Trickle-down Crisis
University of the Philippines (UP) is often perceived as a microcosm of the country — entangled in political strife and neoliberal policies. But more than that, restricted to a budget set by the government, the country’s premier state university is also no different when it comes to prioritizing the interests of the privileged few in exchange for sidelining the masses it wishes to serve.
Yearly, state universities and colleges (SUCs) experience a shared rage when cuts worth millions, even billions, are proposed to their respective budgets.
With issues on spaces, faculty shortages, and more, budget cuts threaten students’ rights to quality higher education. Beyond students, these also impact the greater Filipino masses when institutions like the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) are also affected.
When students push back against a repressive state, how will the state retaliate? By weaponizing its power to slash budgets.
In 2023, UP faced a P128.4M budget cut, which hit its allocation for infrastructure and equipment. This clearly manifested in UP Manila, where Rizal Hall is still undergoing renovations and the University Library has still not completed construction.
Budget cuts not only hinder the creation of new student spaces but also take away existing ones. Such policies remove spaces where students should be able to organize and mobilize themselves.
Due to an insufficient budget, UP has sought funding from alternative sources such as public-private partnerships, which may add to the students’ tuition calculation. This becomes an additional burden for students bound to the Return Service Agreement (RSA) when they are forced to pay their supposedly free tuition if they are unable to fulfill the RSA. These phony partnerships legalize the profiteering of corporations at the expense of students who are already grappling with limited means.
No matter how many times UP proposes budget increases, the repeated cuts reinforce the state’s authority over SUCs — its attempt at silencing the students.
This year, while the UP System has received an overall budget increase worth P508M, several programs, including PGH, the Higher Education Program, and research services, took the blow of this double-edged sword. Despite problems with understaffing, delayed wages, and overcrowded wards, PGH’s budget has been decreased by P449M, which directly attacks the right to health.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has reasoned for multiple years that UP’s budget only seems to decrease because they have removed capital outlays and one-time, non-recurring purchases, but these are pathetic excuses. Such funds that will not be used for the same purposes next year should be allocated towards other programs, such as scholarships.
UP proposes its needed budget yearly, and the state chooses to dismiss its calls consistently.
UP’s continuous disenfranchisement fuels an investigation into the persistence of NTF-ELCAC, an ‘anti-terror council,’ with billions in budget amid its subsequent failure to alleviate conflicts. The misuse of funds in this ‘defense project’ could not get any more transparent than its blatant public humiliation of activists and human rights defenders across the country. Despite its futility and repressive measures, the funding of this government agency will neither be revoked nor repurposed for the benefit of the country’s top educational institution.
Education is not the paramount interest of the oppressor.
The daily experiences of the UP community attest that this budget cut is a travesty to the government’s constitutional mandate to put education as its top priority. The limited facilities and safe spaces to learn and organize undermine learning, coupled with an administrative prerogative that excludes students from formulating and assessing academic policies concerning their welfare.
These issues, compounded with national economic crises, compel an individual to withdraw from the potential of a powerful collective to look after one’s welfare. This is the typical reason behind capable servant leaders shying away from the call of service and a UP community embattled with genuine student representation over the years.
They are not fruits of selfishness, nor are they the culprits behind the weakening of the country’s premier university, contrary to how the government’s neoliberal project has been programmed to point its fingers at the individual.
The slashed fund glaringly stood to recognize only five out of eighty projects under UP’s budget proposal. This erosion of infrastructure projects is a chokehold on UP’s mandate to provide quality and accessible education to Filipinos and a drain of the dregs of the Philippine health care system.
To be hailed as a ‘top university’ is nothing but a sham when your own government keeps pinning you down.
This budget cut is not just an assault on future healthcare practitioners constrained by repressive service agreements but also on millions of Filipinos whose lifelines rely on the services provided by PGH. In the face of injustice, our collective resistance and unwavering solidarity is the only way we can reclaim our power from an oppressive state that aims to constrain us with budget documents and policies.
Now is not the time to be silenced. Marginalized sectors have all been hell-bent on advocating and registering their calls towards a dignified livelihood, and the streets are calling on the studentry to join and fight vehemently against the continuous repression of the government.
The university has suffered and weathered from numerous crises, enduring through colonization during the Second World War to the toppling of a two-decade-old dictatorship. Now, more than ever is the time to persist in pushing back against all forms of state repression.
