Walang pinag-iba ang pag-ibig sa pakikibaka. Activism is fueled by no other motivation than selfless love for others. While others pay mere lip service to the University's Catholic ideals of compassion and commitment to service of others, Thomasian activists genuinely live out these ideals in their actions. Instead of malicious insinuations and ridicule, the students who stood up and engaged the UST administration on its new enrollment policies should be commended for their efforts amid an enforced atmosphere of fear and helplessness in UST.
We find it amusing that Mr. Rommel Rio betrays his own calls for objectivism when he shamelessly brandished his bias and subjectivism against activism as a form of political engagement and involvement by students.
If not for the actions of several Thomasians in organizing a campaign against the no-enrollment and no promissory note policy, the UST administration would not have been pressured to retract its arbitrary implementation. The victory of the campaign was ensured by collective effort of the students, from the Facebook campaign, to the petition-signing, from the lighting rally at the gates along Dapitan to the protest vigil of several dozens of students on the last day of enrollment, all taken together not as spontaneous eruptions of protest but as one organized effort. Small as some of the protest actions may have been, they are strong manifestations of a continuously growing culture of engagement and political involvement in UST which needs to be fostered instead of belittled. It is certainly not the students who misused their freedom and bravery here.
Victor Villanueva
2nd year, Faculty of Civil Law
Thomasians for Education Alliance
