University Convocation

I attended the University Convocation yesterday sponsored by the UPD university student council. Well it was going well until one elite-looking hysteric ruined the forum. The girl was not that pretty to be considered cute of what she had done and said in that occasion. She was journalism major and a junior student. She was questioning the legal credibility and transparency of the claims of the student groups in relation to TOFI (tuition fee and other increases) and the withholding of funds for of The Philippine Collegian (the campuses student publication).

The girl was asking for papers and credentials that would actually only convince her to believe such statements about the administration of this university.

Her comments and inquiries were definitely off the topic. She was distracting the discussion and delaying it so that other questions would not be raised. I see she had hypocrisy with her. She was pretending to be concerned but her only aim was; to look good with her knowledge of journalism ethics as her lone standard in her inquiry and eventually put the event into a mess.
Questioning the student movement groups with respect to legitimacy is something stupid. Stupid, in relation to the present issue, the administration is using the legal and legitimate means to repress student rights; and lead to sufficing some goals that might not resonate the values of the studentry. If the administration or the dominant party uses legitimacy to undermine the stud entry then why should we be fighting for our rights? We are not law makers and we are students. Knowing that everything is not fair and equal between the student groups and the admin, why should we be restrained to express the sound injustices in our perspectives by considering equality? Equality is dysfunctional if both sides are not really equal in the first place.

The girl was very irrational and her mind was corrupted (did not go any depth on the issue. Not in all places we carry the law especially in scholarly discussions. She definitely adhered on the ethics of journalism crap. Ethics and norms of a technical discipline or a marketable profession is something backed up by the legitimate order. If we will just subject our actions relative to the legitimate order then we are do live 'our own truth'. We are letting the structure corrupt us. We know that the studentry is repressed by the admin but why should we be guided and limited, in standing for our rights, by a tool used against us? That is stupid for me. She was thinking that maybe what she had done made her any smarter. She might have thought how clever she looked at there over the microphone.

The question is not about legitimacy or being intelligent, it is how you stand on your issue. Legitimacy is a crude and surface level (not well thought) perspective to consider.

Assessing student movements with legitimate standards is very uncritical-thinking. You are just masturbating the norms and do not envision the perspective of your milieu, the student. There is really no such thing as a revolution that is dramatically obeying the law. So what was she part of the party envisioning if she were concerned about the issue? Was she in the perspective of a student in this institution or as an administrator, hypocrite, TV anchor?

She mentioned that having different views is good. I agree to that. But her inquiries were really irrelevant. Now her inquiries should have not been entertained. I believe in academic freedom. Okay she expressed her irrational doubt. She was freely let go to question and bullshit the students’ movement's stand. Now, that wasn't really what should be the topic for the discussion. She was not repressed but she repressed relevant ideas that should have been put on the table in the interest of the goals of the forum: to lay down the facts and know how student sees these events. Pretty much her inquiries don't resonate with mine. Hers and her company's ideas are so out of the field of discussion. Now, because she caused so much delay and trouble; she heatened up the room and made other people hysteric (because of her irrationality to assess the issue), she repressed viable ideas and just drained the time. She committed enough symbolic violence to spoil the campaign for a movement. Now, she might not believe about symbolic violence because mainly her standard is 'what is lawful and ethical crap.' The law doesn't recognize this as something oppressive but it [symbolic freedom] definitely does the same as hitting someone’s head with a mic stand. Her symbolic freedom wasn't really directed to the administration but to the campaigning party, the Collegian.

Lastly she wasn't clear of her standards and perspective. So possibly the crowd was confused that what she was saying was the divine norm for every action to be acceptable.

I pity the socialite lady. I wish she should have taken Sociology 10 before she could graduate and leave UP. She made me prejudices against Journ/CMC people. She was lucky the majority of the people there inside were not CSSP majors and its faculty. It would have been a laughing spectacle. She was lucky Sarah Raymundo, my sociology instructor wasn't around on that event, or else, she might regret she attended that forum. I feel bad that apathetic people still push to be apathetic and put down the emancipated active students. I find it funny. The apathetic don't care but the effort to attack the subversive. She is a dysfunction of the university. Then she is bragging about she is from UP. Ha. Think ate. Prove your status. UP journ majors have a lot of prestige so don't ruin it by your crude judgments. Know first about how movements work. Good diction and style just isn't everything.

Ethics is something not innately there. They are MADE; and there are reasons why they exist and the reason behind their nature.

I suggest if you are not convinced about this, find someone who understand student power better with their own perspectives--they don't claim the one-way-road-to-the-truth so you are not forced to be hegemonised unlike your ethics and the admin. Know more about student power. More is still behind prejudices and distortions made by the media, our parents and the apathetic.

I want to make clear that this not just a hate letter but an invitation to understand more on student power as a social text.

I stand against TOFI (tuition fee and other increase). Uphold the Philippine Collegian's autonomy.
Let it not be, that in our present residence in this institution, a turning point of the massive negligence to public welfare will take place.