Third Degree

They say the past seven months was pure torture. Yes, it was a very difficult time. It was not because we had to read and read and read. I think it was because we had to read things that not only were difficult to understand but also things we didn’t really want, even cared, to understand. And we had to do it all by ourselves.

For me though it was only after last Sunday that I started seeing torture in the picture. All we can do now is wait for the results. We’re done with our part. It’s out of our hands. There is nothing more we can do.

Now that for me is torture.

Fantasist

Unlike the years past, 2011 imposes specific, concrete, crucial, life-altering goals. I’m never good with make-or-break situations: just as pressure builds up, my resolve inexplicably crumbles, then I flatline. That’s why I don’t join competitions, especially the on-the-spot or impromptu kinds.

But I guess, at some point, we all find ourselves at a crossroads and are left with no choice but to negotiate one path and make it our destiny. So here’s the get-go:

1. Graduate from UP Law in April
2. Take and pass the 2011 Bar Exams in September November
3. Go on a European Backpacking Expedition in November or December

To graduate, I need to finish my SLR, hurdle OLA, and pass what remains of my academic course work. I’ve just started working on my SLR so I am desperately praying for some divine intervention or celestial inspiration, whichever comes first. And I really hope it comes. Soon.

I haven’t yet done or attended any review classes for the Bar, but I hope to start gathering materials this January. I will have to ask someone for a list of relevant and essential books so I can have them photocopied already. And when April comes, all daydreams and phantasies must stop. If possible. Attend the San Sebastian review classes as religiously as I should.

Europe will depend on what it takes to get that visa that will allow me to board the train that will take me from one Scandinavian territory to another. My sister in Scotland should be able to help me with this. But if not, India seems like a good backup plan. A friend once told me that, to a true traveler and sophisticated soul, visits to China and India are a must. These two places complete the wanderlust in us. I don’t know why exactly, but I believe her. I’ve been to Shanghai and Beijing. So New Delhi or Calcutta might just be it.

Anything but nothing

If the Great Depression spurred on the development of economic theories, according to former Philippine Supreme Court Chief Justice Vicente V. Mendoza, martial law prompted the formulation of judicial theories.

One such theory would have to be the Political Question Doctrine, which the Supreme Court invoked alarmingly too often in declaring controversial cases as being out of its hands. In Montenegro vs Castañeda, for example, the tribunal held: “The authority to decide whether the exigency has arisen requiring suspension belongs to the President and ‘his decision is final and conclusive’ upon the courts and upon all other persons.”

Furthermore, in Lansang vs Garcia, the Supreme Court went on to say that “[t]he function of the Court is merely to check — not to supplant — the Executive, or to ascertain merely whether he has gone beyond they constitutional limits of his jurisdiction, not to exercise the power vested in him or to determine the wisdom of his act.” In the ascertainment of the factual basis of the suspension, however, the Court had to rely implicitly on the findings of the Chief Executive. Indeed, such reliance on the Executive’s findings would be the more compelling when the danger posed to the public safety is one arising from Communist rebellion and subversion.

However, sensing that the Political Question Doctrine had become a convenient escape under the Marcos Regime, former Chief Justice and Constitutional Commission member Roberto Concepcion pushed for the amendment of the political doctrine clause in the 1987 Constitution. Thus, Article 7, Section 18 now reads: “Judicial power includes the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.”

Justice Mendoza noted that the first part of the definition of judicial power came from Roxas vs Lopez, the second part from Lansang vs Garcia—both cases, as it turns out, were penned by Chief Justice Concepcion.

Put simply, judicial power grants the Supreme Court the power to do something—clarify issues, settle controversies, prevent abuses by government instrumentalities. For me, this means that the tribunal cannot simply copout or seek refuge in the Political Question Doctrine for fear of going up against the Executive or Legislative departments.

Judicial power, as defined in the 1987 Constitution, is a recognition of the Judiciary as being equal to the other two branches of government. Therefore, when the nation is under threat of extinction, whether by internal or external forces, the Judiciary has as much responsibility as the Executive and the Legislative to protect the government. It has its own obligations and commitments to the Constitution.

Cicero did say, as quoted by Justice Mendoza, that “in the midst of war the laws are silent.” He may be right but surely, during martial law, the Supreme Court has to lose its cold neutrality and unquestioning adherence to the actions and decisions of the Chief Executive.

Deciding not to decide

I find it curious how, in a short span of thirty years, the Supreme Court could make a complete turnaround in the way it involves itself in national affairs.

The Supreme Court certainly is no stranger to being thrust into a highly charged political atmosphere. Almost forty years ago, on 21 September 1972, it was confronted with a dilemma when asked to review the constitutionality of Presidential Proclamation No. 1081, which placed the country under martial law and the legality of the arrest and detention of prisoners under the same proclamation.

