THE CHARTER PRIMER

Frequently Asked Questions

on the
New UP Charter

What is the University of the Philippines Charter?

The UP Charter is the basic law that created the University of the Philippines in 1908 and
defined its functions and its system of governance.

Why does the Charter need to be revised?

Almost a century after its enactment, the Charter no longer reflects and responds to the
realities and challenges of our times. While piecemeal changes have been introduced into
the Charter over the years, it is time for a thorough review and for revisions that will help
UP become a better and stronger national university.

In 1908, there was only one State university and one UP campus, with 48 students. Today,
UP has to compete for funding with over 110 other State universities and colleges. UP itself
has become a system of seven constituent universities—the country’s biggest university
system with almost 56,000 students, 4,500 faculty members, and several thousand non-
academic personnel.

This tremendous expansion has created both challenges and opportunities—the need for
more funding from the government, to be sure, but also fresh possibilities for generating
income to augment our annual budget. Recent laws—such as the Salary Standardization
Law and certain tax laws—have also weakened the University’s ability to retain the best
teachers and to conduct world-class research. The new Charter should address these
problems.

We also need to improve the way the University is governed, such as by strengthening the
composition of the Board of Regents and allowing for democratic consultation with
university constituents where advisable.

What are the major revisions contained in the Charter bill?

First, it seeks formal recognition for UP as the national university of the Philippines,
according it premier status among all SUCs.

Second, it gives gives the Board of Regents the authority to draw up a position
classification and compensation plan for UP faculty and staff. This effectively means
exemption from the Salary Standardization Law, which imposed a cap on UP salaries. This
is not as radical as it sounds. We used to be able to set our own pay scales, and the
Philippine Normal University’s charter contains this exemption.

Third, it provides for a Staff Regent who will represent the full-time, permanent research,
extension, and professional staff or REPS and administrative personnel of the University.
For many years now, other important sectors of the University community—the faculty, the
students, and the alumni—have been represented on the BOR. This provision extends the
same privilege to the REPS and administrative personnel.

Fourth, it codifies executive issuances and statutes that promote UP’s financial health and
independence. This means, among other things, that UP can generate its own income from
its resources, and use whatever income it earns for its needs—including the upgrading of
salaries.

Fifth, it exempts UP from the payment of certain taxes, such as those imposed on materials
we import for teaching and research. We believe that we need and deserve these
exemptions, which are already enjoyed by religious institutions, if we are to compete
successfully with our counterparts in the region and with private universities.

What is a “national university”? Why do we need to be formally

recognized as the Philippines’ national university?
A national university is a country’s most advanced institution of higher learning—not only of
teaching, but also of research. In Asia, such institutions include the University of Tokyo, the
University of Malaya, Chulalongkorn University, the National University of Singapore, the
University of Indonesia, Seoul National University, and Peking University.

A national university should be comparable to the best in the region. Within the country, it
serves as a model for other universities, and as a source of knowledge and of top-rank
teachers and researchers.

Indeed, in the Philippine case, UP has no equal in terms of the number and quality of its
academic offerings, its geographical reach, its research capabilities, its graduate programs,
and its influence on national politics, business, and culture. It is, in every sense of the word,
our national university.

Explicit recognition as the Philippines’ national university—placing UP in a category of its

own, apart from the dozens of other State universities and colleges—will draw attention to
UP’s unique status, and should help us gain the exemptions and incentives we feel we
deserve, such as exemption from the Salary Standardization Law.

How much is UP paying its professors now? What can UP expect to

pay them under the new Charter?
Compared to Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University, UP offers very low
salaries. A full professor in UP, for example, receives only P30,112 a month. Ateneo gives
its full professors at least P50,000 a month. In La Salle, the rates can go as high as
P94,360.

The passage of a new Charter may not immediately result in a large increase in UP
salaries, but it should allow us to generate and use funds for salary augmentation, while we
continue to seek a bigger budget from the government. Strictly speaking, this will merely
restore a privilege we used to have, before we fell under the Salary Standardization Law.

