The Consultations: Students Have Their Say on the Code of Student Conduct
EDITOR’S NOTE: Salud-Bautista’s report documents the consultations for the draft of the 2009 Code of Student Conduct. The Code has received an overwhelming disapproval for its anti-student rules and the exclusion of student representatives in the drafting committee. The draft shows how a legal document is brought up in order to impose power on students, but it also shows that students are not ignorant and will resist documents that oppress them. Today, the spotlight is not on the Code, but on a new, stirring document — the UP Diliman Students’ Magna Carta. Unlike the Code, the Magna Carta might not be something as devious — if we judge based on student votes. Ninety-four percent of student participants said yes to the Magna Carta in a petition handled by the university student councils. And the College of Science Student Council has also approved the document. However, the Magna Carta does have some anti-student stratagems as some critics have pointed out, such as leaving the final interpretation of the document to the Board of Regents (§5, Article X of the 2015 Draft) which is absolutely ridiculous considering that the document is about our rights. In any case, documentation of student rights is not at all bad. It must not be seen as something automatically oppressive and must be pursued. But what we must recognize is that what document we approve of is crucial and the collective mobilization of students is still the strongest assertion of our calls.
THE 2009 DRAFT Code of Student Conduct (CSC) is being proposed as the set of rules that will govern matters of student discipline and student organizations in UP Diliman and its satellite campus in Pampanga. Should it be implemented, it will replace all the current rules, which consist of a number of separate documents. The story of the draft code began in 2006 when Chancellor Sergio Cao commissioned the formation of a committee to review the existing rules, a move deemed necessary because of their inefficiency, their inability to address the concerns of the times, and the falling standards of UP honor No student sits on the review committee, in spite of requests for student representation having been passed ever since it was formed. Among the reasons given for this was that the committee was created to represent the University Council (UC), the body that approves guidelines on discipline before they can be implemented, and no student is a member of the UC, which is composed of all faculty with a rank of assistant professor and higher To include a non-member of the UC in the drafting committee has been described as an “abuse of discretion” on the part of the Chancellor, should he happen to make that decision. Despite exclusion from the drafting committee, however, students are not being left out of the drafting process — their participation took place in the form of consultations held in the different colleges from July to September of this year. The College of Science speaks up
WRITTEN BY TERESA SALUD-BAUTISTA 2009-10 VOL 20 NO 2
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The College of Science consultation was held on the 21st of August in the CS Auditorium. The attendees included representatives of 11 of the 20 recognized student organizations of the college, as well as members of the College of Science Student Council (CSSC) and the University Student Council (USC).
SCIENTIA VOL 25 NO 2