To resolve the issue, in Aquino vs Ponce Enrile for example, the Supreme Court ruled for “unquestioning adherence to political decision.”[1] It noted that when armed rebellion threatens the existence of the nation, the President is vested with power to declare martial law. Justice Antonio, in a separate opinion, explained: “The concentration of an amplitude of power in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, who is at the same time the elected civilian Chief of State, is predicated upon the fact that it is he who must initially shoulder the burden and deal with the emergency. By the nature of his position he possesses and wields the extraordinary powers of self-preservation of the democratic, constitutional state. In times of crisis there is indeed unification of responsibility and centralization of authority in the Chief Executive.”

Furthermore, Justice Antonio pointed out the necessity for the judiciary to keep distance from the decisions and actions made by the Chief Executive while the country is under martial law. “By reason of his unique position as Chief Executive and as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, it is he, more than any other high official of the government, who has the authority and the means of obtaining through the various facilities in the civil and military agencies of the government under his command, information promptly and effectively, from every quarter and corner of the state about the actual peace and order condition of the country,” he noted. “Both reason and authority, therefore, dictate that the determination of the necessity for the exercise of the power to declare martial law is within the exclusive domain of the President and his determination is final and conclusive upon the courts and upon all persons.”

Twenty nine years after the martial law, in January 2001, the Supreme Court was caught in yet another political storm. EDSA People Power 2 had just brought the Estrada Administration to a collapse, resulting in uncertainty over the country’s future. Now that Joseph Ejercito Estrada had moved out of Malacanang, the question on everyone’s mind was: what to become of the presidency?

But if under the Marcos Regime the judiciary hid behind the veil of political question doctrine to avoid deciding divisive issues, during the Estrada Administration it took an activist stance.

Amid the uncertainties, relief came when then Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. made the bold move of stepping out of his secluded judicial chamber and into the open streets to swear then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo into the presidency. The judiciary had the option to stay neutral by invoking the Separation of Powers Doctrine. But it did not. It chose to take active part in the people power revolution that, fifteen years earlier, had also ousted a sitting president.

When Estrada challenged the legitimacy of Arroyo as the country’s chief executive, the Supreme Court asserted its power of judicial review and ruled for the latter. The tribunal even went further as to declare EDSA 2 not merely extra-legal but constitutional, saying that it was “an exercise of people power of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly to petition the government for redress of grievances which only affected the office of the President.”[2]

Pundits believe that Chief Justice Davide’s act of administering President Arroyo’s oath was actually a necessary move to preserve the Supreme Court as an institution in a nation that has already ousted two duly elected presidents through peaceful revolutions. Observed former Senate President Jovito Salonga: “The scenarios that confronted the Chief Justice before he went to bed on the eve of Arroyo’s oath-taking were grim: if a stalemate dragged on, the military could seize the moment and take full control of the situation; on the other hand, if Arroyo was forced by the crowd to assume the presidency without the high tribunal’s imprimatur, she could declare a revolutionary government.”[3]

In the end, the Supreme Court’s activism saved not only itself but democracy in the country as well.

Martial law in 1972 and people power in 2001are two different events that dealt with two different threats to the existence of the nation—martial law with rebels and communists, EDSA 2 with ordinary citizens fed up with corruption.

Too, martial law in 1972 and people power in 2001 are two different events that unmasked two different sides of the Supreme Court—martial law showed an old-fashioned, conservative judiciary, EDSA 2 showed a radical, activist tribunal.

Between 1972 and 2001, the 1987 Philippine Constitution happened, discouraging the Supreme Court from always resorting to the Political Question Doctrine to avoid deciding on matters it deems highly political and controversial. And it might just well have saved the judiciary from being relegated to the depths of oblivion and irrelevance.

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[1]Aquino vs Ponce Enrile, G.R. No. L-35546, 17 September 1974

[2] Estrada vs Arroyo, GR No. 146738, 2 March 2001

[3] Gloria, Glenda M. “Judgment Day: Averting a Political Crisis” in Newsbreak. 7-13 March 2001.

Stumped

In law school, exam week is hell week. Ninth circle. You don’t sleep, you don’t eat, you don’t go to work, worse, you don’t have sex. What you do is read, drink coffee, read, drink coffee, read, drink coffee, memorize a gazillion facts, drink coffee – you get the picture. Come exam day,  you assault your bluebooks until you can no longer feel your fingers. Then you stay away from coffee at least until the next semester begins.

That’s how life was like over the past five years. So yesterday, when I took my last exam, I was all ready to let out a big, fat, loud sigh of relief. I was looking forward to leaving all those torturous days and nights behind.

