AFTER the “dust has settled,” so to speak, on the unnecessary brouhaha raised by the communists and their ‘closet allies’ in Congress and elsewhere over the decision last January 15, 2021, by Department of National Defense (DND) secretary Delfin Lorenzana to finally put an end to the 1989 ‘DND-UP Agreement,’ civility and respect for the government has finally taken over.
Indeed, the sudden turn of events have fully vindicated Sec. Lorenzana and his decision even though it “shocked” school administrators into a reexamination of their acts and policies that enabled the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), for decades now, to turn 42 of our state-owned and privately-owned colleges and universities into recruitment centres for its armed struggle to bring down the government.
For one, far from being adversarial in dealing with the national government (of which the University of the Philippines is a part of, by the way), UP President Danilo Concepcion now wisened up by holding a “dialogue” with Lorenzana last February 4, 2021, on how to turn the state university into a “safe and secure environment conducive to learning.”
And if we may add here, “away from further CPP infiltration, agitation and recruitment of its students and faculty.”
In a separate meeting with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Concepcion also now professed his readiness to amend—or change—the other agreement UP signed with the DILG in 1992 “to reflect what is happening on the ground.”
Of course, “what is happening on the ground” is what we have stated earlier, that is, our school campuses have become the “wells” where the CPP draw its recruits, its activities made bold by the stupid decision of the Corazon Aquino government to agree to bar our police and military personnel to enter campuses without prior knowledge and consent of UP, and, in a separate agreement, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), officials.
As for PUP, President Manuel Muhi wrote a “touching letter” last January 21, 2021, addressed to Armed Forces Civil Relations chief, M/Gen. Ernesto ‘Jun Torres, where Muhi proffered PUP’s “sincerest desire to cooperate” with the AFP-CRS in strengthening the school’s ‘Education on Wheels’ program.
Such “change of heart” on the part of the PUP is of course welcome news, as it is the next major CPP recruitment base, according to ex-CPP cadres recruited while students at these two universities.
Central Philippines University president, Teodoro Robles also last month reaffirmed the , CPU “does not and has never condoned activities which promote recruitment for armed resistance to the government.”
We can expect the rest to follow as the government’s main message—it is not after the suppression of legitimate dissent and academic freedom inside our campuses; it is to prevent further subversion of these institutions by the CPP—finally gets home to them.