UP’s tragedy

It is such a waste. A young life snuffed out even before it could fully bloom is a sad and tragic tale. The suicide of 16-year old Kristel Tejada was probably avoidable, but it would have taken more than a humane UP tuition payment policy to avert.

It is unfortunate that social media commentators and unthinking reporters in traditional media simplified the case to absurdity. It made UP administrators look like the callous guilty party in a rather complex case.

Suicide or the decision to take one’s life can rarely be blamed on one factor. In a column I wrote Feb. 14, 2011 entitled “What the heart feels can be deadly,” I pointed out the need to understand the dreaded “d” word… or depression. It is not a simple thing… we have to understand it well to prevent tragedies from happening.

Why would someone accomplished and respected as former Finance Secretary Jimmy Ongpin was, point a gun at himself and end an illustrious life prematurely? Why would a Kristel Tejada, a freshman honor student who had a promising future ahead of her feel the need to end it all instead?

I am sure the problem with her tuition fee is a strong contributory factor. But I doubt it is the only one. She did tell one of her professors that school is her coping mechanism… when she is in school she forgets her problems at home.

If I am to fault the UP administrators (and one of her psychology professors she confided in), it is their failure to sense Kristel’s deep psychological problem. Educators who deal with young people, specially those in UP Manila where the College of Medicine is based, should have been able to detect such symptoms.

I have had long discussions with Dr. Ricky Soler on the need for laymen to recognize signs of clinical depression that could lead to suicide. Dr. Soler is a retired psychiatrist who, together with Jeanne Goulbourn, has made an advocacy out of convincing people to learn how to see severe depression as a serious malady that can be treated if recognized in time.

Dr. Ricky explains that it afflicts scions of the elite as well as our OFWs working far away from their families. According to Dr. Ricky, clinical depression is more than just sadness. It is something a trained psychiatrist should deal with immediately. It should not be left to develop into a life threatening situation.

Dr. Ricky warns that for a clinically depressed person, any pressure could be a strong trigger for suicide. Desperate as these people may be, they have to be reassured that there are options other than throwing in the towel for good.

In the case of Kristel, it is unlikely that she woke up one day and decided she must kill herself. She must have gotten depressed over a period of time and over a number of issues only she knows. That UP tuition problem, specially when they took her UP ID away, was the last straw, so to speak.

That’s why our public health program should have a strong mental health component. It is not just the rich who are in need of psychiatrists. Given the constant and more severe survival pressures they face, the poor have more reasons to be depressed than the idle rich.

As such, it makes sense to teach our poor how to recognize signs of depression and encouraged to seek help. This is as important as the information being given out on how to avoid dengue. Both are potentially deadly.

Unfortunately for UP, it found itself in the vortex of an already simmering social unrest over continuing inequality in society. UP is seen as the equalizer… the institution where the poor can get a good education that will free them from poverty. What happened to Kristel gave rise to a sense of betrayal because after all, providing a quality UP education is on top of a very short list of good things people get from government.

My own first reaction was essentially anti-bureaucratic… the nerve of some bureaucratic vice chancellor or chancellor to drive a promising scholar, a future doctor, to death over P10,000 in tuition fee.

My second reaction is caution… suicide is complicated. There must be other things that contributed to the tragedy. I can see why it is not convenient for media reporters to cite other factors in a dramatic news story with a clear victim and a seemingly clear villain. It is lazy journalism but it is reality, unfortunately.

Indeed, there were many other facets to UP’s policies and finances that must be understood to complete the story.

UP officials led by its president, Fred Pascual, explained in a press conference the intricate details of their socialized tuition policies. They were candid enough to admit that their policies are not perfect and are in fact, work in progress. They claim there are revisions that will take effect next school year, too late for Kristel but perhaps a lifesaver for others like her who are poor but dreaming of a UP education.

The elephant in the room I noticed, but one that most people ignored is the matter of the UP budget. There simply is not enough money being allocated to provide universal quality college education specially for the poor.

Worse, the UP budget is often held hostage by politicians for reasons of their own. But UP need not be too dependent on Congress for its yearly sustenance. In fact, I think UP was founded in 1908 to be more financially independent than it actually is now.

UP was given large land grants, the largest being in Diliman, Los Baños and Basilan. The idea is for UP to use those land grants to generate enough income so that its yearly budget need not be dependent on congressional mood.

Forget the Basilan land grant unless the Abu Sayyaf partners with the state university to grant their guerrillas academic degrees in terrorism. The land grants in Laguna and Quezon (Sierra Madre) have been denuded of its forests.

Think Diliman. That is one large and valuable slice of Metro Manila that should be able to help finance UP indefinitely. Sadly, UP has mismanaged these land grants through the years.

Paulo Alcazaren, who knows UP well as a student and faculty member, posted on Facebook just how valuable this Diliman land is. Paulo said the UP Diliman campus is 493 hectares in area. Of this, about 80 hectares (or about five and a half times the area of Rockwell in Makati ...or one and a half times the area of Rizal Park), is occupied by squatters.

Paulo posted a photo on Facebook that shows one sector of the campus ... the southwest sector, where informal settlements and even informal agricultural areas outstrip the formal UP sector. Paulo correctly pointed out that the university has to conserve its campus for expansion and development ... and preservation of one of the only contiguous green spaces in the metro area.

Paulo recognized the need for the UP squatters to find affordable housing but that should be the problem of the national government, not UP. Unfortunately, these squatters are likely to be paying someone for squatting on UP land – but not the UP.

UP is even losing land as landgrabbing syndicates title UP land. Some UP land near the Quezon Memorial Circle have been commercialized that earns profits for some private parties granted benefits in past administrations.

There have been efforts to earn something from UP’s Diliman campus. The Technopark with Ayala is a good example. But something more organized should happen… something as impressive as what Stanford University has done with its campus and land grant.

UP needs a good land use policy. It has the experts to do this in the UP School of Regional and Urban Planning. This is the challenge Fred Pascual’s administration must meet.

The UP community must unite. Some ill-advised claims of commercialization by UP leftists have prevented UP from developing its campus in a way that will help the university to more than augment its budget.

UP needs money to subsidize the tuition of its poorest students. UP needs money to pay its professors well enough to reject job offers from abroad or the private sector. UP needs money to modernize its facilities.

It isn’t easy. It isn’t simple as some Facebook comments suggest. Hopefully Kristel didn’t die in vain or this will be UP’s continuing tragedy.

The greatest

A Franciscan and a Dominican were debating whose order was the greater. They decided to pray about it. Soon enough, they got the following letter:

My sons,

Please stop bickering. Both orders are equally great in my eyes.

Sincerely,

God, SJ

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco