‘Look at the West Philippine Sea’: Protests flare as Duterte targets ‘state enemies’ at University of the Philippines
- The university has been painted as a hive of communist agents, and the government said it was ending a pact keeping military and police off campus
- Senator Risa Hontiveros took a dig at China by saying the government’s focus should be on communist intrusions in the disputed South China Sea
“With or without the agreement we will protect academic freedom in the university. We will fight for it no matter what happens,” said Ferdinand Manegdeg, dean of the UP’s College of Engineering, which has the largest portion of students of any college on all campuses.
One of the country’s top-tier educational institutions, the 112-year-old university has long had a reputation for being a bastion of student activism. While the state-funded school has 32 branches nationwide, the most famous is the sprawling main campus in Diliman, Quezon City. In 1971, students protesting oil price hikes took over and set up a “Diliman Commune” that defied police and military encroachments for eight days.
Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the accord keeping police and the military out of the campus had become “obsolete” because “during the life of the agreement the University of the Philippines has become the breeding ground of intransigent individuals and groups whose extremist beliefs have inveigled students to join their ranks to fight against the government.”