MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / July 18, 2013) – A huge group of Filipinos on Thursday held a “Run for Your Rights” to bring attention to the abandonment of the state-run University of the Philippines and as preparation for their participation in next week’s protest of the State of the Nation Address of President Benigno Aquino.
The run was participated by students, teachers, employees, and residents of the University of the Philippines-Diliman in Quezon City.
“The right to education of so many Iskolars ng Bayan have been relentlessly attacked under the Aquino administration. It has been under-funded, hit with budget cuts, and forced to adopt income-generation measures which ultimately lessen the access of many qualified youths to UP,” Krista Melgarejo, UP Student Regent and convener of the multi-sectoral alliance UP KILOS NA, said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
Melgarejo pointed to the perennial underfunding and successive budget cuts of UP as the root of various University policies which affect the different sectors of UP, such as students and residents.
“By constantly depriving the University of finances, the Aquino administration is forcing UP to hike its fees through STFAP,” she said, referring to the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program in which students are classified into different categories and many are made to pay tuition rates from up to P27,000 per semester.
Melgarejo said the impending demolition of several urban poor communities on outlying lands of the Diliman campus is a precondition for the lease of the lands to private entities.
She said hundreds of members of the UP community will join Monday’s march to Congress where Aquino will hold his SONA to dramatize their protest.
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