11 SEPTEMBER 1974 HIS EXCELLENCY FERDINAND E. MARCOS PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES
MALACANANG, MANILA
ON BEHALF OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES I FEEL HONORED AND HAPPY TO CONVEY TO YOU OUR WARMEST CONGRATULA·
TIONS ON YOUR BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY AND
12 September 1974 His Excellency Ferdinand E. Marcos
President of the Philippines Malacafiang, Manila Dear Mr. President:
I am deeply concerned to note that in recent days the requests for authority to travel abroad of several faculty and staff members of the University of the Philippines have been disapproved, in line with the restriction you have ordered imposed on foreign travel as a means of curbing government expenditures and preventing the dissipation of our foreign exchange reserves.
As you may recall, Mr. President, in a letter to you dated November 15, 19"72, I requested that a more under- standing policy on this matter be followed with respect to the V.P. Our request was given favorable consider-a- tion and we are grateful for this. This letter is in reiteration of that earlier request.
The faculty and staff development program of the University provides our scientists, scholars and research- ers with opportunity to develop further their knowledge and expertise through graduate studies and/or attend- ance in conferences, seminars, workshops and continuing education programs here as well as abroad. In most cases, the expenses involved are borne by private founda- tions, foreign governments or international organizations which sponsor these activities.
It is imperative that our scholars and scientists par- ticipate in international conferences and seminars if they are to keep abreast of the latest developments in their
OUR BEST WISHES FOR THE SUCCESS OF YOUR EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH THE NECESSARY CON- DITIONS THAT WOULD ENABLE THE FILIPINO PEOPLE TO CREATE A JUST AND COMPASSION- ATE SOCIETY BY DEMOCRATIC AND PEACEFUL
MEANS STOP WE OFFER OUR HEARTFELT
SUPPORT AND COOPERATION FOR THE ACHIEVE.
MENT OF THIS END
SALVADOR P. LOPEZ
fields of interest. This continuing relationship with their foreign counterparts is one of the most effective ways of enriching their knowledge and experience, thereby enhancing their capabilities as teachers and researchers.
Furthermore, the pursuit of graduate studies abroad by our faculty and staff members insures a continuing, if insufficient, supply of specialists in those fields which are essential to national development. These activities are indispensable to the continuing development of the Uni- versity and the expansion of the nation's high level manpower resources. The unqualified restriction of these activities, therefore, would wall us in from the expanding horizons of knowledge beyond our national boundaries, to the detriment of our country and people.
We are aware that foreign travel is expensive and represents a drain on our foreign exchange reserves.
However, we also feel that these expenditures for faculty and staff development are investments in a very real sense, since they are actually investments in human re- sources needed for nation-building.
For these reasons, I would like to request that applica- tions for travel abroad of our faculty and staff members be acted upon favorably as justifiable exemptions from the ban on foreign travel. For our part we will assume responsibility for screening these applications before fOT- warding them to you for approval.
With assurances of highest esteem and regard.
Sincerely yours, (Sgd.) SALVADOR P. LOPEZ
President
• • .'•
PROCLAMATION No. 1273
MALACANANG Manila
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES PROCLAMATION NO. 1273
AUTHORIZING A SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO CON- DUCT A NATION-WIDE FUND CAMPAIGN FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES.
WHEREAS, the updating of educational standards is one of the foremost objectives of Government;
WHEREAS, the University of the Philippines has through the years proven itself an effective instrument
in upgrading educational standards and in the attainment of the country's educational objectives; and
WHEREAS, the University needs public support in the realization of its objectives;
NOW. THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law, do hereby authorize a nationwide fund campaign for the University of the Philippines to be conducted by a Special Committee composed of the following:
Secretary Cesar Virata Chairman
SEPTEMBER
30, 1974 V.P.
GAZETTE167
U.P.-UNIVERSITY OF THE PEOPLE: THE LOPEZ YEARS
U. P.
University of the People:
the Lopez Years A Choral Ode
NEDA Director-General Gerardo Sicat Member
Former Senator Gil Puyat Member
Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile Member Ambassador Roberto Benedicto Member DBP Chairman Leonides Virata Member All donations to the University of the Philippines through the Special Committee shall be exempt from all kinds of taxes, any provision of law to the contrary notwithstanding and the same shall further be deductible in full pursuant to Section 30, Paragraph (h) (I) of the National Internal Revenue Code, as amended: Provided, however, that the accounts shall be subject to audit by the Commission on A udit or its representatives at any time.
