THE SOCIOECONOMICS BEHIND “LF: COMMISSIONER”

NINA SAM DELIS AT AXCEL BELTRAN

“Looking For (LF): Commissioner” has become an intriguing buzz across social media, especially on the blue bird platform. Apparently, these so-called “commissioners” do academic “services” to get paid. With the advent of technology, these academic services became more prevalent and convenient – from easier file transfer, anonymous commissioners and clients, to e-money transactions.

Academic commission services began to blow up ever since the online and hybrid learning setup started – where learning and cheating became “one click away”. The cases of academic dishonesty are no stranger to us even before the pre-pandemic learning. In a neoliberal education system where quantity over quality is the centerfold, and learning becomes only a footnote, some students take the most desperate measure to survive – even if it means grappling with academic dishonesty. These kinds of services are gradually becoming “real” jobs for both students and working adults. Apparently, “commissioners” and “clients” are the keywords to look for when searching for academic services. “Proposed budget”, “task deadline”, “rate per word count”, and other details can also be posted along with the tags “LF: Commissioner”. Commissioners, as they call it, bombard the comment section by offering their so-called services and payment deal. Whoever is chosen will win the lottery of LF: Commissioner.

It is indeed unfortunate that academic dishonesty is now considered a job for some. While academic commission services will never be ethical in any way, it is also imperative to trace how this dilemma began and continually persists inside the academe.

Academic disparity is one thing. Students who excel academically offer their “forte” for money, while those who need help seek someone to do the work. However, the disparity does not only manifest academically. This issue is also a matter of socioeconomic disparity – an issue of class struggle.

Most of the students offering academic commission services are those who need to fund and support their own studies. Truth be told, education is not free in our country. Students have to pay for various fees – tuition, miscellaneous, and laboratory among others –just to acquire the quality education that they rightfully deserve for free.

Some might argue that students, especially those in public schools, do not pay tuition fees so why demand for a free education? Well apparently, it is not free at all due to school projects that require students and parents taking something out of their pockets. Take pandemic learning as an example. It gravitated to how education became a privilege to those who have gadgets, internet connection, and a peaceful learning space at home. At the height of the pandemic in 2021, almost five million students dropped out of school brought about by the burden of distance learning. How ironic to the Department of Education’s motto of “no student will be left behind”.

Still dampened by the pandemic, the country is yet to recover from health and economic scarring. Based on the 2021 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), it is recorded that 18.1% or almost 19.99 million Filipinos are living below the poverty threshold. With this and considering the rising prices of basic commodities due to a sky-high 8.7% inflation rate – the highest since November 2018 – students are forced to hustle extra hard not only to sustain their studies but also their living expenses.

However, there are also some cases where those who accept academic commission services are already graduates or working adults. Either way, they cannot be blamed for doing this side hustle due to lack of opportunities in the country. While the quality of jobs in the Philippines improved from the latest figures of PSA, the country’s unemployment rate is still hanging at 4.3% based on the 2022 Labor Force Survey.

Now that Sara Duterte is at the helm of the education sector, the call that education is a right needs to be more amplified.

We call for the kind of education that sees no social and economic status, where students are free to learn what they want to learn, a place where they can hone their skills and critical thinking without being milked and exploited by the system that treats learners as business clients.

As long as this kind of education is not achieved, there will always be students who will accept academic commission services to pay their academic fees and basic human commodities. Moreover, there will always be students as well who will continue to pay others to do their work.

It is true that academically speaking, offering and accepting academic commissions are unethical and illegal. But how can you say this to a struggling student who, like everyone else, is just a victim of the anti-democratic, neoliberal type of education?

Academic commission services are rooted from both academic and socioeconomic disparity; thus, it is also an issue of class struggle.

Instead of calling out these commissioners and clients as “opportunist, mercenary, and predatory”, it is imperative to understand that academic integrity cannot be asserted if students are forced to survive the economic quicksand. It is indeed an unfortunate fact that an imperialist-oriented and corrupted educational system overpowers academic integrity and ethics because it is rooted from oppressing the material conditions of the society – a manifestation of how the neoliberal education works in a developing country [P]

Alexandra Delis

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