Tag Archives: excellence

Qwertyman No. 136: Bringing In the No-Shows

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 10, 2025

EVERY YEAR, about 100,000 Filipino high school seniors take the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT), hoping to get into one of UP’s ten campuses nationwide. It’s an annual ritual that’s been taking place since 1968, except for a brief period during the pandemic when the test was replaced by an alternative system. (I didn’t even realize until I looked these figures up that I was among the third batch of UPCAT takers in 1970; thankfully I got in.)

Of those 100,000 hopefuls, only about 13,000-15,000 make it. That passing percentage may seem cruelly if not needlessly small, but there’s good reason for it. While we’d like more students to come to UP, admissions are limited by how many incoming freshmen UP’s campuses (or “constituent universities” such as UP Manila and UP Mindanao) can optimally absorb. Classrooms, housing, teachers, and facilities all come into play. Large campuses like Diliman and Los Baños can obviously take in more, but even so there’s a limit to admissions that needs to be observed if UP is to maintain the quality of higher education that it promises.

The more troubling statistics have to do with the distribution of those “passers” (technically, no one “fails” the UPCAT, which is just one of several factors that determine admission, including high school grades; each campus also has a different qualifying standard to rationalize admissions, so you can “fail” Diliman but qualify for UP Cebu). 

Last year, according to UP’s own statistics, 44 percent of UPCAT qualifiers came from private high schools. Another 27 percent came from the country’s science high schools. (which are publicly funded, but offer a much higher standard of education). Other public high schools accounted for only 29 percent of the total. Consider these figures against the larger picture, in which around 80 percent of our students go to public high schools, and less than 20 percent to their private counterparts. 

Compounding this gross inequality, about 70 percent of UPCAT qualifiers come from the big cities, mainly in Luzon. This, of course, is no big surprise. A recent study by UP professors showed what we didn’t need a study to know (but being academics, of course they had to prove it): that “income advantage” weighed heavily on one’s chances of passing the UPCAT and getting into UP. If you went to a good private high school, you were more likely to get in than a poor student from the boonies. To top it off, with tuition now free in public universities, we actually end up subsidizing many students from affluent families who could well afford to pay their way in private colleges.

This lopsided situation has long been the cause of much concern within and beyond UP, which, as the country’s “national university,” bears the dual responsibility of aiming to be the best university in the country bar none, and yet also serve the interests of the entire Filipino nation, and not just those of the urban elite that has apparently become over-represented in its student body. Various UP administrations have sought to address this seemingly paradoxical “excellence vs. equity” argument through different methods aimed at more democratic access—without, as current UP President Angelo Jimenez emphasizes, lowering UP’s standards. This remains a work in progress, but the aim is clear: make it possible for poorer Filipinos to get into UP so it can truly be the “university for the Filipino” it was envisioned to be.

Against all odds—and this brings me to my present point—many surprisingly do. I don’t have the actual figure on hand, but they number in the low thousands, of the 13,000-15,000 in an incoming batch. Encouraging, yes? But here’s the rub: about 1,500 of them never show up—what we call “no-shows”—not for lack of ambition, but for lack of means to cover the cost of living at a UP campus. Imagine that: it’s hard enough to get a good public high school education in what are called Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDAs), and harder still to pass the UPCAT from where you are. You’re elated to learn you made it, only to realize that you’re not leaving home after all, because you can’t afford the transportation, food, housing, books, and computers that come with college.

Thankfully, UP has initiated a new Lingap-Iskolar program to help out with these expenses and bring more GIDA passers in, starting with 300-500 students. Over the next four years, P250 million has been allotted by UP for this purpose. It’s a great initiative, but it still falls far short of minimizing the no-shows so the yawning disparity between UP’s rich and poor can be more effectively reduced.

With the education budget being squeezed even more under the current GAA, this is a great opportunity for the private sector to come in and make a clear and strategic impact on the future of the Filipino mind. If you’re a corporation or philanthropist in search of a good cause to support, look no farther—make it possible for a young Filipino from our poorest and remotest regions to study in UP. Sure, democratizing UP will require much broader and deeper moves, going back to basic education; but this step is solid, immediate, and tangible. 

I’m happy to report that I made this pitch to a dear friend in the US who had spent some time here in the Philippines more than 50 years ago with her late husband, who worked to help improve Philippine education. Responding to my call, that friend, Julie Hill, sold two HR Ocampo and Ang Kiukok paintings from her collection at a recent Leon Gallery auction, the proceeds of which she will be donating to the UP Foundation for a fund to be set up along the lines of Lingap-Iskolar. Despite being away for so long, Julie remains deeply attached to the Philippines; she’s not Elon-Musk rich and lives very modestly, but has sacrificed her best pieces so some bright young Pinoys she will never meet can have a better future and serve the nation.

If a foreigner can do that, I don’t see why our homegrown billionaires can’t. Support a GIDA scholar, and make a difference right now.

Qwertyman No. 80: Bringing UP to the People

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 12, 2024

SINCE IT was established in 1908 as a “university for Filipinos,” the University of the Philippines has grown into a system of eight “constituent universities,” each with a certain degree of autonomy but all of them unified by a common vision, shared practices, and high academic standards. UP began in Manila, followed by Los Baños and then Diliman, which became UP’s flagship campus after the war. 