• •
Set to music by Eliseo M. Pajaro
Text dra,vn from the speeches of U.P. President Salvador P. Lopez
The Special Committee is deemed to have been created as of April 26, 1974, U.P. Law Alumni Reunion Day.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Republic of the Philip- pines to be affixed.
Done in the City of Manila, this 6th day of June, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-four.
(Sgd.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS President
Republic of the Philippines By the President:
(Sgd.) ALEJANDRO MELCHOR Executive Secretary
II
NARRATOR:
I have tried to distill a few basic principles to guide me in running the University.
The first of these is that the University
is both a conservator of the wisdom of the past and an agent of change--
the nation's primary instrument for the purpose.
• ••
First performed at a Test-imonial Concert to mark the fifth a,nniversary of the inauguration of Dr. Salvador P. Lopez as the Tenth President of the University of the Philippines, under the baton of Dr. Eliseo M. Paiero, and with the participation of Professor Aurelio Estanis- lao as narrator, Mr. Elmo 111akil as baritone, and the U.P. Speech Choir, the U.P. Concert Chorus, and the Ma.n:ila Symphony Orchestra, in the Abelardo Hall Aud-i- torium, September 16, 1971,.
I CHORUS:
God willing, we shall strive to make this University an institution more hospitable
to the idealism of our youth
and more relevant to the needs of our nation- an instrument more responsive
to the clamor of our people for the transformation of society so that all may enjoy the blessings of a better life in larger freedom.
NARRATOR:
In taking my oath of office
as the Tenth President of the University of the Philippines,
I have agreed to exchange the problems of the world for the problems of the campus.
I have neither sought nor aspired to this high position.
I accept with humility and resolve the challenge of its responsibilities.
SPEECH CHOIR:
I bring to this high office no special gifts or qualifications except capacity for hard work. and.
devotion to duty, an abiding love for the University, and a deep respect for its mission.
SPEECH CHOIR:
The second is that the University's approach to truth must be both creative and dynamic;
it must not only reflect light from without but must also give forth its own light.
NARRATOR:
The third is that the University
is a single, indivisible community of scholars composed of professors and students
jointly engaged in the pursuit of goodness, truth and beauty.
SPEECH CHOIR:
The fourth is that the University must hold the balance between universalism and nationalism.
It must be hospitable to all views and opinions, and accessible to all ideologies and philosophies.
Instead of closing windows that are already open, it should open windows that are still closed.
III SPEECH CHOIR:
This University is a community of scholars.
It is scholarship alone that gives the University its being as well as its reason for being.
The University of our time has assumed a dangerous mission and the scholar must accept a dangerous calling.
The University and the scholar must pursue ideas no matter how unpopular they may be,
or however dangerous it may be to hold them.
NARRATOR:
The University in a developing society cannot afford to be an Ivory Tower.
It must be geared to the goals of academic excellence
168 V.P.
GAZETTEVOL. V, NO.9
and yet also concern itself
with service to the community and the nation.
It must be relevant to the needs,
and responsive to the aspirations of the national society.
SPEECH CHOIR:
Truth and knowledge have value in themselves.
NARRATOR:
But their value is infinitely enhanced when they are utilized by the people to carve their own destiny so that
they may cease to be the slaves of circumstance.
To contribute to that purpose and advance man's struggle for freedom and quest for happiness-
SPEECH CHOIR:
This is the scholar's task,
a task that calls for purposeful dedication.
IV
NARRATOR:
During the barricades of 1971
there were those who wanted me to invite the police and the military to enter the campus and disperse the embattled students.
Traffic was being obstructed, I was told, and the police had a duty to perform.
I rejected the argument.
If the problem is that simple, I said, then the V.P. does not need a President.
AU it needs is a Chief of Police.
I asked President Marcos to let me use persuasion Instead of bullets, and he agreed.
I could talk to the- students because they trusted me.
I lived, worried and agonized with them on their side of the barricades.
On the ninth day, upon my insistent demand, they dismantled the barricades
and peace returned to the campus.
Thus, in a situation that could have resulted in a bloody massacre of students
and the destruction of the University, we lost only one life
plus a few tables, desks and chairs.