That sigh never happened. When I handed my bluebook, I was on a stump, asking myself reflectively: what the hell? It was one of those times when you think you know but you realize you really don’t. Absolutely unsettling.

Which was exactly the same way I felt when I took my first law exam five years ago. But I had hopes then: I was just starting, surely I’d learn the tricks as I moved along.

Negotiable Instruments, to be fair, is one of our toughest subjects. It has crushed a lot of aspirations to graduate with high honors. Still I was hoping that, having taken countless exams these years past, my last one would already give me a sense of confidence and, somehow, ease. It doesn’t feel right that I’m going to leave Malcolm just as clueless as I when I entered it. And when I think about the Bar, I become cold.

But who am I kidding, of course, I’m glad it’s over!

Beautiful Minds

Former UP President Francisco Nemenzo x former Chief Justice Reynato Puno. (UPSIO File Photos)

Math counts, History matters: Do students care?

Teenagers. How to make sense of them when they can barely keep up with themselves—growth spurts, mood swings, and all? How much guidance do they need in making decisions of consequence to their future, and how wise is it to just leave them be? Are they old enough to make up their own minds and be responsible for their actions?

These were some of the pertinent questions confronted by the University of the Philippines when it organized a review of the Revitalized General Education Program (RGEP) on October 21, 2010, almost ten years after its implementation. The program, which revolutionized the way general education is offered in the University, gave students the freedom to choose their subjects, as long as they completed 15 units under each of the three domains of learning—Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences and Philosophy; and Math, Science and Technology.

RGEP and critical thinking

According to Dr. Fidel R. Nemenzo, Professor at the UP Diliman Institute of Mathematics and member of the UP System GE Council, the GE program develops critical thinking and provides students with a well-rounded education. “A critical thinker is not one who always criticizes, but one who is able to analyze, read between the lines, and think out of the box; one who is able to distinguish between substance and form, and appreciate and understand connections as well as differences between the many things we study and how these impact on society,” he explains. “The specialized training that the student receives in her/his major is not sufficient preparation for career and life after graduation, where she/he not only applies knowledge but has to discern and make informed judgments as well. GE is our antidote to the overspecialization and the fragmentation of learning.”

Dr. Fidel R. Nemenzo

Nemenzo believes that the changes introduced by the RGEP produced positive results. “Units were compelled to review and improve the content and delivery of their GE offerings. Students also now have a broader and more exciting variety of courses to choose from,” he notes.

But alongside these positive results, the RGEP carries with it unforeseen consequences, notes Dr. Ma. Mercedes G. Planta, Professor at the UP Diliman Department of History and Assistant Deputy Director of the UP System Information Office. “The RGEP was conceived with the intention of strengthening liberal general education in UP and part of this endeavor is to provide students the chance to have a ‘direct hand’ in choosing/designing his/her courses. This component of the RGEP was impelled by the belief that students would choose the subjects that would benefit them most in terms of quality education,” she explains. “Given the highly competitive work environment and access to opportunities that we face, however, we failed to take into consideration the propensity of some students, while claiming to benefit from the idea of being able to choose their subjects, to enroll in classes that they find easy and do away with those they find difficult.” In short, Planta says, “I think we placed too much faith in the students.”

Before the implementation of RGEP, Planta points out that she had 40 to 50 students in her History classes. Today, she has only 20 to 25 students, some of whom enrolled only because the course fit their schedule. Or because their adviser required them to, which defeats the purpose of RGEP.

Her observation seems to find support in an informal survey of enrollment rates in GE subjects presented by UP President Emerlinda R. Roman during the October 21 conference. According to the survey, which covers Academic Year 2009-2010, English and Communication courses rank high in the list of students system-wide. History—except in UP Manila and UP Baguio—does not. Math is not among the popular courses, except in UP Mindanao, UP Manila, and UP Los Baños. Most students opt to skip these two subjects if they can.

While Roman notes that findings from surveys and observations from the faculty members over the past ten years indicate the need to review the approach of giving students the option to choose their courses, she stresses that there is no turning back from RGEP.

Nemenzo shares the same view. “The way forward is not to go back to the old purely prescriptive format, but to identify the core courses that we believe our students should not do without, and prescribe these along with a broad range of choices,” he says. “Off the cuff, I think all UP students should know how to write and communicate effectively, they should know their Philippine history and culture. They should also have appreciation of the role of science and mathematics in society.”

In other words, the RGEP should be a combination of compulsory and non-compulsory courses. The question is: which subjects should be prescribed and which ones should be made elective?

