UP student leaders must uphold UP ideals [Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on 13 December 2010]
THE STORY of our student leaders is the story of the brave and the few who take on the role of primus inter pares, first among equals. Just like every student, student leaders struggle with their academics, but they have the added responsibility to lead and serve us as our elected representatives. It is a difficult road that they have chosen; we, UP students, are grateful for their sacrifices.
The chairman of the University Student Council (USC), Rainier Astin Sindayen, chose to walk this road. We sincerely thank him for leading us, students of UP Diliman, especially at a time when the quality of our education was being threatened by budget cuts.
However, we cannot ignore this disturbing trend among our student leaders to disregard their responsibility to pursue academic excellence, the responsibility to do no more and no less than the best that we can. To fail in this responsibility is to dishonor all who are sacrificing for our education: ourselves, our families, our university and our nation.
The motto of our university is “Honor and Excellence.” We, leaders or not, are expected to strive to be honorable and excellent. How can we allow anyone who doesn’t uphold honor and excellence to represent the university? With our USC chairman unable to re-enroll in his department due to academic delinquency, his legitimacy as a student leader is suspect. The consequences of his negligence are grave, as the USC will always be questioned, their acts constantly under a shadow of doubt. However, led by his partymates acting as a rubber stamp, the USC has upheld his tenure twice in spite of the clear rules mandating him to relinquish power. The USC is squandering whatever is left of its moral ascendancy to lead.
With this, we can only sincerely appeal to our USC chairman to exercise genuine leadership, to value his own integrity and to comply with the rules of his council. As we still believe in his sense of idealism, we ask him to make the supreme sacrifice of stepping down from his post for the sake of the students—to uphold HONOR and EXCELLENCE, to become an iskolar para sa bayan.
(You may also read this letter at this LINK.)