While the economic argument is not the only important one behind the new Charter, and
while many of our best and most dedicated professors have stayed with UP despite the low
pay, we cannot remain competitive in the long run without better salaries. Our teachers and
their families certainly deserve it.

Why should UP generate its own income? Shouldn’t the government

subsidize all of UP’s needs as part of its constitutional responsibility?
True, the national government is constitutionally obliged to give top priority to education.
But in reality, no administration has ever been able to give Philippine education and
educational institutions the full level of support they require. Given the current state of the
national government’s finances, we cannot rely on it to provide adequately and equitably for
all our needs.

The alternative is not to help ourselves—to die a slow death by stagnation—in the feeble if
not futile hope that the government will find the cash and the will to subsidize all our needs.

Initiative is a positive and healthy force. While we cannot be financially self-reliant—

because, by nature, we engage in teaching and research that are strategically vital but are
not money-earners—seeking our own solutions to some of our problems will flex our
intellectual and institutional muscles.

How will UP earn more income?

At least two ways—by entering into favorable long-term agreements with private partners
(corporations, foundations, and other qualified institutions) for the lease of University
property, and by licensing, under clear and fair intellectual-property-rights guidelines, the
fruits of University-supported research.

Few people realize it, but UP holds title to almost 25,000 hectares of land around the
country. Some of it is prime real estate—such as a 4,500 sqm. lot in Forbes Park donated
to UP by Citibank under the Laurel-Langley Agreement. A similar piece of property—Shell’s
Pandacan depot—is earning us some P75 million under a 25-year lease.

We intend to convert some of our land into Science and Technology parks that will invite
private industries to locate their research and development operations there—promoting
technical collaboration, job placement, and campus development in the process, aside from
generating substantial rental income.

But most of UP’s land consists of idle, undeveloped property in distant and inaccessible
areas. Unless there is an incentive and an effort to develop them, they will continue to cost
us more in terms of providing security and fending off the legal claims of squatters and
usurpers. We hope to be able to lease these under favorable terms. Incidentally, the public
land titled to UP cannot be sold without Congressional approval, and no one is
contemplating the sale of any of it.

Do other universities around the world do this?

Certainly. Almost all major public and private universities abroad now engage in some form
of income generation to augment their budgets—including universities in socialist countries,
such as Peking University and Vietnam National University.

Peking University incubated and spun off Founder Corporation, a high-tech company
engaged in ICT research that has also become China’s second-largest PC producer.
Scotland’s Edinburgh University has embarked on a strategy that consists of collaborative
research, licensing, and new firm formation. This is expected to generate an additional 50
million pounds for the Scottish economy, creating 1,200 jobs in Edinburgh University and in
its associated firms. In the United States, because of their leadership in research and
expertise in marketing, universities earned some $35 billion from sales of licensed products
arising from university technologies in FY 2000 alone, as well as $1.1 billion in royalties.

Why is UP entering into agreements with private corporations?

Doesn’t this constitute “privatization” or “commercialization”?
Let’s get some things very clear, here. Dealing with private corporations doesn’t mean that
the University itself is being “privatized.” Privatization means selling off the University, its
assets and liabilities, and its operations to a private entity, to be run for profit. This is
inconsistent with our mandate. The new Charter involves no privatization, and we will firmly
and unequivocally say “No” to the privatization of the University. UP is not and will never be
for sale.

But this shouldn’t prevent us from dealing with private enterprises, keeping the University’s
interests and our academic mission in mind. We recognize the private sector as an
important contributor to national economic growth, as a potential employer of our
graduates, as a benefactor of many University programs, and as a partner in research and
development. What is important is to ensure that we get fair and advantageous terms, that
any income or benefit derived from our business transactions redounds to the University,
and that we do not do business with provably undesirable and exploitative partners.

Making commercial use of our marketable assets doesn’t mean that we are
“commercializing” education itself, which is what some other schools do when they
downgrade their academic programs and sell diplomas to make more money. UP has
never been in this business.

