Dean Lee: Give us the benefit of the doubt

Trust us, we know what we're doing.

Dean Zosimo Lee, drafting committee member and dean of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, urged students to accept the draft despite the lack of student representation in the committee in the final university-wide consultation for the 2009 Draft Code of Student Conduct held September 17 in the National Engineering Center.

“Give us the benefit of the doubt. Thirty years nang nasa UP ang members ng University Council (The members of the University Council have been in UP for thirty years),” he said.

The drafting committee, composed entirely of faculty, said it cannot appoint a student representative because only Chancellor Sergio Cao has the authority to appoint the committee members.

Prof. Rowena Daroy-Morales from the College of Law said, “If representation is the right to be heard then you haven’t been remissed [sic].”

Prof. Elizabeth Enriquez, drafting committee Chair and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, said only faculty has the “authority to establish rules on discipline.”

In response to Enriquez, Ranier Sindayen, Chair of the Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights in University of the Philippines (STAND UP), asserted the draft not only covers discipline but also organization recruitment and tambayans.

Sindayen said the draft should be junked because it fails to represent genuine student concerns like policies and regulations on dormitories and scholarships.

Ma. Cristina Brandares, head of the University Student Council Student Rights and Welfare Committee, said, “Kung yung BOR (Board of Regents) na highest policy-making body ay may student representative, bakit sa drafting committee wala? (If the BOR, which is the highest policy-making body, has a student representative, why does the drafting committee have none?).”

The drafting committee shall conduct a meeting to deliberate revisions in the draft before submitting it to the University Council and BOR. ▪

Article by April Joy Sun