A grounding of who we are

For Planta, there is no question that History should be prescribed. “History is a grounding of who we are as a people and as a nation,” she explains. “We’re talking about nationhood. Our development as a nation should be traced if we are to know which is the best way forward.”

Dr. Ma. Mercedes G. Planta

In 2009, the Department of History reviewed Department of Education textbooks used in public elementary and high school. In their report, the team headed by Professor Ma. Serena I. Diokno noted that History is incorporated into HEKASI (Heograpiya, Kasaysayan, at Sibika) or Civic and Culture, Social StuWdies. Put simply, there really is no History as a subject by itself.

“We realized that our students have very poor background in History. In fact, for most of them, it is in UP that they take History for the first time,” she says, so that History teaching in the University becomes a remedial course, which is not supposed to be the case. While this is another argument for making History a compulsory subject in UP, she says, “it also allows us to see the bigger picture of the quality of basic education that we must be aware of and how this quality of education, or lack of it, influences the learning, perception, and appreciation of History as a subject.”

In Japan, a major economic power, students are taught History as an independent subject as early as in their first grade. History is also taught systematically; the students move from one period in history to another and the discussion becomes more in-depth as they move from one grade level to the next. By the time they are at the tertiary level, Japanese students already have grounding and even mastery of History, so that there is no need to emphasize the subject or compel them to take History in the university. In the Philippines, History in basic education is taught, if at all, by making students memorize the same facts over and over; consequently, they hardly learn anything new even as they move from elementary to high school.

“Students are not given the chance to learn beyond the facts they are made to memorize. There are even instances where the facts they memorize are wrong. When asked what year the Philippine Revolution took place, some students answer 1986. Apparently, they confuse it with the EDSA Revolution,” notes Planta. “So here in UP, aside from checking their facts and figures, we also train our students to be analytical and critical whenever they are confronted with ideas, issues, and concepts.”

The language of science and technology

In the case of Math, Nemenzo argues that it should be prescribed because it is the language of science and technology. He clarifies, however, that Math as a GE subject should not be a remedial course since UP students are presumed to have already learned the basics in elementary and high school.

“GE Math is not ‘elementary math’ or classroom math made easy, but an opportunity to truly discuss mathematics as a human enterprise, an essentially social and creative activity,” he points out. “Mathematics is not just a collection of techniques and formulas. Mathematics is a language, a way of looking at and ordering the world. It is culture.”

Fear of math, which may explain the low enrollment rate in the course, can partly be blamed on parents who reproduce such fear at home and on school teachers who may know a lot about formulas but little about the nature of mathematics. “In confining Math to the classroom and reducing it to formulas and techniques, a teacher may present Math as nothing but an obstacle course,” says Nemenzo.

“I am not saying that the numbers, formulas, and techniques we study in elementary and high school are useless. In fact, they are absolutely necessary. Every educated person needs a minimum level of numeracy. After all we live in a world of numbers—we compute bills, we tell time, we make sense of data in this information-driven world,” he continues. “But teachers should be able to make students understand that the numbers and formulas of the classroom are merely the scaffolding for more powerful ideas, in the same way that a student needs to master language and grammar in order to appreciate literature. It is not mastery but appreciation of mathematics that should be among the goals of GE. An educated person need not have a grasp of equations and formulas, but should understand the role of mathematics in shaping our world.”

But how to make students care about Math and History?

Keeping up with the times, going beyond symbols

There are many ways to make History interesting to students but, according to Planta, there is also a need for new learning materials, teaching tools, non-traditional methods, and good textbooks. “While we continue to demand excellence from our students, we also have to be excellent ourselves and keep up with the times. We need to be more aware and aggressive in updating our teaching materials and strategies,” she notes. “We have to keep in mind that our students are savvy users of information technology. They come across a lot of facts, figures, and ideas every time they go online. So how do we keep them still interested in the information that we give them in class?” In this regard, she says that a review of the RGEP poses the challenge of not only offering the opportunity to review the quality and substance of the educational system in UP, but also its continuing relevance, particularly for History.

She also says there is a particular set of textbooks that she wants her students to use because, aside from the fact that the set is authored by the country’s leading historians, it uses large fonts, illustrative graphics, and colorful pictures. “It is very friendly to students who are just starting to appreciate History,” she adds. Unfortunately, the cost of the textbook makes it unrealistic to require. “It is very expensive. The first time it came out, the price was P15,000. Then it went on sale at a hugely discounted price of P5,000—still not affordable to students.” For Math, Nemenzo thinks the challenge for the teacher is to go beyond numbers and symbols, which are merely the formal trappings of mathematics. The professor should instead teach how the ideas behind the symbols have shaped the world and the way we see it. “For example, in teaching Cartesian coordinates in the GE classroom, one should not focus on the equation of a line or a parabola, but on the enormous influence of Descartes on mathematics as well as philosophy,” he explains. The professor should convey to students the significance of Descartes’ unifying two areas of mathematics—arithmetic and geometry—which previously developed along separate paths.

