rigorous search and connecting with the right office.

 

Kristel Tejada wasn’t alone in her financial struggle. Poverty did not deter her from enrolling at University of the Philippines, where, she thought (as I did), she could get the best education in the country. In the spirit of being a humane institution, UP must reignite its commitment as a public university, to be open and accessible to a diversity of students that includes bright but disadvantaged and financially destitute youth. A truly socialized tuition and financial assistance program is one that fully recognizes the primordial obligation to nurture the education of those who are economically disadvantaged and underprivileged.

 

Whereas Kristel Tejada’s tragedy may justify blaming those who might have been responsible for her death, one way to recover from this tragedy is, in fact, to learn to stop the blaming. No one gets absolved from this tragedy. When we cease to blame, we either take responsibility for our actions or become free to recognize that blaming is futile and paralyzing. As one philosopher puts it: “for such things happen as part of the whirligig of life, and laying blame is a waste of energy which could be better directed at repairing damage or starting afresh.”

 

How do we start afresh?

 

First, let’s re-examine our university’s mission, find out how the university can become again the university of the people, where the young can aspire to be the best they can be under a system that nurtures its brightest, particularly the disadvantaged and the less privileged, not because it ought to but because it recognizes that in a democratic society the right to education is a fundamental right that provides equal opportunities for everyone, not only for those who can pay the fees.

 

Second, let’s offer opportunities for bright but poor students to avail of bursaries, grants, loans and even work placements so students can work and study at the same time.

 

Third, let’s inspire our youth to exert their best efforts through volunteer and cooperative work opportunities that engage them not only to excel in the academe but also to give of their talents to their communities and future workplaces.

 

Though we need to probe the circumstances that brought about this tragedy, the time is ripe to get our ideas for change off the ground now.

Robust debate necessary for change

Discussions in my alumni chat group have recently become testy, if not downright nasty that some members who cannot take the heat are asking for more drastic etiquette policing, or else they have threatened to unsubscribe from the email group. Perhaps, they are unable to appreciate that any democratic exchange of opinions is much more alive when it is robust and free-wheeling, without unnecessary censorship. Think of parliaments, Congress or the local city councils when their members passionately debate each other.

Only yesterday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heckled during his speech before the U.S. Congress. Reacting to the disbeliever in the crowd, Netanyahu said that this type of protest would only be possible in free societies, or where there is freedom of speech, which drew wide applause from members of Congress.

Free speech, or the lack of it. Photo courtersy of little tramp.

Sometimes we, as human beings, have the tendency to be thin-skinned and easily upset by criticism or opposite views. But the more dangerous side of this attitude is when we respond, although unnecessary, with vitriol or derision.

I’ve recently read messages in my alumni chat group that were aimed with disdain at one member’s fondness for writing long emails augmented with statistical data to reinforce his arguments. An apt and perhaps more courteous response would have been simply to ignore or even delete the member’s lengthy and dense messages, especially if one does not agree and has nothing to add. A cynical and derisive response, disrespectful of the other member’s right to say his piece, only exacerbates the issue more so when the obvious purpose is to shut him down from letter-writing.

One member wrote a sarcastic message enjoining the other member to take a break from his long and frequent, almost daily, letter-writing and to look after his health. Instead of the other member clogging the e-group with his emails, he suggested that he should perhaps use the telephone, a device he believed was a faster and easier mode to communicate.

Another member wrote in support and still another also agreed, even inserting a picture of a nodding and laughing chimp in his letter.

Consider that these individuals are the very first ones to complain of incivility and rudeness in the chat group. Yet, they would respond with impudent messages aimed at putting down the other member and making him look inconsolably pathetic. What did the rest of the group say about it? Nothing, which seems like an obvious conspiracy of silence that could only mean they support the public humiliation of the other person, who by his arguments, if only they would care to read them, really meant well.  

This only shows we could be hypocritical and duplicitous about the values we cherish most. We scream to high heavens when our right to free expression, for instance, is threatened but would as easily cast off the same argument when we don’t favour opposite views being expressed. In other words, we only tolerate ideas from people whose thinking is similar to ours. Those on the opposite of the spectrum should take a break, as one member suggested.

Consider, too, this argument from another member who wrote that the chat group should not be used as medium for debate and that he should not be construed as being against free speech, but an ardent supporter, yet he believes the e-group is not the proper venue to freely express one’s opinions. Where else could be the proper platform? For all intents and purposes, an alumni e-group is the best forum for engaging in ideas and opinions. How can one be so judicious and wise to argue that he favours free speech in other arenas, but not in this forum?

These aforementioned individuals who chose to take the side of intolerance instead of accommodation have not been long detached from their alma mater. Yet, they seem to have forgotten the values their education and training from the premier school of learning in the Philippines have taught and expounded from day one. How quickly the real world has eroded the idealism of their youthful days when they were still debating in the classrooms and in public squares on the fundamental right to freedom of expression.

During the 100th Commencement Exercises of the University of the Philippines in Diliman last April 17, 2011, John Gabriel Pelias, a BS Math graduate, delivered the valedictory address on behalf of the graduating class. A poor but very brilliant student, Pelias graduated summa cum laude, the highest honour a student can possibly receive, with a general weighted average of 1.016, the second highest in the history of the university.

 

Pelias asked his fellow graduates: “What can a UP graduate be proud of? What aspect of the UP culture can he or she show off that others do not have?”

Above everything, the youthful Pelias said the university has prepared every student how to respond to challenges and the most significant of these challenges is how “to overcome our responsibility to contribute to society as products of this nation’s premier state university, which may involve sacrificing our dreams of extravagant ways of life that ironically might have motivated us to work hard in our college education. The true challenge is to be able to use the critical thinking skills and knowledge we learned through UP education in the solution of the problems haunting the bigger world outside the university.”

Pelias in his closing remarks, challenged every graduate to “become part of a larger society, of a larger world.” Being UP graduates, he said, “does not mean living just our own everyday lives without regard for society’s quandaries. We cannot confine ourselves in our own boxes away from society.”

When one critically scrutinizes the arguments, including the statistics that that one member of our chat group has been espousing in his lengthy emails, it is easy to conclude that he was making good use of the critical thinking skills and knowledge that Pelias attributed to in his valedictory speech. That he learned these skills through his UP education was clearly evident in his elaborate analysis in helping solve real problems outside the university. An example is the problem of raising funds for scholarship for future UP students. While his proposal might have stirred a heated debate, which others may have found nauseating to their taste, it was a mere consequence of the need for more rigorous examination. 

Debate should not be considered repulsive and detestable, even if it takes a longer process to reach a consensus. To retreat and seek refuge in silence is a betrayal of our training at university. We cannot eternally argue in favour of the comfort and cosiness of our present situations, and to deflect anything that might seem to disturb the status quo. 

The letter-writer challenges each one of us not to be content with the argument that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. This is an argument that kills innovation on sight. Oftentimes, going with what is known leads to stagnation. Although it is quite human to like the familiar, if we don’t innovate and think of new ways of doing things, nothing will grow or change; otherwise, we will all go the way of the dinosaurs. It is the uncertainty of the unknown that drives debate or exchange of opinions. It is the only way we can test out and get an understanding of what is true.