#DefendUP, Restore the UP-DND Accord

Photo retrieved from ABS-CBN News.

by Dorothy Jane Manzano (Ikirara)

On the night of January 18, 2021, the Department of the National Defense (DND) publicly announced the unilateral termination of the 1989 University of the Philippines (UP) - DND accord. Various incidents such as the unlawful abduction of Donato Continente inside the UP Diliman campus on June 16, 1989, brought about the mutual signing of the accord 14 days after the said incident. Now, its recent termination threatens the regulation of safety and peace inside the university.

The UP-DND accord states that with no initial notice to the UP president or any concerned constituent of any campus, no state forces shall enter the UP campus unless in cases of emergency and of hot pursuit. The agreement prohibits the state forces from interfering in any of the peaceful protest activities by any UP constituents inside the campuses. Strict guidelines are to be followed in the event of issuance of search and warrant arrests and detention of any student, employees, and faculty.

The termination and its lack of legal basis

Legal experts have criticized the action taken by the Department of National Defense, as there is no legal basis for the unilateral termination of the agreement. The 1989 accord provides no exit clause, and since it is an agreement that involves two parties, both parties should agree on the accord’s fate. 

In the letter sent to the UP President Danilo Concepcion by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, it contains unproven reports of recruitment activities of the New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines within the premises of the campus. Prior to this, President Duterte himself has claimed that UP campuses are the recruitment havens of the CPP-NPA.  In the past year, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) used video footage of students in the campus into malicious contexts and tags the students and the organizations involved as Communist terrorist Groups. These acts of spreading unsolicited and inauthentic information not only paint a grim picture of the university and its students but also provides fraudulent grounds for the suppression of freedom in the campus.

Continual silencing of the masses

Because of the lack of an effective pandemic response nowadays, the call for better service from the administration further escalates. Criticisms for the administration’s lack of urgent responses and inability to produce sufficient resolutions are very much heard, most especially in social media platforms, while controlled mass protests are still observed in the streets. In the premises of the UP campuses, activists do these peaceful demonstrations and protests to call the attention of those who need to hear the call of the people and to simultaneously educate others on why it is important to voice out the call of the Filipino masses. 

Prior to the termination, there have been multiple unwarranted abductions and arrests inside the UP campuses. In one instance, they held a protest in UP Cebu on June 5, 2020, wherein the state forces that were present in the campus’s vicinity arrested at least seven individuals. Amidst the peaceful protest, fully geared police officers from the Cebu City Police and SWAT team entered the picture. Though university guards blocked the entrances, the police still jumped over the walls of the campus and chased after the students and other protesters. 

These actions of a fascist administration reflect the desire to silence the voices of a community that demands for better public services. This level of brutality from state forces is only being amplified by the restrictions to public and student freedom brought about by the termination of the UP-DND accord. In a political environment wherein violence is heavily used to combat the opposition, this unlawful move is nothing but an attempt to further threaten the progressive minds in the UP community.

The plea for its reconstitution

We highly value academic freedom in the UP system. As an institution that encourages its students and constituents to process and analyze information at a critical level, this freedom allows young minds to challenge the views and to critique their current situations without being penalized. This now allows state forces in the premises of the campus, wherein both students and university organizations are now in danger as even respectful criticisms and peaceful activities can be red-tagged under communist actions such as recruitment activities. Though these activities are yet to be proven by the DND, many attacks on students and their constituents have already sprung up upon the termination of the UP-DND accord. 

The UP-DND accord is important to many student and faculty activists of the UP system, since each UP campus serves as a haven and a place for the freedom of expression. Its restoration will provide a net of security from unwarranted violent actions, along with the revitalization of a “bare minimum” state of safety inside of the university. 

Amid a worldwide pandemic and an abusive administration, we should intensify rather than silence the unrelenting cries for sufficient public service. We therefore challenge the current administration to retrieve their unrightful junking of the UP-DND accord, as it provides the “justification” for further violations on student welfare. We implore all members of the UP community to raise their voices for academic freedom. This autocratic exertion of power shall not dissipate the values of kinship and solidarity that revolve around the university, thus it is each member’s duty to rightfully reclaim the sanctity of their rights.