Inflicted wounds, secret deals
by John San Gabriel
Time cannot heal a wound so deep. One can only care for it, and tend to it, but the scars of its aftermath cannot be erased as these permanent blemishes serve as silent testaments of horrors inflicted against the community. The university, definitely, disregarded these scars as if these were mere legends and not a memory ought to be forgotten.
Last August 8, without any notice or consultation from the student body nor its community, the University of the Philippines (UP) brokered a deal with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The deal — or rather secret deal — made specifically between the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies (UP CIDS) and the AFP Office of Strategic Studies and Strategy Management (AFP OSSM), was made to foster cooperation between both institutions, especially for studies involving nation-building. These arrangements were made, however, amid relentless attacks by various state agencies against the university community.
Even if given the benefit of the doubt, that the armed forces are actually willing to learn from the university, and commit to serving the people like the Iskolars ng Bayan intend to do, the UP community still, however, has every right to deny or even expel the armed forces since these are the very men who inflicted wounds and nightmares — that still linger like a free-roaming killer within the community.
Up until this day, the sting of the military’s inhumanity runs deep in the flesh of Filipino human rights defenders, and the UP community alike. A year has passed since the disappearances of UP alumni Dexter Capuyan and Bazoo de Jesus, yet they are still nowhere to be found, compelling their families to file for writs of Amparo and Habeas Data at the Supreme Court (SC). Last year, Development Studies (DS) students of UP Manila were forced to withdraw from their practicum after they were harassed by the 85th Infantry Battalion (IB). In 2021, the AFP itself admittedly published a false list of so-called rebels that involved UP alumni.
While the AFP seems to pamper itself as a champion of nation-building, it, however, does otherwise. UP seems to forget the story of its leading botanist, Leonardo Co, when military men killed him during his fieldwork under the Energy Development Corporation; of UP alumnus Mira Legion when military officers arrested her; and of Lumad school teacher Chad Booc — as he was brutally murdered by the army in Davao de Oro. The university unapologetically buried the hatchet and must have suffered some memory loss on why the UP-DND accord was in place lest of these anti-academic and barbaric actions perpetrated by the military.
These are just some of the many cases of harassment and violence faced by the community, and many more, much worse, are experienced by students and faculty alike, especially in far-flung campuses — where armed men in uniform trail, question, harass, or even red-tag students who have no affiliation or fault, but are silenced or even killed merely just because they are UP students. The haphazard agreement made between UP and the AFP is rubbing salt into the wounds and traumas of the community.
With all of the atrocities made by the AFP to the UP community, they do not get the benefit of the doubt. The AFP may disguise this deal as having benevolent intentions of “learning from the university” and “serving the people” like Iskolars ng Bayan do, but the UP community will not be fooled. They have suffered long enough — the wounds are still fresh and scars are testaments of their abuses.
As scabs cover wounds, and scars replace scabs, the university’s secret deal with the AFP failed to allow these wounds to heal completely; instead, it condemned academic freedom to death by a thousand cuts. The university — and the AFP alike — should be reminded that these scars inflicted against us still linger in our minds despite conscious efforts to forget and move to a faux new beginning.
With the recent events, however, UP failed to protect us.
