UP faculty, students urge early end to semester amid typhoons

MANILA, Philippines — Members of the University of the Philippines community are calling for an early end to the semester in the wake of the recent typhoons that ravaged the country and left millions affected.

A petition by over 130 UP Diliman faculty members over the weekend urged the university administration to end the first term immediately and instead implement a "pass or drop" system. 

"The struggles of the learners are further intensified by the recent calamities," the petition read, "leaving students and faculty from Bicol, Cagayan, Isabela, Marikina and Riza among others with an indefinite and debilitating loss of electricity and internet connection, destruction of properties and homes and loss of loved ones."

They added that the pressure to finish the semester "has exacerbated to the point of inhumanity" with only three weeks remaining. 

The faculty members' proposed system would give students enrolled a grade of "Pass" by default, with the exception of those not able to turn in enough requirements or attend online classes. 

Students in need of numerical grades for scholarship or shifting purposes, meanwhile, may be given per instructors' discretion.

Those affected by the typhoon would also be given more consideration, and the grades incurred from the first semester of the current school year would not be counted in the general weighted average. 

On Monday, multisectoral group UP Rises Against Tyranny and Dictatorship said some 400 students so far from the Diliman campus vowed to strike and boycott academic activities "to compel university authorities to finally terminate the semester" through a mass promotion.

"There is no sense in pretending to resume business-as-usual learning when the nation is in deep crises amid disaster," the group's petition read. "Forcing students to continue under the severely failed experiment of remote learning is not only increasingly impractical and unfair but a betrayal of our sworn principle as Iskolar ng Bayan, to serve the people when we are most needed."

Super Typhoon "Rolly" (international name Goni) had sent nearly 15,000 students in evacuation sites across eight regions after its onslaught early this month, figures from the education department showed. 

Commission on Higher Education chairman Prospero de Vera has yet to respond on the said calls, as well as other student-led petitions on social media calling for a week off in online classes. 

"Ulysses," another typhoon, came next to batter Luzon still reeling from the damage brought by the world's strongest storm this year. 

Some universities in Metro Manila granted this call, suspending classes from November 16 to November 21, but other schools have yet to follow. 

DepEd, meanwhile, said its regional offices have suspended distance learning activities in areas hit by Ulysses, particularly in parts of Rizal and Cagayan region. — Christian Deiparine