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The First Three Years
Mid-term Report to the Alumni

Francisco Nemenzo
President
University of the Philippines

As an insider (a faculty member for 40 years), I came to the presidency on 6 August 1999 with a fairly clear idea of what UP needs to meet the challenges of the so-called Information Age at the turn of the century and the start of the new millennium. I indicated these in the vision paper I wrote for the search committee of the Board of Regents.

But I was also painfully aware that I could only do so much in a six-year term, given the financial, legal, and bureaucratic constraints. Trying to accomplish more than the possible is a formula for disaster. Contrary to the fears of critics, I am in fact a cautious reformer. It was never my intention to undertake bold experiments over whose consequences I may not have the power to control. I needed a few months in office to check the available resources and hear the advice of experienced university officials. Only when I had done all this would I announce the concrete plans of my administration.

My timid speech at the turnover ceremony must have disappointed friends who expected the unveiling of a revolutionary program. I even desisted from spelling out a plan for the first 100 days, a standard practice among new executives. I just said I would spend this period learning my job and organizing my team.

Gene Orejana, however, put me on the spot few days later. In a television interview he dared me to name at least one project which the public could expect in the next 100 days. It was awkward to evade the question in a live broadcast. After a moment of hesitation, I pledged to reapair Diliman's filthy and non-functioning toilets.

The toilets in Palma Hall and Melchor Hall - the two most densely populated buildings on the UP Diliman campus - are now clean and functioning. Of course, I do not want to be remembered as the president who fixed the toilets. My administration has done many more little things of this sort: restoring the romantic atmosphere of the Lagoon, keeping the Main Library open until midnight, doing away with the legendary queues in registration. But I am not going to claim these as monumental achievements. My mid-term report (of which this is a preview) covers only the ones that define the trajectory of UP's future. This report also explains the reasons for my policies and programs.

I took over a university twice its size from ten years before. With over 52,000 students, it is now the second largest in the country. But quantitative growth is often inversely proportional to quality of education. As the Asiaweek surveys showed, UP was being left behind by the other universities in Asia, including those that used to send their faculty members to Diliman and Los Baños for advanced studies. We must reverse this before it becomes irreversible. We have to catch up with our counterparts in neighboring countries.

When I had my formal investiture six months later on 2 March 2000, I had enough confidence in my grasp of the real situation to indicate how I would grapple with this challenge, and what I would do in the remainder of my six-year term. I render this mid-term report, therefore so that you, the alumni, may judge how well I have delivered what I promised in my investiture speech.

A university is only as good as its faculty. Despite the inadequacies I shall narrate later, the UP faculty remains the finest collection of brains in the country. The problem is how to mobilize this tremendous pool of talents in the face of widespread demoralization. At the first meeting of my executive staff we identified three causes for low morale of the faculty: the miserable pay, the declining prestige of the academic profession, and the poor state of facilities for research and teaching.

As in all other government agencies, the salary scale in UP is pegged to the Salary Standardization Law (SSL). With what we are allowed to pay under this law, it is increasingly difficult to recruit to the faculty the best and the brightest even of our own graduates. Those whom we are able to recruit leave after a few years. The rate of faculty turnover is alarming, especially in the most critical disciplines. A lifelong career in UP is no longer an attractive proposition to young intellectuals who are beginning to raise a family.

We have proposed a bill to Congress updating our Charter, declaring UP as the national university, and granting to the Board of Regents the power to determine the salary scales of faculty and staff. But the guardians of the SSL insist that UP must be treated like the 112 other state universities and colleges. "Equal pay for equal work" is their slogan. They do not appreciate the uniqueness of scholarly work. Inspired by a perverse concept of egalitarianism, they refuse to comprehend that the quality of teaching and research are non-comparable across tertiary institutions. They refuse to recognize the fact that UP must compete for the best minds not with these other state universities and colleges but with private corporations, international organizations, and schools like Ateneo and De La Salle.

Of course, we should fight for freedom from the SSL, but in the meantime we cannot watch helplessly as UP continues the downslide. We have to do something now, no matter how tentative and inadequate. My executive staff and I strained our creativity and resourcefulness to find ways and means of augmenting the incomes of exemplary performers without violating the law. We must make them feel that in UP excellence is given due recognition. They are the people UP must retain to stay at the top in the Philippines. In the international academic community, a university's reputation is built on the publications, inventions, and creative works of its scholars.