“In reducing the topic to poorly misunderstood formulas, a teacher misses the opportunity to discuss Math and its role in the history of ideas,” he concludes. “Mathematics is socially and culturally embedded. GE should also present how mathematical ideas arise in context and connect math to history, culture, and society.”

Weeding out the cheats

In academic institutions where knowledge is a prime commodity, a well-researched scholarly proposition may sometimes be only a shade removed from an intellectually dishonest argument. This is usually the case when a new idea is a mere mishmash of old and existing ones. Or when a tried-and-tested method of inquiry is borrowed to formulate an entirely original concept.

What then is intellectual dishonesty? What circumstances permit the use of recycled information? To what extent may ideas be mixed and matched (or, in this electronic day and age, “cut and pasted”) with the resulting concept still qualifying as original?

At the University of the Philippines, it can be difficult to distinguish original research from fabricated study because everyone is accorded intellectual freedom. Presumed capable and responsible, everyone is encouraged to explore the unfamiliar and the unconventional in the pursuit of new knowledge. This is probably the reason the University’s policy on intellectual property seems, as may be gleaned from the cases lodged in the Office of the Vice President for Legal Affairs, cautious—careful not to render judgment without putting all facts and circumstances in their proper context.

Quote, unquote
In one case, a professor was charged with plagiarism for quoting passages from a book by a foreign author during a lecture she delivered in 2002. The professor allegedly made the quoted passages appear to be hers when she failed to attribute them to the author.

The UP President, whose office received the complaint, dismissed the allegation on the basis that it was mere hearsay. It turned out that the complainant, also a professor but from another university, simply based his information on a news article which did not even put into context how the UP professor delivered the quotes in question. And since the complainant himself was not in attendance during the lecture, he too could not confirm his own allegation.

Upon dismissing the complaint, the UP President issued the following reminder to complainant: “It is imperative that members of the academe act with justice, observe with honesty and good faith, and duly respect each other’s rights and intellectual freedom. The University frowns upon any kind of abuse of right, such as filing baseless complaints against a faculty member of the University.”

Between the lines
Should there be sufficient evidence, UP still has to determine whether the alleged act constitutes intellectual dishonesty. This is illustrated in the case where a visiting professor, whose collection of poems was published by the UP Press in 1999, charged a PhD candidate with plagiarism.

The visiting professor alleged that portions of one poem in the PhD candidate’s own collection, which was published by a different publishing company in 2005, were copied from his 1999 collection. He called the attention of the UP Press to certain lines from his own poem and the PhD candidate’s poem which, when compared, supposedly revealed plagiarism. The PhD candidate simply changed noun-verb order, added or replaced a noun, adjective, or verb with another but followed the same order of syntax, altered the simile, or adjusted the spelling from American to British.

Vice President for Legal Affairs Marvic F. Leonen, in evaluating the complaint, opined that this was indeed a case of intellectual dishonesty in the form of plagiarism. Citing the Supreme Court in Habana vs Robles, he explained that one does not necessarily have to copy the entire copyrighted work or even a large portion of it to be guilty of plagiarism. The determining factor: when so much is taken from the original work that the value of the original work is substantially diminished, such as when it significantly affects the sale of the original author’s book, causing him “actual damage by way of unrealized income.”

However, Leonen pointed out that not all acts of copying someone else’s copyrighted work without permission are considered plagiarism. Under the Fair Use Principle, it is not a crime to copy, display, perform, modify, or distribute a protected material without permission from the author if it is for purposes such as commentary, news reporting, or teaching. “Fair Use,” in other words, is an exception to the exclusive rights of the copyright owner.

When considering this in relation to the complaint of the visiting professor, Leonen noted that there were differences in the words and phrases used by the PhD candidate in his poem. Thus, “any apparent similarity between the PhD candidate’s poem and the visiting professor’s may be considered fair use,” he said.

Under the Philippine Intellectual Property Code, four factors are considered in determining whether the use of protected material falls within the ambit of Fair Use Principle—the purpose and character of the use (non-commercial use is more likely to be permitted than commercial), the nature of the original work (factual works receive less protection than expressive works such as poems and songs), the amount and substantiality of the portion used may be an infringement if it is qualitatively important), and the effect on the market value of the copyrighted work (an infringement is not likely to be permitted if it supplants market demand  for the original). Since there was no substantial reproduction or extensive quoting of the visiting professor’s poems and the value of the original  work was not substantially diminished, Leonen said there was no cause of action against the PhD candidate.

