Reject Apolitical Intellectualism, Uphold Progressive Practice

Sa mga bagong iskolar ng bayan: greetings from UP’s campus press and writers’ organizations! As UP welcomes you into this supposed congregation of intellectuals, we issue these calls to caution and commitment.

Here, where the “best and brightest” from the nation’s “star sections and circles” converge, it is crucial to clarify the core of being “mga iskolar ng bayan”.

True, we must uphold academic excellence. UP’s intellectuals naturally aspire for high grades and acclaim, fortune and fame. But the true intellectual goes beyond empty posturing or proving one’s market value. The intellectual interrogates social ills, literally, figuratively. The intellectual interprets the status quo, change it. The UP intellectual earns significance in serving the people, in theory and practice.

Going beyond academics, we urge you to study the issues we face. At the local front, UP continues to oppose SB 2587, which proposes to replace UP’s colonial 1908 charter with another that ironically promotes less government support for a state university and increase dependence on multi-national corporations. We urge you to envision and support an alternative charter to the SB 2587 -- one that reflects the nationalist, scientific, and mass-based educational system we all aspire for.

We urge you to be aware that campus press freedom violations continue in this supposedly liberal university. At the UP Los Baños campus, administration intervention by Chancellor Wilfredo David continues to suppress the UPLB Perspective. Other UP student pubs struggle against repressive conditions, such as non-mandatory funding.

At the national level, we urge you to reflect on the roots of the political and economic crises. Why Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was reelected despite still unresolved allegations of the rabid corruptions, her mandate of state fascism against progressive groups, and subservience to US President Bush’s illegal and inhuman global “war against terror”.

These are among the issues that we must respond to as intellectuals. We challenge you to uphold historical analysis and collective action, to be, among other things, campus journalists relevant to the nation. Fictionists who bear truths. Poets who weave words for the people. Artists who wield brushes as weapons. To be aware that these problems actually constitute a “state of emergency” that necessitates our active response.

SOLIDARIDAD
UP Systemwide Alliance of Student Publications and Writers Organizations.