Backbone-free UP prexy
JOJO ROBLES
I DON’T personally know Danilo Concepcion, the president of the University of the Philippines. But I know a vacillating coward when I see one.
You see, Concepcion apologized for allowing a group of former members of the old Kabataang Barangay, the grassroots youth arm organized by Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s that lives on today as the Sangguniang Kabataan, to hold a reunion at a space they rented in the university’s Diliman campus. That Concepcion is known as a KB leader himself during his youth—he was KB’s Metro Manila chairman from 1976 to 1978—and as a close friend of KB founding national chairman Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos during their time as students at the UP College of Law only made matters that much worse.
“I intended no offense,” said Concepcion, who was even physically present at the reunion. “Especially to the UP community that I serve.”
I don’t know why Concepcion had to issue his strange apology. Having attended the event at the for-rent Bahay ng Alumni at the campus, he must have known what was going to happen and anticipated whatever adverse reaction was coming from the usual anti-Marcos suspects.
But he didn’t. And when the backlash came, he just quailed.
Concepcion, who was also dean of the UP law school, said that the university “will never forget the dark period of our country during the martial law years.” UP will continue to “hold in high esteem the university’s best and brightest who made the ultimate sacrifice fighting for freedom and democracy,” he added.
Whatever happened to his longtime association with Imee? Or his stated purpose for attending the event, which he said was his desire to be with “old friends” from the Marcos KB years?
This UP president, as one group that lambasted him for attending the event said, is truly unlike the heads of the university who went before — but with a twist. A university group calling itself Educators Against the Rehabilitation of the Marcoses compared Concepcion unfavorably with the late Salvador P. Lopez who, the group said, “used the authority and prestige of his office to stand off [sic]the military from campus grounds.”
Concepcion is unlike Lopez in this regard, in that he allowed a small minority to force him to do something unlawful, like abridging the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly of a group that even paid his university to stage a meeting on the campus. Yes, unlike “SP,” Concepcion does not seem to have a backbone or the fortitude to stand up to anti-Marcos elements in the university who are bullying him into renouncing his past and his present knowledge of what is allowed by the law.
Consider how many times in the recent past the anti-Duterte forces used venues in the university like the Church of the Holy Sacrifice to hold their Liberal Party-led rallies. If the proven majority of anti-LP Filipinos demand that the Yellows who regularly use the campus grounds as their playground are not protesting their presence there, why should Concepcion yield to them when they attack the Marcoses for holding a similar meeting where they even paid for the venue?
Does UP stand for academic and all other freedoms, or has it become the exclusive refuge of the LP and the Yellows? Concepcion has apparently already answered that question when he bowed to the groups condemning his approval of and presence at the KB event.
But I imagine that Concepcion feels he has to assuage the anti-Marcos sector of the university (which is by no means the majority in the mostly apolitical UP) because he has vulnerabilities of his own that do not have anything to do with his association with the Marcoses. These include his alleged use of his office’s authority to allow a close relative of his to enroll at UP even if he did not pass the college admissions test (UPCAT).
Whatever the reason, Concepcion must have understood that he cannot look like a UP president who will cave in to a small minority simply because they don’t like the “optics” of what he did. And that the freedoms that UP stands for cannot be hijacked by any political group, whether they be pro- or anti-Marcos.
I like my UP presidents to be made of sterner stuff. And at this point, I think that means calling out the noisy minority of anti-Marcos and telling them that the freedoms they enjoy are not exclusively theirs.
If Concepcion can do that without backing away once again after he hears some people grumbling about the way he runs the university, of course.
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Here’s some background on why President Rodrigo Duterte let loose his famous potty mouth on Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña recently. Many people, especially those who are not from Cebu, still don’t understand the vitriol and are wondering why.
Shortly after the 2016 elections, Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña appeared in an ABS-CBN Cebu interview saying that Mar Roxas was his president. “Kana si Digong maayo lang na sa peace and order… maayo gyud si Mar Roxas kay kamao sa ekonomiya (Duterte is good only for peace and order. Mar is better because he understands the economy).”
Then, in an April 1, 2018 The Freeman report, Osmeña said the drug problem persists because Duterte has not taken any move against China, which he believes is the source of drugs in the country. “If you ask me, it’s from China. It’s certainly not from America, not from Japan, possibly Taiwan. Even in the laboratories in Manila, they’re all made in China.”
“I wonder what the government will do about this.” Osmeña said. “The question is why he seems to be afraid to move against China.”
The President’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, took offense at Osmena’s remarks. “You can question why [Osmeña] knew that the illegal drugs in Cebu City came from China,” she said.
Inday Sara added that a mayor like Osmeña wouldn’t talk about illegal drugs coming from China if he doesn’t know about the process or the system of transport. “That is the question that should be asked of him (Osmeña). If he has knowledge about illegal drugs, he should report it to the police and they can work together to control the drugs coming into the city.”
When Duterte postponed the barangay elections last year, Mayor Osmeña opposed the move, saying that “as a democracy, people should be allowed to choose their own leaders.” Mayor Osmeña also told Cebu Daily News last July 19 that if he would be asked how Duterte could improve Cebu, the President can “leave the Cebuanos alone. We can handle our own problems.”
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