Institutional offense
What if a complainant is able to show cause of action against an accused, as in the case of an MA student who successfully proved that his thesis was used by his adviser for the latter’s professorial chair lecture two years ago? The committee which investigated the complaint found that the adviser violated the University’s policy on ethical standards and intellectual property rights.

How does the University proceed from this finding? Or, more to the point, who should file the formal complaint and attend to all those legal procedures? While the case at bar is ongoing, the University is exploring the most feasible options available to it.

Although it was the MA student who was directly offended by the breach, Leonen suggested that the Chancellor should file the complaint on behalf of the University. “Intellectual dishonesty is not an offense committed against another individual,” said Leonen. “It is a transgression of academic integrity. Hence, there should be no private party offended. If any, it is the University or its values that is transgressed.”

Leonen noted that after the preliminary investigation conducted by the committee created specifically for the complaint, the case was ripe for adjudication before the University’s Administrative Disciplinary Tribunal (ADT), where “both parties would be given the opportunity to explain their respective sides in a formal hearing.” The thesis adviser, however, has opted to tender his resignation rather than go through the ADT. According to Leonen, while it is well within the rights of the thesis adviser to choose to leave the University, the Chancellor cannot accept the resignation because under the Rules and Regulations on the Discipline of UP Faculty Members and Employees, “No application for retirement, leave of absence with pay, or resignation by the respondent shall be processed or approved pending the final examination of the case.”

He recommended that the Chancellor should forward the case to the ADT. If the thesis adviser is not satisfied with the ADT resolution, he may file an appeal with the Office of the Chancellor, the Office of the UP President, the Board of Regents, the Civil Service Commission, the Court of Appeals, and all the way up to the Supreme Court. “The point is he has all these forums available to be heard,” he said.

Dream Drain: Challenges and opportunities for new graduates

There’s still some charm left in the UP Diploma, but it’s no longer a foolproof guarantee of a dream job.   UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SOLAIR) Dean Jorge V. Sibal says that employers still prefer graduates of the University over other jobseekers but the severity of unemployment in the country could limit their career options. He points out that since the unemployment rate has been on a steady rise these past years, even college graduates are finding it difficult to get a job. In “Public Forum-Dialogue on the Exodus of Mission-Critical Personnel and Professionals,” which was held last March 4 at the UP SOLAIR Auditorium, it was revealed that from 1980 to 2003, the country’s economy managed to create 14.7 million new jobs but, within the same period, 17.7 million newcomers also entered the labor force. In other words, the additional 0.6% jobs that were created were not enough to absorb the 1.4% increase in the labor force. As a result, unemployment among the schooled segment of the labor force increased as well—29% among high school graduates and 17% among college graduates and undergraduates. Dr. Virgel C. Binghay, coordinator of UP SOLAIR’s Graduate Studies Program, traces the country’s unemployment woes to the decision of many companies to relocate their manufacturing plants to other countries. Multinational companies, he says, now seem to prefer China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia because these countries offer cheaper labor and bigger market for their products. Bright spots In spite of the overall slump in the economy, Dr. Binghay says there are still employment opportunities for new graduates. Among the local industries, the bright spots are found in business process outsourcing, which includes the call centers and medical transcription services; advertising, which is especially in need of graphic animators; information technology; tourism; fastfood, since the likes of Jollibee, McDonald’s, and Chowking continue to open new outlets and, therefore, are perpetually in need of store managers, staff, and service crew; retail, thanks to the proliferation of malls; and human resource management, particularly organizational development. Dr. Binghay observes that these opportunities all fall under the service sector. This is not good because there should be a balance among the service, agricultural, and manufacturing sectors. “Especially in our case,” he points out, “since most of our workers belong to the agriculture sector. While we welcome the developments in the service industry, we must be wary of the slump in agriculture and manufacturing because it means disenfranchisement of the workers in these sectors.” Indeed, in 2004, the service sector ate up the biggest chunk of the employment pie with 48% while agriculture came in second with 36%. Manufacturing, meanwhile, posted the lowest share with 9.7%. Dean Sibal, however, points out that “most of the jobs created in agriculture and service sectors were low-quality jobs.” Opportunities overseas Looking for jobs abroad is another option for new graduates. Interestingly enough, opportunities for Filipino workers in the international market are now a good mix of blue- and white-collar jobs. Dr. Binghay says Filipino workers are still in demand as domestic helpers, construction workers, entertainers, and seafarers, but they are now also getting offers from the health care, aviation, mining, teaching, and information technology industries. Demands in the aviation industry are particularly surprising, says Dr. Binghay: “We’re losing a lot of our pilots, aircraft engineers and technicians, and traffic controllers to other countries, especially India and the Middle East.” Even the linemen of the Manila Electric Co., he adds, have also been getting job offers from Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, and Papua New Guinea, among many others. UP graduates, notes Dean Sibal, will most likely find themselves in the small but highly-paid group of knowledge workers who are mostly based in the US and Europe. “Although small in numbers, Filipino knowledge workers turn over more than one half of the entire remittances since many of them are highly paid professionals and technical workers,” he explains. Next to India, the Philippines supplies the most number of knowledge workers to the rest of the world. “Lately, however, some local industries have felt the crippling effects of the loss of mission-critical professionals and technicians,” Dean Sibal explains. These critical sectors include aviation, shipping, information technology, steel, petrochemical, telecommunications, health care, and education. “We need to temper sending our mission-critical personnel and professionals abroad,” he says. “We must bear in mind what management guru Peter Drucker said: Knowledge workers are the key to competitiveness of enterprises and national economies. This is the reason developed countries deliberately pirate the knowledge workers of developing countries. They need to be ahead in competing with the rest of the world at the expense of developing countries.” Regulating the exodus of workers, according to Dr. Binghay, is actually done in some countries. “Yes, I recognize that part of globalization is the free movement of people,” he says. “But can you imagine our hospitals without competent doctors and nurses or our airports without traffic controllers? Our country will be paralyzed. We must also protect our country.” Other options Dean Sibal says that those who cannot afford to leave the country can look into informal and semi-formal entrepreneurial opportunities. “We have heard of fresh UP graduates who have successfully operated new franchises in malls,” he notes. “Some of them are now expanding their businesses all over the country, even Asia.” Yet another alternative for new graduates is to go back to school to pursue a master’s degree. Aside from acquiring more knowledge, competencies, and skills, some students turn to graduate schools in the hopes of landing a job through their classmates, most of whom are already working. Both Dean Sibal and Dr. Binghay, however, do not approve of this strategy. “Except in pure sciences, I would not advise new college graduates to pursue graduate studies right away. Studying and applying what you learned in school in your place of work or practice of profession is the best combination for a successful graduate student,” says Dean Sibal. “So go get a job first, even if you start at the bottom of the organization ladder.” Inexperienced students in graduate schools also are a problem for professors, points out Binghay. “That is especially true for us in SOLAIR where we teach about the world of work,” he explains. “A student who does not have any work experience will not be able to relate to our discussions. When we talk about Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), for example, what does that student know about CBA other than what he or she has read in the book? There are a lot of things about the work place that are not in the books, so our discussions are enriched by the individual or collective experiences of both the professors and students.”

