Various youth groups attended the National Students’ Rights Summit 2018 in the office of the Commission on Human Rights in Quezon City on November 17 in conjunction with the commemoration of the 79th International Students’ Day (ISD). The said activity was spearheaded by Rise for Education, Kabataan Partylist at Youth Act Now Against Tyranny (YANAT) and was participated by nearly 200 student leaders from 55 universities and schools.

Meanwhile, progressive student youth groups mounted successive protest actions across the country. Simultaneous protests were conducted last November 16 in Baguio by members of YANAT-Baguio-Benguet; in the Polytechnic University of the Philippines by students and workers who slammed the proposed budget cut in the university; in the Bulacan State University by students who opposed various maneuvers being implemented by the school administration to deny students their right to free education; and in Cebu by members of Anakbayan who demanded to scrap the neoliberal K-12 program.

Students of the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila also protested on November 15 to condemn the presence of police and military elements in the campus who conducted a forum where they maliciously tagged progressive students and organizations as members of the armed revolutionary movement. Students of UP Los Baños also condemned the university’s stringent enrollment system.

Students, employees, teachers, drivers and vendors also protested in UP Diliman on November 9 to demand the junking of the Master Development Plan and other privatization and commercialization schemes being implemented by the university administration.

In a related news, students, teachers and employees condemned the Supreme Court ruling issued this November declaring the K-12 program “constitutional.” The ruling simultaneously revoked the temporary restraining order on CHED Memorandum Order 20, a legal action against the removal of Filipino and Literature as key subjects in college. Students of the College and Letters in UP Diliman mounted a protest on November 13 to condemn the said ruling.