“The Liberal Youth condemns the threats made by President Duterte to defund the University of the Philippines in a blatant attempt to quell growing dissent amongst the youth during his briefing with the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) aired on the night of November 18, 2020.
Recently, many students from major universities have been valiantly going on academic strikes so as to hold the government accountable for its glacial amelioration efforts in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and typhoons that have been ravaging the nation. However, in lieu of addressing their valid complaints — that is to call for an academic freeze due to the near impossibility of online learning especially in this state, the President instead chose to throw charged statements and baseless red-tagging allegations towards them. In a time of such turbulence and uncertainty, divisive rhetoric and intimidation from no less than the leader of our nation is the last thing the Filipino people need. Calamities are nonpartisan, therefore, what is necessary for us to see during this period is empathy and decisive action for all.
Liberal Youth believes that the administration should epitomize how they expect the rest of the people to be. This contradicts how President Duterte has been acting — essentially towards the issue of defunding the entire UP community. Duterte’s threats are legally infirm or frail, seeing that they manifest this type of message that tries to instill fear within the people towards him.
Now is the time for unity, not division. The Duterte administration should focus more on supporting constituents, rather than pulling them down. Defunding UP will not solve any of the issues that the state university is trying to address, nor will it in any way improve the well-being of the Filipino people. The Liberal Youth calls for concrete actions from the government. LY stands in solidarity with the UP community.”
Contact person:
David Santos
LY Secretary-General
(0927) 574 2627
[email protected]