A YEAR after its separation from the Faculty of Engineering, the Institute of Information and Computing Sciences (IICS) is preparing its own constitution and student council.
A draft of the IICS constitution, which was adopted from the 2006 Engineering Constitution, is now under plebiscite to determine if the institute could hold its first-ever student council elections.
According to Engineering Student Council President Nielsen Ignacio, the Central Board of Student Auxiliary (CBSA), which consists of all Engineering and Information and Computing Sciences class presidents, advocated the drafting of a new constitution for the IICS last academic year.
“Last academic year, na-open na ‘yung idea na by this academic year bubuuin na ‘yung constitution nila, so transition year talaga ito,” he said in an interview.
The proposed constitution will govern the actions of the IICS Student Council and stipulate the rights of its students.
Engineering Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairperson Hanna Eunice de Leon said there was a need for a separate student council for IICS since it was now a separate institute.
“IICS being an institute now has its separate director and faculty. The need to have [a] separate student council is to give prior justice to the separation of the faculty,” de Leon said in an email.
A majority vote of 51 percent of the entire IICS population is required to ratify the constitution.
The plebiscite, a process by which students can approve or reject the proposed constitution, began last March 16 through an online voting system, and will end on March 30. The Engineering Comelec is yet to release the results of said plebiscite on April 7.
If the proposed constitution is approved, the Engineering Comelec will recommend persons to fill the positions for the IICS Comelec, who will then temporarily recognize political parties for the local student council elections.
“The IICS Commission on Elections will be spearheading the elections if and only if, the Constitution was accepted by the students,” de Leon said.
In a previous interview, IICS Director Alex Santos said the Institute was planning to “organize and build a team team of students that will represent the IICS student council intended for next school year.”
The Faculty of Engineering has scheduled its local student elections on April 14 to 17. IICS students can still vote for the Central Student Council elections but will only have their special local elections once the proposed constitution is approved.
