On August 29, 2008, Prof. Randolf S. David revisited the University’s last 100 years, in a UP Centennial lecture titled “Modernity and the UP: The First 100 Years”. Delivering his lecture at UP Baguio’s Bulwagang Juan Luna and broadcast live to all UP campuses and the internet, he said: “I view UP’s past 100 years of existence as a narrative of ceaseless autonomization and self-assertion—to differentiate itself from its beginnings as a colonial institution, to shield itself from the intrusions of a State that pays its expenses, to establish its secular credentials in a society whose notions of right and wrong and of truth and falsity have been massively shaped by religion—all these while struggling to maintain its relevance to a modern Filipino nation whose long-term interests it is supposed to serve.”
Intended to be the first modern institution of learning in the country, UP was characterized by the “autopoiesis” of the modern academe: the search for a distinct institutional identity, the assertion of autonomy from anything that threatens to colonize the knowledge enterprise, the insistence on the necessity of critique, a revulsion against any type of dogma, and the readiness to offer refuge to all forms of dissident voices. UP’s modernity, according to David, is summarized by the phrase “academic freedom” and UP lived up to being the first modern center of learning in the Philippines.
However, as a national university, UP is burdened with the mandate to be socially relevant. “The problem of striking the right balance between being socially relevant and being faithful to the idea of a university has been UP’s most difficult dilemma. This problem underpins nearly all the thorny decisions that UP has had to make with respect to admissions, enrollments, academic programs, research, budget, student and faculty activism,” David said.
David observed that UP experienced two phases in its history in terms of the quest to be relevant: an instrument for Filipinization and self-rule during the American period, and, in the last 60 years, an implement for independence from neo-colonial influence to attain social justice and democracy.
Today, as social relevance is narrowed down to market relevance, the balancing act has become an even more formidable task. “This will be UP’s biggest challenge in the coming years: how to maintain its identity and fulfill its mission as a university without being shackled to the imperatives of an increasingly demanding market economy,” David said.
Blind spot from the past
David noted that during the period of the quest for social justice, UP seemed to have suffered from a blind spot. As it pursued academic excellence, it also cultivated an intellectual aristocracy. UP became a mechanism for the reproduction of a highly unequal society. Although students and professors championed equity and social justice, these were never crystallized into enduring programs and policies.
David said that this might have stemmed from UP’s original mandate to produce highly-trained modern Filipino professionals and to contribute to economic development. The Filipinization of the country did not mean democratization. Critical thinking and social analysis were not part of the original mandate either. During the early years, a UP education was seen as a passport for social mobility more than a weapon for social liberation.
“We could have done more to become a university
of the people,” David says in his lecture.
UP suffered from this blind spot as it took on America, the Church, and the Philippine government itself. Today, some old challenges persist, and some new ones have cropped up.
The new threats to a university
David named three fundamental threats to the University as it asserts itself as an autonomous institution with a strong presence: threat from politics, the market, and UP’s own self-referentiality.
In its engagement with politics, UP spent too much time standing up to power; so much so it neglected the equally important task of speaking to the people. It failed to serve as a link between the intelligentsia and the public.
David recommended that UP must make its voice heard on all issues as it is called upon to form public consciousness, but it must never allow its voice to be co-opted by politicians or vested interests. It must enter into dialogue with all kinds of ideas, but cultivate a passion for doubt.
Under pressure to be useful to business and be financially secure—a pressure felt by universities all over the world—the University must not abandon its academic vision or its service to the people. Commercialization can be seen when research that is commercially viable is encouraged at the expense of technologies that the public can assimilate in their life work. UP has resisted this kind of commercialization, but the pressure will strengthen in the coming years, David predicted.
UP must not neglect departments and programs that no longer attract large enrollment but are vital in providing well-rounded education. Thus, while attracting endowments, it must create wealth from its own resources and “strengthen its internal defenses” to bolster its capacity for autonomous action. UP has just begun to do this, he said.
UP is also fraught with excessive self-referentiality that hinders its growth and makes it resistant to change. David said the University’s commitment to the autonomy of inquiry must challenge the entrenched traditions that have constituted its identity. These traditions, marked by repetition and routine, end up in a circularity that is difficult to interrupt. David mentioned a kind of chauvinism that often leads to in-breeding and complacency. For example, in screening applicants for faculty positions, UP still makes it difficult for non-UP graduates to get accepted. With its graduates becoming top-notchers in licensure examinations, should it be credited to their UP education or are the students really good to begin with? David said there could be so much pride in its quest for autonomy that UP might begin to mistake this for success itself.
UP must start observing itself, which should prompt it to revisit a lot of things it has taken for granted. For David, how much space the University creates in which it can observe and reflect upon itself and have outsiders scrutinize it as well determines the degree of its modernity—whether it is indeed differentiating itself as a functional piece of society. The centennial lectures, he said, are a good start for this self-scrutiny.
Answering the question on what could UP have done differently in the last 100 years, David concluded that, “We managed to avoid being too much a state university, but we could have done more to become a university of the people.”
More popularly known for his Philippine Daily Inquirer column, “Public Lives,” and as host of the television public affairs program “Public Forum,” David has been a member of the UP faculty since 1967. He was the first director of the UP Third World Studies Center and the editor of its journal Kasarinlan, positions he held for 14 years. He also served as a member of the UP Board of Regents, representing the faculty in 1999. He studied sociology at the UP and did graduate work in the same field at the University of Manchester in England.
The centerpiece UP Centennial activity, the Centennial Lecture Series features views on UP from renowned persons both in and outside the University, tackles national and global issues, and presents respected international figures speaking on their fields of expertise and their advocacies. David’s is the 20th lecture in the series. He is a full professor at UP Diliman’s Department of Sociology and took the perspective of an insider to give the seventh of the “View from Inside” set of the centennial lectures, studying the way the University has defined its culture and function—as differentiated from other functionalities in society—which is a good way to start defining them in the next 100 years.
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