“Commercialization” in and of itself is not a bad word. British universities have

“commercialization units” in charge of generating income.

Why do we need a Staff Regent?

The faculty, the alumni, and the students are already represented in the Board by their
respective regents. The non-academic personnel are a major constituency within the
University, and their representation in the BOR, at long last, will only be fair and fitting.

What exactly does the Board of Regents do? What about proposals to scrap the BOR and
replace it with a democratically elected Assembly?

The Board of Regents is the University’s highest policy-making body. It deliberates upon
and approves or disapproves appointments, academic programs, contracts, administrative
policies, and tuition fees, among others. A good Board of Regents acts with probity,
responsibility, and dispatch, to ensure that the business of the University proceeds apace
while taking all considerations into account.

While the composition and the selection of members of the BOR can still be improved, the
Board represents a workable compromise between autonomy and accountability, and the
BOR has traditionally upheld the University’s right to academic freedom while recognizing
its accountability to the nation at large as a publicly funded institution.

Replacing the 12-member BOR with a much larger body numerically representing all the
constituents of all of the UP System’s constituent universities may seem like an inspired
idea at first glance—but it ignores the basic fact that a university’s primary function is
academic, and an academic institution is not a polity or a barangay where matters can be
decided by a popular vote. Far from being truly democratic and efficient, this alternative
structure will only result in disenfranchising the University’s most important resource—its
faculty—and in administrative gridlock.

What process have we followed to revise the UP Charter? Were

adequate consultations conducted?
The process of revising the UP Charter has now taken almost a decade. It started during
the term of President Jose Abueva, when the UP Diliman University Council Committee on
National Policies drafted a proposal for charter amendments. The proposal was later
adopted by the Charter Review Committee.

During the administration of President Emil Q. Javier, the proposed revised Charter was
circulated in the different campuses, which conducted their own consultations. What came
out of this process was the basis of the bill filed by Rep. Dante Liban and Rep. Feliciano
Belmonte.

When President Francisco Nemenzo took over in 1999, he continued the effort. The Liban-
Belmonte version underwent a few changes, principally the abolition of the provision on the
establishment of a University Senate and a more explicit and extended definition of the
concept of a national university.

The Charter bill was unanimously approved by the House, and went on to the Senate as
SB 2587. However, due to the efforts of Sen. John Osmeña to block its passage, the bill
failed to be voted on before the Senate adjourned in its last session.

Throughout this process—as early as 1994—consultations were held both within the
University and in Congress. Sen. Francis Pangilinan even held a formal Senate hearing on
campus in Diliman in October 2003, attended by all parties concerned.

The current University Student Council has conducted its own series of consultations on
various versions of the revised UP Charter, actively supported by such local councils as the
UP College of Medicine Student Council. The House and Senate will be holding public
hearings on the draft UP Charter bills.

Can changes still be introduced into the Charter bill or bills in the
Senate and the House of Representatives? What can we expect to
happen next? What should I do if I have a suggestion or a comment to
make on specific aspects or provisions of the Charter?
Yes, further revisions and amendments can still be introduced, until the very end of the
legislative process.

The bills now filed in the House and the Senate will be taken up by the pertinent
committees, which will hold public hearings and discussions within Technical Working
Groups in an effort to harmonize conflicting provisions and forge a version most acceptable
to all. The final versions will be read out by their sponsors on the floor, followed by a period
of interpellation, and then a period of amendments.

Once the House and the Senate approve their respective versions of the bill, a Bicameral
Conference Committee will hammer out a final version, for signing into law by the President
of the Philippines.

President Nemenzo has created a UP Charter Campaign Committee that will monitor the
progress of all UP Charter bills in the legislature and disseminate information about the UP
Charter.

Anyone with a constructive suggestion or comment can send it to the UP Charter

Campaign Committee (c/o the Office of the President, e-mail op@up.edu.ph), or directly to
the respective chairs of the House and Senate committees on higher education (Rep.
Cynthia Villar and Sen. Juan Flavier).
 September 2004
Ver. 2.0

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