Defying the Prophecy
By Benedict Ballaran and Justine Wagan
Once upon a time, there was a forest at the heart of Manila, where militant leaders sprung up left and right, and progressive figureheads were abundant. They fought the monsters of Malacañang, from dictator Marcos Sr. to fascist Rodrigo Duterte. Guided by the wisps, the forest was lush with life — a bastion of activism.
But the forest caught the chill. The scene beneath the statue with arms outstretched morphed from one teeming of radical optimism to cold indifference. One by one, the wisps died down. Some courageous leaders still stand to the challenge of guiding weary travelers, but the phantoms strike them down or the icy political climate chokes their light out. It has been years since — the forest is still sick.
And so the prophecy goes, “The wisps will never again burn as bright.”
Once again, the University is in season to select the next brave wisp that will restore the forest to its proper progressive glory — one of discourse and mobilization. Three red wisps from Sulong UPM braved the cold, burning bright despite what had been foretold.
The Marcos-Duterte regime sets the blaze threatening to engulf the forest. Now more than ever, the wisps are paramount to illuminate the path. Now more than ever, their grit must overturn the prophecy.
Flicker in Despair
Red flames linger on the heart of a war-torn land — a bushland destroyed by cold wars of silence, idleness, and disinterest.
Once again, Sulong UPM finds itself as the lone party-alliance vying for a position in the University Student Council (USC), hoping to illuminate the bleak forest of UP Manila’s cold political climate. The party offers three twinkling wisps that bear the torch of militant and progressive leadership. In a land stormed by repression and aggression, there is a dire need in spearheading the student movement in resisting social inequalities — a fight that Sulong UPM champions in their campaign: “‘Di pa tapos ang laban: Sulong para sa tunay, palaban, at makabayang tagumpay!”
Together, the party-alliance represents a wisp flickering in despair. In this political drought, Sulong UPM continues to persevere in exerting efforts to increase active student participation. The party-alliance campaigns for the reconvening of the Coalition of Fraternities and Sororities and Rise for Education — UP Manila for they think that such coalitions would be able to cascade the calls regarding national and local issues from the USC to the students.
Transcending beyond the Ermita campus, the party also plans to resolidify the League of College Student Councils to better bridge the concerns among all of UPM’s constituencies. Apart from promoting the essence of #OneUPM culture, this necessity is rooted in the need to mediate the tug-of-war between students from the School of Health Sciences (SHS) and the Ermita campus over the provisions of the Return Service Agreement (RSA). Sulong UPM plans to solve this by establishing a stronger research arm for the Student Assembly on the Return Service Agreement (SARSA).
Hailing from the College of Medicine, there is a need for chairperson candidate Alec Xavier Miranda to exert efforts necessary to reach out to other colleges as complacency in the support of his home college, which incurred the lowest voting turnout (17.43%) in the last election, might result in dissatisfaction. It is also expected of Miranda to have a grip on his undergraduate constituents — having served in the UP College of Nursing Student Council and UP Male Nurses’ Organization, and having spearheaded Alyansa ng mga Mag-aaral ng Narsing ng Pilipinas. Lastly, with his persistent inclusion of the SHS campuses in his plans, he has the edge of having the election-engaged population support his back. With this, Miranda should be wise and consistent in his campaign for him to narrow the gap between him and victory.
Being a transferee from UP Baguio, Ysabelle Briones’ two-semester stay in UP Manila may pose a challenge for her to market herself in its vast population. As the chairperson of League of Filipino Students — NCR (LFS-NCR), she can garner the most support from her co-members in mass organizations — which, arguably, are also not in the best state due to a lack of manpower. The vice chairperson candidate, however, can gain publicity and rapport through her active speakerships in conferences, discussions, and mobilizations. To clinch a seat in the 45th USC, Briones needs to exhaust all means to make her name and advocacies known in a university plagued with deteriorating political participation.
The same is true with the lone councilor candidate, Nuraini Nordin. Despite being an incoming senior, she has only held executive positions in LFS-UPM as its chairperson and UPM Red Cross Youth Council as its Vice President for Internals. These limited affiliations will impose difficulty on Nordin in marking her name in the university’s battlefield of politics. On the bright side, it is possible for the aspiring councilor for people’s struggles to garner a chunk of her vote from the college with the largest number of voters, CAS. However, how she will rise beyond that and tap into the other side of UP Manila is a question to be answered in her campaign efforts.
As much as they oppose the long-prevailing problem of midyear elections, Sulong UPM has no choice but to maximize room-to-room discussions to campaign in a tiny fraction of UPM’s population. To recoup these efforts, they aim to strengthen propaganda initiatives in their online publicity. The party-alliance also extended their campaign to the SHS Tarlac and Palo students, aiming to capitalize on its historically high voting turnouts.
As the wisps march through the forest, the ghost of the dead student participation in UP Manila looms in the cold backdrop. Sulong UPM’s biggest challenge now is to thaw the ice between the students and the council, along with the phantoms that lurk about.