My policy was criticized at that time as a policy of weakness.
But if my policy seemed weak,
it was only because I was strong' for human life.
V SPEECH CHOIR:
We must deal with students with respect and consideration.
We must respond to their requests and demands with sincerity and understanding.
Students do not surrender their fundamental rights when they enter the University.
Students, in turn, must accept their obligations as members of the academic community.
They must respect the rights of others
and have due regard for the mission of the University.
We must uot be dismayed or frightened by student activism.
We should rather find ways and means of coming to terms with it,
without violent repression or abject surrender.
We must regard the movement as an expression of the positive idealism of our youth,
proof of their discontent with things as they are, their rejection of the shame and hypocrisy, the cruelty and injustice of society.
It is in the context of an unjust society that student activism should be considered.
It is an extension of the periodic agitations for social change that have shaken
our country during the past half century, spawned by the evils of a "sick society,"
where wealth and power are the monopoly of
a
few, and poverty is the only heritage of the many.We must try to understand the predicament of the young.
We must not blame them but ourselves rather, for giving them a world they do not want, a world they want to change,
a world they never made.
VI
BARITONE SOLO:
We have come to a watershed in the history of the University.
In November 1972
the University of the Philippines System was established.
This decision was of capital importance.
It meant that this great institution
would not only continue to stand at the apex of the national system of higher education but would develop into a constellation of autonomous regional universities belonging to a multicampus University System.
The whole nation would share in the excellence of its programs and anyone anywhere in the land with the requisite ability would have the chance to receive a good U.P. education.
Thus, the U.P. can make its presence felt everywhere, its leavening influence will spread,
and the whole country will have become its campus.
Vll NARRATOR:
Under martial law, the U.P. has been transformed, as if by magic, into a tranquil grove of academe.
The graffiti and posters have disappeared and the students have quit the streets.
Teachers are attending to their teaching and students have gone back to their studies, both with exemplary zeal.
The truth, however, is that the universities have become quiescent rather than quiet.
The distinction is important.
The classrooms, libraries and laboratories are inviolate havens of thought,
and fear cannot long canst-rain the human mind.
Quiescence is not necessarily synonymous with tranquility nor acquiescence with affirmation.
• •
• •
SEPTEMBER 30, 1974
U.P.
GAZETTE169 cemetery
• • .' •
A university that has become as silent as a has lost the right to be called a university.
SPEECH CHOIR:
Weare running a race with catastrophe.
For, it is far easier to lose freedom without bloodshed than to regain freedom without bloodshed.
A people may be willing to forego freedom and democracy for the sake of necessary reforms, but not indefinitely and certainly not forever.
To try to uproot love of freedom from the heart of the Filipino or to extinguish the flame of liherty that burns in his soul
would be an impossible task.
Rather, we should try together as :l people to achieve freedom with responsibility, order without regimentation,
authority without tyranny- that is, a compromise
between the integrity of individual life and the imperatives of collective existence
and to achieve all this '
without the violence and bloodshed
that usually attend revolutionary enterprises.
VIII
NARRATOR:
I accepted the presidency of the U.P. in 1969 at a time when the position of university administrator was the most hazardous and unwanted job in the world.
It was not an easy decision to make.
Having already served in the highest positions in the foreign service, and actually holding then the two most important diplomatic posts
of the Republic, I seriously doubted the wisdom of carving yet another career in the unfamiliar and not-sa-tranquil grove of academe.
In the end, I decided to accept,
because all my life I have never evaded the challenge of service.
I have never regretted the decision.
There may be more prestigious, better rewarded positions than that of U.P. President.
but there is none more important, more inwardly satisfying Or rewarding.
To be involved with the young Is to be where the action is.
It is to have a hand in shaping tomorrow.
IX
CHORUS:
This University shall best serve the nation by embracing forever the true vocation of a university which is the earnest search for truth and the tireless pursuit of knowledge,
by committing itself to creative scholarship and placing itself resolutely
in the service of ideas.
In this time of crisis
we have been told to damp the lights all over the nation.
Let's dim the lights in the streets,
in the farms, factories and coffee-shops, even in our homes, if need be- but we must never let the lights go out in the University.
For, as long as the lights
are turned on in the University, our land will never be plunged in total darkness-
and our people will be able to live and learn,
to work and eat their daily rice by the light of freedom
from the lamp of truth.