Palace names ex-Supreme Court chief Puno to UP Board of Regents

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino named yesterday retired chief justice Reynato Puno to the Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines. 

Also appointed to the state university’s highest policy-making body were scriptwriter Bibeth Orteza and cement magnate Magdaleno Albarracin Jr. 

Co-chairs of the UP Board of Regents are Patricia Licuanan, who heads the Commission on Higher Education, and incumbent UP president Emerlinda Roman, the first woman president of the state university.

Puno, Orteza and Albarracin took their oaths yesterday at the Presidential Guesthouse. All three are UP alumni. 

Puno was assistant solicitor general during the Marcos administration, when the solicitor general was Estelito Mendoza. After a short stint at the Department of Justice, Puno was named judge and later became the youngest justice of the Court of Appeals at age 40. In 1993, President Fidel Ramos appointed Puno to the Supreme Court, and he retired as chief justice last May 17. 

Albarracin, ranked the 35th richest man in the Philippines in the 2007 Forbes Top 40, is the president and director of cement manufacturer Holcim Philippines Inc. He is also the senior executive vice president of Bacnotan Consolidated Industries Inc. and a former dean of the UP College of Business Administration. 

Who will be the next UP president?

The next UP president will be elected when the Board of Regents meets tomorrow. Under the UP charter, the nine-member board has the sole authority to choose and vote for the next UP president.

Members of the board are Sen. Edgardo Angara, Senate committee on education chairman and a former UP president; Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, House of Representatives committee on higher education chairman; Alfredo Pascual, UP Alumni Association president and one of the 11 nominees to the UP presidency; Judy Taguiwalo, faculty regent; Clodualdo Cabrera, staff regent; Cori Alossa Co, student regent; Francis Chua, and Nelia Gonzales.

Of the 11 candidates for the UP presidency, five are women and six are men.

The women are Dr. Esperanza Cabral, former health secretary and Philippine Heart Center director; Dr. Leonor Briones, former national treasurer; Dr. Ma. Serena Diokno, a former UP vice president and currently professor of History at UP Diliman; Dr. Consolacion Alaras, a professor at UP Diliman Department of English and Comparative Literature; and Dr. Virginia Teodosio, a professor at the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations.

The men are UP Los Baños chancellor Dr. Luis Rey Velasco; UP Diliman chancellor Dr. Sergio Cao; Raul Pangalangan, former dean of the UP College of Law; Benjamin Diokno, former secretary of budget and management and a professor of Economics at UP Diliman; Patrick Alain Azanza, a human resources development professional, and Pascual.

Whoever will be elected will serve as the 20th president of UP, the country’s foremost tertiary institution founded in 1908. 

Over the past century, UP has evolved into an educational system comprised of seven constituent universities (autonomous campuses) strategically distributed nationwide. Five of the campuses are in Luzon: UP Diliman (flagship campus), UP Manila (the country’s premier academic institution in medical and health sciences, including the Philippine General Hospital); UP Los Baños (agriculture, forestry, and related sciences), UP Baguio (in Baguio City), and UP Open University in Los Baños, focusing on distance education.

UP Visayas is the center for fisheries and marine science education and research. Its four campuses straddle central Philippines: the main campus in Niag-ac, Iloilo, and the campus in Iloilo City, both situated in Western Visayas; UP Cebu in Cebu City in Central Visayas; and UP Tacloban in Tacloban City, Leyte, Eastern Visayas.

UP Mindanao, based in Davao City, emphasizes Mindanao’s comparative advantage and natural endowments, and development goals.  

Reactions to Puno appointment

Members of the UP community expressed yesterday different reactions to the appointment of Puno to the Board of Regents.

Rainier Sindayen, UP Student Council Chairman, raised suspicion on why the new appointments came at a time when the 12-member board is about to choose the new UP President.

“What can we expect from these three new regents?” he said. “They were not able to attend even just one of the several consultations.”

Sindayen said it seems that the UP administration has been looking for support from Malacañang for the one it is backing for UP president.

“Of course, we would want a university president who will respect students’ rights and that his loyalty should be, first and foremost, with the faculty and students,” he said.

They are yet to see how Puno will perform as member of the Board of Regents, Sindayen said.

Sarah Raymundo, UP Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy secretary-general, expressed hope that these new appointees would work for democratic governance in UP.

“We have high expectations from people like him who have shown a pro-people stance in the past. It’s a big challenge to be part of the UP-BOR especially at this crucial point in UP’s history,” she said. – With Rudy Fernandez, Rhodina Villanueva