The University of the Philippines (UP) has been drawing flak for the alleged New People’s Army (NPA) recruitment on campus. While it’s possible that communists are recruiting UP students, the latter are generally far more interested in meeting academic requirements than engaging in guerilla warfare. The fact that they’re still studying to get jobs in Fortune 500 companies means that the indoctrination process is not yet complete. They therefore remain open to adhering to other worldviews that their classmates and professors openly espouse, thanks to academic freedom.
The Philippines has an Academic Freedom index (AFi) score of 0.728. This means that in many of the country’s higher education institutions (HEIs), students and professors USUALLY exercise the liberty to explore unorthodox ideas. Many of those ideas are helpful. Some can be as detrimental as the communist ideology.
Academic freedom is necessary for disseminating knowledge, teaching critical thinking, and fostering innovation. The problem is that a lot of Filipino teenagers struggle to handle the responsibility of discerning truth from error. In my observation, Filipino college students are most vulnerable to brainwashing by any type of toxic group if they have these two weaknesses:
Lack of proficiency in critical thinking
Teenagers are still developing their abstract reasoning skills. Moreover, even adults do not fully develop or consistently use such formal operational thinking. As a result, college students struggle to envision the possible consequences of ideas and consider alternative viewpoints that persons in authority don’t teach them.
An example would be the issue of tuition fee increase (TFI) in the UP system. When I was in undergrad, I thought that UP deserved all the state subsidy that it could get even if I was moderately right-wing. Because our profs told us that education was a right, I believed that the government was obliged to fund everything that we needed for us to finish our degrees.
I almost joined a walkout to protest the TFI! I was passionate about that issue because I needed my government scholarship to help my OFW parents.
It didn’t occur to me that the state needed to allocate the limited taxpayers’ money to endeavors that addressed more pressing concerns. Don't get me wrong --- state-subsidized college education has its rightful place. However, it’s more urgent to increase the funds for supporting soldiers in their fight against terrorists or for building schools in the countryside where children have zero access to education.
I also didn’t realize that UP could raise funds for itself by getting into public-private partnerships. It did so eventually by opening the UP Ayala TechnoHub, the UP Town Center, and the QualiMed Surgery Center - Manila. UP consequently became more self-sufficient. It also created jobs and produced goods and services that benefit the masses.
TIPS FOR THE PARENTS: Listen with genuine interest to the social concerns that your teenagers care about. Help your college students consider alternative perspectives about those issues. Explain to them the possible consequences of their ideas! I, for one, avoided NPA legal fronts because my mom discussed with me in high school how communism can only lead to oppression. Finally, show teenagers how they can leverage academic excellence to uplift the community, not just to fulfill their selfish desires. Poor socio-emotional support
University life is fraught with many academic and psychosocial challenges that can cause mental health problems. Yet many undergraduate students are deprived of adequate support because they’re living away from their parents. Coming from dysfunctional families also predisposes them to a host of mental health conditions. Being in college can exacerbate those psychological issues.
To cope, many Filipino undergraduates will be drawn to exploitative groups that seem to offer acceptance and validation for their concerns. Those organizations may be legal communist fronts. But they might also get recruited by cultic churches, violent fraternities, and multi-level marketing networks.
TIPS FOR THE PARENTS: Be the loving mentors that your college kids need. Be a good listener! Help them come up with strategies for dealing with their problems. Regularly keep in touch with them by utilizing various digital technologies if they live away from you. Collaborate with mental health professionals to promote your kids’ well-being should they find it difficult to overcome psychological issues. It’s sad that Philippine HEIs are now being demonized because of alleged NPA recruitment. Most Filipino professors, college students, and alumni are not rebels! I hope that we won’t despise academic freedom just because of a noisy communist minority in our campuses. Instead of curtailing the free exchange of ideas, let’s train the youth how to handle the responsibilities that come along with civil liberties. And yes, jailing terrorists that incite young people to commit atrocities is part of protecting that freedom.
While it is true that the UP campus is a nest for Communist ideologues, ( and yes they are able to recruit some from the creme dela creme ) only a handful retain communist ideals. Why is that 1. Communism is just that - an idea; it has not been realized in any part of society. Eventually when the student leaves the academia, reality will hit him like a ton of bricks and that usually breaks the spell casted by indoctrinators.
2. Pragmatism overcomes ideology. a.
Students from wealthy families usually take over their family business ;
b. UP grads, because of their university credentials, easily land a job at one of the top corporations in the country; or migra…