Our legal counsel, gave us a clue: merit awards are exempt from the SSL. This prompted us to launch programs granting generous incentives for publications in internationally refereed journals, presentations of acclaimed artistic works, and development of useful technologies. Such awards also extended to significant innovations in teaching materials.

Although the SSL prevents us from raising salaries across the board, faculty members theoretically can be promoted if the budget provides sufficient funds under "Personnel Services." In reality, however, we do not have much leeway unless the national government allots special funds for this purpose. Such special allotments come rarely and every so many years.

On the eve of his ouster, we persuaded former President Joseph Estrada to give UP a break. He ordered the release of P200 million for merit promotions, the biggest in the history of UP. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo honored this commitment. Thus, we were able to move up the largest number of deserving faculty members.

To cope with the rapid growth in student population and given a situation where it is increasingly difficult to attract the best minds to accept careers in academia, there has been a great deal of recklessness in the recruitment of faculty. This has diminished the "psychic rewards" and compounded the already serious demoralization of the faculty due to low salaries. To restore a sense of pride in the academic profession, we tightened the rules on appointment and renewal of appointments, and imposed high performance standards for promotion.

It was not only the rewards system that behooved the valued scholars to leave but also the uncongenial work environment. Our laboratories lacked the equipment and our libraries lacked the books and journals necessary for serious research. The UP Modernization Program, the focus of our fund-raising efforts, is meant to remedy this situation.

While research and creative work are what establish the university's stature in the community of academic institutions, it is excellence in teaching that establishes its reputation in the country. Ever cognizant of this fact, we also give due recognition to the conscientious, dedicated, and effective teachers. I have already mentioned a program that will give as much as P75,000 cash awards to innovative teachers. For the good teachers who are not inclined to research and creative work, we encourage them to teach more by increasing the overload honoraria.

These measures are already producing palpable results. For example, the publications of UP faculty members in respected international journals have dramatically increased from 95 in 1999 to 140 in 2000 and 170 in 2001. I expect the number to exceed 200 this year and the momentum to be sustained in the coming years.

Our primary concern is the morale of the conscientious and productive scholars. We can never match the compensation levels of universities in the rich countries, but we hope to replicate the academic ethos in India and China where - despite low salaries - scholars produce works that compare with the best in the world. Imbued with a strong sense of professional pride, they give the best of themselves.

My critics thought fund-raising would be my greatest weakness. With my stubborn refusal to renounce Marxism, they thought I would antagonize the politicians and bureaucrats who control our budget, and frighten the potential donors. In truth, I myself was uncertain of my capacity to raise money for the University. As it turned out, however, my record in this regard is not inferior to my predecessors.

The Senate Finance Committee subjected UP to the worst budget cut in UP's recent history during my first year in office, but we were able to cushion its net impact with contributions from other government agencies. As I said in my investiture speech, it is not enough to fight for a big budget. How we make optimal use of what we already have is more important. If we do not straighten out our system of financial management and align it to our quest for academic excellence, budgetary increases will just go to waste.
To achieve this my executive staff crafted a formula for budget allocation that reflects our priorities. We mobilized the savings that were deposited in banks at ridiculously low interest rates and poured these into the programs aimed at achieving academic excellence.

Besides the cost-cutting measures, we lobbied for the reduction of taxes and debt obligations. We also obtained tax exemptions on interest earnings and on donated equipment from abroad. The accumulated interest and penalty for a huge loan of the Philippine General Hospital were condoned.

We also tapped other funding sources. Foremost among these are, of course, the alumni. I have been going around the country and abroad to plead for alumni support. The UP Alumni Association (UPAA) under Regent Eduardo Hernandez brought in hefty sums for our modernization program, utilizing their extensive contacts in the corporate world. The alumni overseas are contributing generously to the UP Modernization Fund.

I am glad to discover that the potential donors do not care about the ideology of the university president. What matters is the rationality and feasibility of our projects. Our focus on science and technology is drawing enthusiastic support because the donors realize that among all institutions of higher learning in the Philippines, UP is in the best position to spearhead development in this critical area.