Clampdown: UP goes after land grabbers

The Supreme Court made it plain enough when—for the nth time in September 2004—it upheld with finality the ownership of the University of the Philippines over its campus in Diliman, Quezon City. “We strongly admonish courts and unscrupulous lawyers to stop entertaining spurious cases seeking further to assail UP’s title,” it warned.

“These cases open the dissolute avenues of graft to unscrupulous land-grabbers who prey like vultures upon the campus of UP. By such actions, they wittingly or unwittingly aid the hucksters who want to earn a quick buck by misleading the gullible to buy the Philippine counterpart of the proverbial London Bridge.”

If there is a hint of exasperation in the way the decision was worded, it must be because the Court is tired of repeating itself over the same issue for almost fifty years now. It first declared that UP is the rightful owner of the Diliman campus on October 31, 1959. Since then, it has decided eight more similar cases with the same verdict.

Even the Land Registration Authority (LRA) has set the record straight. In a report issued by its Verification Committee in August 1984, the LRA traced the origin of UP’s Transfer Certificate Title (TCT) No. 9462 which covers the University’s Diliman campus to the TCT No. 36048 of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. Apparently, the Philippine Government executed a deed of sale in favor of UP on March 1, 1949 relative to TCT No. 36048. Thus, TCT No. 36048 was cancelled in lieu of TCT No. 9462 issued in the name of UP.

Going by these judicial declarations, UP should not have a problem with chasing away illegal settlers.
Yet this is not the case. In the past decades, UP has been busy keeping land grabbers at bay. It’s almost funny how all these claimants come out of the woodwork, their bogus papers matched only by their absurd claims.

But this is exactly what alarms UP. Where are these fake documents coming from? How do the claimants get hold of them? Armed with fake titles, they are able to get their day in court no matter if their claims run from the incredulous to the hilarious. Some of these claimants even manage to elevate their arguments to the Court of Appeals, and quite a few to the Supreme Court itself.
Is there an invisible hand that orchestrates these relentless and seemingly organized land-grabbing attacks against the UP property?

