UP ESTIFAK. Read from Gyll. Tsk.
On the third day of classes in the hundredth year of the University ofthe Philippines (UP), a freshman from Cotabato province, a Chemistry
major at UP in Diliman, Quezon City, had to drop out. Together with
his father, the brokenhearted young man went to see each of his
instructors to have his subjects invalidated.
While his Math 17 instructor was deleting his name from the class
list, I could see the poverty, desperation, anger and sense of
resignation in their faces. It was not the disappointment of winning
the lottery and being denied the prize later. The young man is a
member of a minority group in Mindanao. Without any connections and in
the absence of any socialized admission policy, he qualified as a
freshman in the College of Science of UP Diliman, a distinction he
earned through intelligence, pure hard work and perseverance amid
poverty. But in a few days, father and son are going back to Mindanao
for good.
The father explained they could not afford the "socialized" tuition at
P600 per unit for students in Bracket C, families whose annual incomes
range from P135,001 to P500,000 per annum. The father and son expected
to be in Bracket D, families with annual incomes ranging from P80,001
to P135,000. Students in bracket D pay P300 per unit.
UP president Emerlinda Roman seems to be disconnected from reality, or
she must be fooling herself by insisting that the new Socialized
Tuition and Financial Assistance Program (STFAP) is fair and proper
for an "iskolar ng bayan" [scholar of the nation]. Her family should
try living on P6,666.75 a month (which when multiplied by 12—the
number of months in a year—equals P80,001, the lower bound of Bracket
D incomes).
UP, no longer conscious of its role in society, chooses to ignore the
long-term impact of offering greater genuine educational opportunities
to the brightest among the poor, who are getting poorer amid the
reported economic gains of the country. Socialized admission and
tuition fee schemes do not lower academic standards. I've had
countless students from public schools and far-flung provinces. They
come to UP not as well prepared as their counterparts from the best
schools in Metro Manila. But many later outshine the sometimes
overconfident Manila-raised kids.
After the new STFAP took effect last year, UP is no longer an option
for the brightest among the poor. I agree with the cab driver whose
daughter qualified for UP Diliman, as narrated in Youngblood
(Inquirer, 3/24/08) by Mariel Kierulf Asiddao, a UP Mass Communication
student. The cab driver insisted it was ESTIFAK and not STFAP.
NOLI N. REYES, professor, Institute of Mathematics, University of the
Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City
