Former UP President Francisco “Dodong” Nemenzo's lecture coincided with the mobilization Ayala, Makati, following the ZTE Deal revelations of Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, so I thought it was cancelled. I came in 15-30 minutes late so I wasn’t able to secure a seat inside the NISMED Auditorium. I had to stay outside and watch the lecture through the screen prepared for that occasion.
Entitled UP: View from Inside "Beyond the Classroom: Rebuilding a Damaged Nation", Dr. Nemenzo’s lecture tried to discuss the ways students, and the youth in general, can help repair the damaged Philippine society.
It isn’t just the academics that is important, according to the Professor Emeritus teaching Political Science in UP Diliman. The youth should engage in public debate, and examine assumptions, as what the students during the height of activism in the 1960s did. Especially with the issues of mismanagement and corruption thrown against the current administration, the student body should be vigilant. The next generation of the Philippines’ leaders should stop being silent observers. His lecture, which went along the lines of “collective action is the only way to get results” is reminiscent of Jose Ma. Sison’s “it is only through militant struggle can the best in the youth arise”.
Student activism in the country’s premier university, he said, has deteriorated and continues to deteriorate both in numbers and in quality. He wasn’t able to pinpoint a single cause (as I believe and maybe he too, that there is none) as to why the tradition is slowly fading away, but proposed a solution: It is not nationalism that should be instilled to the minds of the young people, but the sense of responsibility - responsibility to other people and to the country. Especially to the students of UP, whose education is being subsidized by the people.
Students today go to college because they (and their parents) see education as an investment for their future. It is a sad thing, but the government is capitalizing on this fact to serve its own interest. Take for instance the case of the nursing students in the country. The Philippine government itself is the one pushing them to go abroad once they graduate. Nemenzo said that it should be made mandatory that the nursing graduates serve in our hospitals for a number of years first before they be allowed to work in other countries.
Nemenzo said that the media is partly to be blamed for the country’s situation, and the lack of initiative on the side of the people to change it. He said that the media became a tool of the government and the business-minded people, instead of the people. The media (its owners particularly) has turned its back on its responsibility of being the “watchdog” for the people because it is afraid of the possible financial losses it might incur if it will put out too much of the powers that be’s dirty laundry.
The country has its own television station - NBN Channel 4. This station, instead of doing its job that was paid for by the people’s taxes, serves as the propaganda mouthpiece of the current administration for its pailaw and patubig projects.
The Filipinos cannot rely on its military forces as well. The military, which supposedly is neutral and apolitical, has also become a tool for the government. It is being used to silence the critics of the president and her cohorts. Even the other nations have called for the end of the ruthless political killings and enforced disappearances.
But the country is not hopeless, Nemenzo said. The Filipinos need not resort to bloody revolutions as well. He said that there are creative ways, and all the people need is to be always vigilant.
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