Principled disagreement and anonymous black propaganda: A challenge

Over the past few days, I have been receiving reports of anonymous efforts to bring down Alex Castro in the race for USC Chair. As a fellow candidate and in behalf of UP ALYANSA, I wish to voice my strongest condemnation against these malicious attempts.

The campaign is a time not just to show off each candidate's and each political party's strengths and victories, but also a time to educate and to engage in a healthy, passionate, and principled discourse.

In the earlier part of this week, members of ALYANSA made a principled disagreement with Alex Castro's citation of wrong information on the sin tax law. Rooted in our advocacy to make this campaign more about platforms and less about personalities, we demanded an apology from Alex Castro and a retraction of the misinformation that the 15% allocation for tobacco farmers has been stricken off the sin tax law. To this day, we have not received any apology or retraction; so, our principled disagreement and demand continue.

But when a supposed screenshot of an alleged chat conversation between Alex and a "friend" cropped up, I was personally disappointed. Today, a perverted statement entitled "Sex Will Fix" was released in different areas in campus.

These are exactly what ALYANSA has been campaigning against. While we make sure to maintain our principled disagreement with Alex Castro and KAISA on the level of issues and platforms, efforts like these serve as roadblocks to our dream of an informed student body.

The anonymity of these efforts reveals exactly their purpose: Nothing more than to regress to personality politics and blur this campaign into becoming a pageant of reputations rather than clear platforms. I personally challenge the people behind these efforts to come into the open and make a principled choice to inform, rather than to maliciously attack. I challenge the people behind these to reveal their identities and the USC Chair candidate they support, if any, so the students may decide for themselves what to make of the propaganda.

As student leaders, it is our duty to inform and shape the debates in campus to become a discourse of principles, integrity, ideology, and platforms. This campaign is not about me; it is not about Alex Castro's alleged chat messages or motives. This campaign is about the students and their right to make an informed choice on their next University Student Council.

Carlo Brolagda
ALYANSA USC Chairperson candidate
February 20, 2013

A Call for Principled Politics

BLUE, YELLOW AND RED STANDARDS unfurl once more as the campaign for the University Student Council (USC) election heats up. Ideally of course, the USC election campaign should be an opportunity to raise the level of democratic discourse by focusing on platforms and principles.

Nonetheless, the past two weeks have seen new lows in electoral campaigning, whether inside or outside campus, including online and social networking venues. While other parties have been quick to profess their integrity, mudslinging has become the norm of electoral campaigns. Many supporters, who in many ways reflect the party they come from, have been so heartless in tearing others down.

ALYANSA is deeply concerned, hurt and disappointed that it has to come to this. We have long realized that students are sick and tired of this endless bickering among their student leaders. This lack of integrity and dignity in conducting campaigns does not help students in any way. Indeed, if we are to open our institutions to greater participation from students, parties must first bring back civility in student politics.

As ALYANSA has always called on its counterparts to practice principled politics, it also appeals to the best in UP students. We call on students to reject the politics of poison and affirm decency. We pray that students choose their candidates, not on their fears and apprehensions, but on the basis of their hopes and aspirations. The USC is a historic institution that has represented the best of the University. The least we can do is to offer the best of ourselves in an election campaign, for students who look up to us deserve nothing less.

---

---

---

---

---

ALYANSA claims to have advocated revisions for the UP Charter. What are those revisions?

The UP Charter is an important document, being a guide to the University as its most basic set of rules and regulations. As an institution celebrating more than a hundred years of existence, it has recently revised its Charter as a response to changing times. As a case in point, the original UP Charter mentioned the "Governor-General" of the Philippines --- a throwback to American rule, which highlighted its outdated nature.

Way back in 2003, when efforts to change the UP Charter were met by some student groups with knee-jerk condemnation, ALYANSA led the University to a more rational debate even as it differed with the UP Administration on fundamental issues. Instead of immediately calling for the junking of the UP Charter, ALYANSA called for key revisions that would make the Charter pro-student and pro-University. Some of these key revisions are the following:

1. Affirming UP's nature as a National University, which enshrined the government's moral responsibility to maintain UP as an institution;
2. Reducing Malacañang appointees to the Board of Regents (from five, it is down to three), and including a Staff Regent, in order to maximize sectoral participation in the University's decision-making;
3. Allowing the University to productively use its idle assets, subject to conditions that would preserve its integrity as an institution;
4. Enshrining student rights by explicitly stating the requirement for student councils, a General Assembly of student councils system-wide, and the selection of a Student Regent.

These revisions found its way into the 2008 UP Charter, which ALYANSA first championed back in 2003, carried by its ALYANSA-led USC in 2004, and followed up by the formation until its passage in 2008, with ALYANSA leading the USC's helm.

This present UP Charter forms one of ALYANSA's enduring legacies to building UP's institutions, through a painstaking commitment for reform and progressive change. Even as we recognize the imperfections of our institutions, and the fact that we don't see eye to eye with our counterparts, we are committed to upholding substantive debate, realizing the gains that we could achieve in the process.

Someone told us about your founding faculty adviser’s issue as regards your choice of standard-bearers this year. What do you say about this?

The essence of inviting the UP community to a partnership of principle, embodied by our call “Kasama Ka”, is to demonstrate our ability to build bridges amidst differences.

The real test of any invitation comes when it is met by a different response than what you originally hope for. Differences in position have always existed WITHIN, and AMONG parties in campus. We believe that it is an opportunity, not a setback. In this light, and consistent with being open to each other, we remain hopeful that any differences we have will be settled in the near future.

For the meantime, we remain committed to the task at hand -- that is, to communicate that ALYANSA’s brand of leadership remains the most relevant to students and the UP community.

-----

Stories have been floating about a different account of the party’s selection process for this year’s standard-bearers. There are even other stories about the party in general. What is your take on it?

In a mature democracy, parties are vehicles for spirited yet civil debate, in the hope of ensuring lively participation in the political process. While parties certainly have differences AMONG its members, they come together as one in the pursuit of their principles. Parties, while valuing openness, also operate on the basic trust that their members would be promoting the party’s ideals.

Hence, “very reliable sources” claiming to “represent” a party, while issuing statements that are clearly detrimental to its well-being, must be first subjected to skepticism. It is easy to issue statements under the cloak of anonymity, but it is even harder to substantiate these without consulting the parties themselves.

We dare these “independent” sources to substantiate their claims, and come out in the open in order for these issues to be threshed out. True, we may not agree with the other parties in campus most of the time, but we believe that ALL THREE OF US be treated fairly and with respect.