Unholy crusade
Only this October, for example, UP won a favorable decision from the Quezon City Regional Trial Court against St. Mary’s Crusade to Alleviate Poverty of Brethren Foundation Inc., which seeks the reconstitution of a parcel of land in Quezon City with an area of 4,304,623 square meters. The claim apparently encompasses the 493-hectare Diliman property.

St. Mary’s Crusade claims that the land area in question is covered by Original Certificate Title (OCT) No. 1609 which is owned by one Marcelino Tiburcio. On November 26, 1985, Tiburcio supposedly executed a Deed of Transfer and Conveyance of OCT No. 1609 in favor of St. Mary Village Association, Inc. It is based on this alleged Deed of Transfer and Conveyance that St. Mary’s Crusade is now laying claim over the property.

Interestingly, in 1989, an entity named St. Mary Village Association, Inc. filed a petition seeking the annulment of UP’s titles to its Diliman property based on an alleged Spanish grant issued on March 25, 1877 in favor of one Eladio Tiburcio. The trial court dismissed the petition on January 31, 1990.
The people behind St. Mary’s Crusade admit that they do not have the original certificate but they do have a technical description of the property in question, duly certified as correct by the National Archives of the Philippines and a certification issued by the Land Management Bureau of Manila. How did they get past these government agencies? But what the Office of the Vice President for Legal Affairs finds most curious is that these claimants refuse to identify in their petition all the persons that they claim would benefit from the property. Who exactly are these people?

A check on the background of the people behind St. Mary’s Crusade reveals that they are all residents of the Diliman campus, presently living in the housing area allotted by UP for its qualified personnel under its housing program. All but one of the petitioners had been former UP employees who had availed of and qualified for housing privileges. These employees subsequently resigned or retired from active service but refused to leave their respective housing units. They are, in short, illegal tenants, and therefore subject to eviction.

Monomania of lands
And then there’s the perplexing case of Prince Julian Morden Tallano. Here is a man who claims to be a descendant of King Luisong Tagean whose sons supposedly included Rajah Soliman and Lapu-Lapu. (This alleged filial relationship between Soliman and Lapu-Lapu—two prominent figures in the country’s history—has apparently escaped the attention of historians for it is not mentioned in textbooks.) And by virtue of his lineage, Tallano is now asserting ownership over several land titles. OCT No. T-01-4, for example, covers the whole archipelago and its four regions: Luzon, Visayas, Palawan-Zamboanga embracing Kalayaan and Sabah, and Mindanao. TCT No. T-408, on the other hand, covers 1.253 billion square meters of Metro Manila.

What is even more baffling is that despite the patent absurdities of such claims, the Court of First Instance (CFI) of Pasay City allegedly promulgated on November 4, 1975 an Order for Reconstitution of TCT No. T-408 and OCT No. T-01-4 , among other titles, in favor of Gregorio Madrigal Acopiado, Tallano’s supposed great great grandfather. As in the case of St. Mary’s Crusade, the original copy of the said decision was reportedly lost or, more specifically, destroyed in a fire that gutted the Pasay City Hall on January 18, 1992. Tallano’s group, however, claims they have a true copy of the decision certified by the Office of the Solicitor General.

In 2005, Tallano and a certain Anacleto Madrigal Acopiado filed with the Regional Trial Court Branch 220 of Quezon City a petition for the enforcement of the CFI-Pasay City’s 1975 decision. Acopiado insisted that by virtue of said judgment, UP’s TCT over its Diliman campus is null and void. Thus, UP should reconvey ownership over its Diliman property to the Acopiados.

Convinced that the alleged CFI judgment was secured through fraud, the UP System Office of Legal Affairs sought the assistance of the Office of the Solicitor General and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to determine the true identity of the claimants. In a report dated June 10, 2005, the NBI declared that Julian Morden Tallano is not a prince but an impostor who, many times in the past, had assumed different identities and provided different addresses with the evident aim of defrauding other people. Tallano, who turned out to be a native of Nueva Ecija, was also found to be the subject of several warrants of arrest for estafa, falsification of documents, and swindling, among many others.

The identity of Anacleto Madrigal Acopiado, meanwhile, could only be established by an altered death certificate issued by the Local Civil Registrar of Taguig, Manila on November 28, 1994. Moreover, the NBI could not find any document to prove that Don Gregorio Madrigal Acopiado exists or ever existed.

Cracking the whip
There are countless other spurious claims over the ownership of the UP Diliman campus currently docketed in trial courts. And, as long as equally spurious documents are readily available from the black market, many more are expected to come out.

This is the reason UP is going beyond asserting its ownership over its property. UP is now determined to go after these organized land-grabbing factions who are growing ever more brazen.