state unviersity held hostage

The head might elicit a response that the state university (University of the Philippines) was held hostage by some terrorist group… this is not the case. The fate of UP and its budget for 2005 is now in the hands of the senate, in particular, it hinges on whether or not Senator Miriam Santiago goes on with her threat to block the passage of the UP charter bill. She has blamed UP officials (especially the UP law admission committee) for the suicide of her son last year.

To quote from the inquirer article:

THE FATE of a proposed new charter for the University of the Philippines now hinges on whether the state university's officials will bow to the will of one senator.

Administration Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago has demanded that the UP surrender the names and addresses of the members of the admissions committee that denied entry to her son into the UP College of Law.

This was one of the conditions that Santiago gave for withdrawing the motion she submitted the other day asking the Senate to suspend floor deliberations on the proposed UP charter of 2004.

Santiago's son, Alexander Robert, committed suicide almost exactly a year ago, which the senator has blamed on the "UP
College of Law admission committee for school year 2003.”

In a privilege speech yesterday, Santiago "[requested] strongly" that the UP divulge, before Nov. 15, the membership of the committee whom she accused of being "directly responsible for the suicide of my son Alexander” and how they came to the decision to reject her son’s application

Can you believe that? Only in the Philippines can a senator hold a University hostage for personal reasons. If the University bows to the will of a "mad woman", it will set a preceedent that will eventually snowball. It seems that in this country, it doesn't really matter that the State University seems to be going down the drain due to budget cuts, what matters most is that the good senator gets her revenge.

(to know more about UP pls log on to up.edu.ph; to read more about the article log on to www.inq7.net or get a hold of the November 4 issue of the inquirer).