The Phantoms of the Long Night
Wisps who dared to thread the forest find themselves faced with insurmountable odds — the long night of UPM and the phantoms in the ballot.
Since its conception, Sulong UPM has been a staunch critic of the abstention and 50%+1 provisions of the University Electoral Code, recognizing them as obstacles to genuine student representation. But it seems the three wisps have taken on a consultative form of leadership, now leaning to a diluted stance on the matter. As per Miranda, the goal of Sulong UPM is not to remove the abstain vote, but to amass data to understand the perspective of students regarding this issue. Now, as their USC bids move forward unopposed, they are haunted by the phantoms of these provisions, a figure in the ballot they must win over.
The 44th USC election last year saw all but one candidate overcome this provision. Out of the two candidates that ran under the party, Sulong UPM was only able to seat one candidate in the USC last year, Kyla Benedicto, who barely made it above 50%+1 with 55.7% of votes. Luigi Lalas from the same party garnered 48.16% of total votes, a few hundred votes shy of the 50%+1 provision.
Overcoming these phantoms in the ballot would prove difficult with the current climate of UPM politics and the nature of its elections. Similar to last year, this year’s election will be held during the midyear — when most students are on their breaks or back in their hometowns and provinces. As such, face-to-face activities, such as room-to-room campaigns and miting de avance, prove to be extra challenging for the candidates.
The long night of UPM is its lulling political climate. Since 2018, UPM has seen a decline in voter turnout for the council elections. Every year, less than half of the students are exercising their right to vote, with last year’s election seeing 47.7% voter turnout. Besides the interest in council affairs, the wisps too are going extinct. UPM has not seen another party braving the cold since 2018 — candidates are either running under Sulong UPM or independently.
Besides this, the three wisps carry the burden of uniting UPM despite the divide between Pedro Gil and Padre Faura, of Ermita Taft and SHS campuses. Just last year, UPM SHS, namely Koronadal, Palo, Baler, and Tarlac were included in the USC elections for the first time. Despite their distance, they proved to be more engaged in USC affairs as the four SHS campuses had a 73.23% voter turnout compared to the 46.65% of the local campuses. It is up to the candidates then to keep these distant campuses engaged while spilling this momentum over to the local campuses.
As the phantoms lurk the long night, the wisps find themselves in a quagmire. The optics of another incomplete council, with only three candidates running, is a hard sell to students hoping for better representation this year. But with courage, the candidates thread the gloomy forest. “…kahit may takot ka, ay talagang titindig ka pa rin kasi nakikita mo yung sitwasyon ng UP Manila na kinakailangan talaga na may mag-step up na student leaders,” said Briones.
Rewriting the Prophecy
As the prophecy slowly creeps into fruition, one can only wonder — where is our happily ever after?
“Will the prophecy be changed this year?” The UPM Student can only wonder. For them, the once rich and lively forest may well be a fairytale.
This year, the wisps are faced with a situation not foreign to their party. Since 2018, the phantoms have been the greatest fear for candidates, and arousing the cold depths of the forest was no easy task. This year is no different. The candidates’ strategy of going room to room and holding more face-to-face sessions means they are directly engaging the students, but a midyear election is once again constraining these efforts.
With the commendable turnout of votes in SHS campuses last election and Lalas’ loss in this area, Sulong UPM has learned and now maximizes its campaigns in these constituencies by pushing face-to-face convocations. This seems to be a recalibration, a Sulong UPM now pushing for a more consultative leadership rather than stringent radicalism. The next challenge then is to exert extra effort in their online campaigning to reintroduce this leadership to those not taking midyear units. Combining this with better face-to-face campaigns in Ermita campuses, all three wisps could make it to the council.
Whether or not the outcome of the election will be the same is up to the wisps and their connection with the students despite these struggles. No phantom in the ballot is scary in the face of a united UPM rallying behind wisps of hope.
But despite this, it seems the prophecy may very well still come true — the wisps will not be as bright this year. Even with a victorious election of all the candidates, the remaining empty slots make a full-force and efficient council far from reality. With two of the three candidates being an incoming second-year medical student and a graduating student, there is a looming issue questioning personal duties and council priorities that will emerge sooner or later.
Once again, the winners will find themselves burdened with tasks meant for a team. But rewriting that prophecy means that the winning candidate must do everything they can to encourage other student leaders to brave the storm with them. Rewriting that prophecy means the wisps are burdened with the task of mobilizing the next set of leaders to come to the fold.
For UPM to struggle with the masses, it must first address its struggles in genuine student representation. This serves as a challenge for the candidates and the incoming USC — not to revive the community on its deathbed, but to raise a new one in its crib.
After all, the truth prevails: this isn’t a fairytale but the alarming reality UPM has been facing for years. A university once known for its militant stances now flickers at the mercy of the tyrants outside its walls. As the country’s politics grow increasingly chaotic, the student body needs a council that will arouse them to mobilize and take action. It is high time for UPM to rewrite this prophecy. For some, it may be a fantasy, but a united UPM can still be a reality through effective leadership and collective action.
