Gibo airs concern over UP student governance, supervision

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro has raised concern over the University of the Philippines’ governance and supervision of student activities, following the deaths of UP students and alumni in armed clashes in Negros between the military and communist rebels in the past years.

Teodoro, who visited on Saturday the Army units that figured in two recent encounters in Negros Occidental that resulted in the deaths of 24 suspected New People’s Army rebels, said that while UP has been described as a “laboratory” for learning and activism, such an environment should still be subject to regulation and oversight.

“When you say laboratory, that does not mean to say you do not regulate the activities that students do,” Teodoro said.

“A laboratory by definition is a controlled environment, and a school is principally and primarily liable for danger or damage to its students,” he added.

In a statement issued by UP earlier, the university appealed to the public to withhold judgment on the presence of UP students in underserved communities.

It added that no UP student is limited to lessons learned within the classroom.

“We are not going to interfere academically, but certainly when the activities of some of its students are contrary to law,” Teodoro stressed.

Alysa Alano and Maureen Santuyo, both student activists of UP Diliman as well as RJ Ledesma and Vince Francis Dingding, alumni of the University of St. La Salle-Bacolod and UP-Cebu, respectively, were among the 24 people who were killed in the armed encounters in Toboso town on April 19 and in Cauayan town on May 16.

Last year, Jhon Isidor Supelanas, a UP-Cebu trans-woman alumna, died in an encounter with soldiers in Barangay Tapi, Kabankalan.

All five were members of either the League of Filipino Students or Kabataan party-list groups, according to authorities.