Right now three quarters of our operating budget comes from the General Appropriations Act. This makes us extremely vulnerable to political pressure. While maintaining that the State has the obligation to subsidize the University, we also realize that this subsidy is just enough to keep us going along the traditional path. We have to harness our other assets for modernization.

We are as opposed as anyone to the commercialization of education. But we are not averse to commercializing these assets to lessen the University's dependence on the whims of niggardly politicians. After two years of hard bargaining the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has agreed to supplement their one-peso-a-year-rental for 500 hectares of UP land in Los Baños with a fairly large amount of financial assistance to UPLB. We are also demanding commercial rentals from three multinational companies for the lands they "donated" to elude the effects of the termination of the Laurel-Langley Agreement. Two of these companies have sued us for breach of contract. We have meet them in court, but we have kept open channels for a negotiated settlement. This does not mean, however, that we will retreat from our basic position. (One has already withdrawn its court case and we are taking over the premises, a large piece of real estate along South Superhighway.)

In place of the controversial plan to convert our 100-hectare property across Commonwealth Avenue into a mammoth shopping center, we applied for the proclamation of 29 hectares in that area and 20 hectares along C. P. Garcia Avenue as a UP Science and Technology Park. The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has recommended our plan to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Without waiting for a presidential proclamation, some of the major IT firms have shown interest in locating their research and development facilities in our prospective Science and Technology Park. As early as the year 2000, the Ayala Foundation entered into a joint venture with UP to manage and expand the Technology Business Incubator along C. P. Garcia Avenue. Intel Philippines, Mirant, and SUN Microsystems have also signed memoranda of agreement with UP.

The most promising project is the UP Information Technology Training Center. The Philippine government has prioritized this for financing under the Japanese ODA and President Macapagal-Arroyo herself submitted our project proposal to the Japanese government in her state visit to the country last September. We are now awaiting a second Japanese technical team to work out the details of this project with us.

The Science and Technology Park project offers modest anticipated income from rentals in comparison to the original CPDP plan. But it is less risky and does not require as much investment. We are inviting the IT companies to locate their research and development facilities on campus because this will give opportunities for our faculty members to earn additional income without having to sacrifice their teaching duties. The presence of these facilities on campus will also allow our students access to state-of-the-art laboratory equipment that we cannot hope to acquire through the normal budgetary process. Of course, in the long run, we expect to share the income from whatever technologies will be developed in the Science and Technology Park.

I am proud to inform you that, notwithstanding the budget cut, we have completed construction of fiber optics backbones in our major campuses. We are now rewiring the buildings and interconnecting them. When the various units have built their data bases and all our campuses are fully networked, these will make a qualitative difference in education and research.

Laying the physical infrastructure for a 21st century university must be accompanied by reforms in curricula and teaching methods. This is the rationale for the controversial Revitalized General Education Program (RGEP). In defiance of a vociferous opposition, we campaigned for its adoption by all the University Councils. By creating space for innovation, the RGEP encourages the faculty members to develop of more stimulating and relevant courses than the ones instituted 40 years ago. By allowing students a wider range of choices, the RGEP also denies a captive audience to the classroom terrors, the dull teachers, and those who use compulsory General Education courses for propaganda.

Our goal is nothing less than a "cultural revolution" in UP. We want to produce for our country a corps of first-rate brain workers who can compare with the best in the world. We do not want the Philippines to remain an exporter of servants and entertainers. We want to develop graduates who are capable of creating new technologies.

We want to break down the cultural divide between science and technology on the one hand, and the social sciences and humanities on the other. We want to bring together the students of various disciplines not just in intellectual dialogues but also, and more importantly, in start-up companies that will fabricate high-tech and high-value-added products in place of what our country has been traditionally exporting.

I have consistently opposed capitalist globalization. But I also recognize that, whether or not we can stop our country's integration into that fiercely competitive global market, our young people must be equipped with the knowledge and skills in order to survive and flourish in the age of Information Technology.

That vision we have pursued in the last three years. We shall continue to pursue it for the rest of my term.

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Updated June 21, 2002
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