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Students and teachers reject UP-AFP cooperation

UP youth groups, teachers and workers protested in Quezon Hall at the University of the Philippines (UP)-Diliman today, August 30, to call for the immediate scrapping of the signed “declaration of cooperation” between the university and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Led by the Defend UP Network, they condemned UP President Angelo Jimenez who signed the agreement on August 8. They held the action in time for the UP Board of Regents meeting.

The network is currently collecting signatures for a petition against the agreement. It said the agreement is very dangerous because it jeopardizes academic freedom by allowing the university to collude with the AFP fascist institution.

“From Marcos Sr’s military rule to today, the AFP as an institution has had a horrible record of upholding human rights,” the petition said. It has wielded its coercive might against many members of the UP community who stood up against social inequities and advocated for social change.

The groups emphasized that the AFP spokespersons themselves led the anti-communist witchhunts, harassed and vilified students, researchers, teachers, and other sectors within UP, baselessly calling them “terrorists.”

Defend UP Network said this is not an institution that the University should enter into a formal declaration of cooperation. It said the UP community “fear that with such an agreement, the AFP will exploit UP’s intellectual capital in service of political repression and its notion of ‘national security’.” The network warned that the agreement could lead to more overt military intervention in university affairs.

In this regard, the Makabayan bloc (Kabataan Partylist, along with Gabriela Women’s Party and ACT Teachers Party), together with UP student leaders filed a resolution in the House of Representatives on August 28 to scrap the “declaration of cooperation.” They also participated in the rally on August 29 in front of Congress in conjunction with the hearing for the budget of the Department of National Defense.

AB: Students and teachers reject UP-AFP cooperation