In light of the recent news on the abduction at the Cebu City Port Area of two UP Cebu (UPC) constituents, and a spate of documented cases of harassment and intimidation against members of the UP community, UP Faculty Regent Carl Marc L. Ramota called for the creation of the Committee to Protect and Uphold Academic Freedom and Human Rights on Jan. 18.

According to the Office of the Faculty Regent (OFR), Ramota is set to convene a system-wide consultative meeting in UP Manila (UPM) on Feb. 2 to discuss the institutionalization of the committee on both UP System and constituent university levels.

Ramota is an assistant professor of political science at the Department of Social Sciences of the UPM College of Arts and Sciences. He was also the former chair of All-UP Academic Employees Union (AUPAEU). He succeeded Aimee Lynn Barrion-Dupo, PhD, a professor of entomology at the Institute of Biological Sciences in UP Los Baños (UPLB), who served from 2021-2022.

The abduction at the Cebu City Port Area involved Armand Jake Dayoha, a lecturer of the National Service Training Program at the UPC, and UPC alumna April Dyan Gumanao. Posts on social media showed the abduction of the two by a group of people. In a video taken by a bystander on Jan. 10, Dayoha and Gumanao are seen being forced into a vehicle.

The OFR said Dayoha and Gumanao were located six days after the incident with the help of the UPC administration.

Ramota called for an impartial investigation on the abduction and for accountability.

“This brazen incident is the latest in a series of documented cases of harassment and intimidation against members of the faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the University who are also active in union and development work, and other human rights advocacies,” the OFR stated.

The OFR cited some of the said cases of harassment and intimidation: the February 2019 harassment of Phoebe Zoe Maria Sanchez, PhD, a professor of sociology and history at the UPC College of Social Sciences (CSS) and AUPAEU Cebu chapter president, by suspected security agents during the People Power mobilization in Cebu City; the March 2019 vandalism of the UPC gates where graffiti accused the UPC community of being rebels and communist sympathizers; the July 2019 official communication of the Miag-ao, Iloilo municipal police to the UP Visayas administration requesting information on AUPAEU members; the September 2019 questioning of Noe Santillan, an assistant professor of philosophy and social studies at the UPC and AUPAEU director-at-large, at a checkpoint in Cebu because he was wearing a green cap with a red star; and the death threats to AUPAEU Cebu president Regletto Aldrich D. Imbong, PhD, an assistant professor in philosophy at the CSS, in January 2021.

In 2022, the books published by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino written by Rommel Rodriguez, PhD, a professor of Filipino at the UP Diliman (UPD) Departamento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas; Dexter B. Cayanes, PhD, a professor at UPLB; retired UPD professor Reuel Aguila; and two other writers, were tagged as subversive by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.

“These cases highlight the need for the University to intensify efforts by employing its administrative and legal machinery to safeguard its constituents against all forms of human rights violations, and keep its campuses and communities a safe haven for political thought and action,” the OFR stated.

Aside from the creation of the committee on academic freedom, the consultative meeting on Feb. 2 will also discuss other programs promoting democratic governance in UP.—With a report from the OFR