Of course, as the country’s premier public university and with its relatively hefty budget, there was pressure on UP to go out even farther, especially beyond Luzon, to become truly more representative of the Filipino people. In the past, that form of democratization was achieved to some extent by UP’s old policy of accepting valedictorians and salutatorians from high schools all over the country; once in UP, these provincianos did well, and many went on to positions of national leadership. 

But the general decline in public education and UP’s more stringent admissions policy have changed all that, so that the majority of successful UPCAT applicants now come from private high schools in the big cities. As nearly everyone agrees, that’s not what a presumably “national” university is supposed to do—meaning, giving quality education to the children of the affluent at the expense of ordinary taxpayers (I say “nearly,” because there are a few on the “excellence” side of this “excellence vs. equity” argument who also argue that the State’s best strategy going forward is simply to fund and support the country’s best minds, no matter where they come from—kind of Singapore-style, but then we’re no Singapore). 

Also, a UP education doesn’t happen just with a student’s admission. Even now that the law has made public university education free (ironically, again, subsidizing rich metro kids), many UPCAT passers from the regions never show up, or drop out early on, because of the prohibitive costs of living and studying in Manila, especially. They could have gone to UP if it were closer to where they were, pointing to the continuing need for more UP units to be opened in our far-flung regions. (To this day, for example, no UP has been established in Bicol, although to be fair, that region is already being served by many excellent universities.)

The traditional reluctance by the UP Board of Regents to open UPs here and there has been based on sound academic reasoning: building and opening a physical school is easy, but establishing academic programs with qualified faculty is much harder, especially in so-called “hardship” posts, to which presumably Manila-based faculty will have to be enticed to relocate until enough local capability is built up. A UP education should come with a guarantee that a degree earned, say ,in Baguio or Iloilo is equivalent in quality and efficacy to one earned in Diliman or Manila. 

There were early attempts to “democratize” UP by setting up teaching outposts as far north as Vigan, where a UP Northern Luzon Junior College was opened in 1930, complementing a similar Junior College in Cebu. (That college in Cebu, interestingly enough, was almost shut down shortly after it opened for lack of funding. Then UP President Jorge Bocobo was too proud and proper to accept a P5,000 donation from Cebuano UP alumni, because it had been raised from sweepstakes. Politicians jumped into the fray, with some arguing that Cebu needed support as a “moral alternative” to Manila, only to be reminded that Cebu was no prelapsarian paradise, with at least “three cabarets and five moviehouses,” according to an unofficial history of UP. The day was saved only when Gov. Mariano Cuenco threw P8,000 into the pot.)

In the late 1950s, President Vicente Sinco set up a Department of Extramural Studies to undertake extension classes in Iloilo, Davao, Zamboanga, San Pablo, Subic, and Clark Airforce Base. 

Thus were the seeds sown for today’s full-blown UP System, which has Diliman, Los Baños, Manila, Visayas, Mindanao, Cebu, Baguio, and the Open University among its constituents.

Each of these CUs has its own specific strengths, history, and traditions—Manila is also UP’s and the country’s health sciences center, with the Philippine General Hospital as its crown jewel; Los Baños celebrates Loyalty Day, which began in honor of faculty and students who took part in World War I (yes, I). UPOU is a regional leader in distance learning, providing a UP education even to OFWs abroad.

A particularly bright spot in this stellar array is UP Mindanao, which is marking its 29th anniversary later this month. When it was established by RA 7889 on February 20, 1995 under President Fidel V. Ramos, it was met with much skepticism even from within UP, and there were dire predictions that it would fail within a few years. The indifference was caused by the fact that UPMin was the first CU to come into being through legislative fiat, rather than the usual process of study and approval by the Board of Regents. What had happened was that UP alumni from Mindanao had banded together to demand a UP on their island, given its economic and political importance. Mindanao’s political leaders led by Reps. Prospero Nograles and Elias B. Lopez rallied to their cause, and UPMin was born.

Almost three decades later, it’s clear that that decision was the right one to make. Despite many teething problems—the path to UPMin’s hilly campus in Mintal was so rough that people took to calling it “Abortion Road”—UP Min has gone on to become an educational powerhouse in the region, particularly in such specializations as Agribusiness Economics. On the cultural front, UPMin leads in such studies as “Mindanao epics as pre-colonial roots of Philippine nationalism” and “Planning and architecture from the vernacular dwellings of Mindanao.” Its writers such as poet and former Chancellor Ricardo M. de Ungria and fictionist and Dean Jhoanna Lynn Cruz are nationally renowned. 

It was no accident that, when he was choosing a site for his investiture last September as UP’s 22nd president, Atty. Angelo A. Jimenez—UP’s first Mindanawon and lumad president, having been born a Manobo in Butuan City—chose UP Mindanao. Keenly conscious of his opportunity to make historic changes, Jimenez has pledged to improve access to a UP education even further, especially for the poor and the underrepresented. 

We look forward to a time when the children of farmers, fisherfolk , and factory workers can walk UP’s hallways again with their heads held high—if not in Diliman, then in a capital city closer to home. It will go a long way toward making UP a truly “national university,” and help build a stronger and more cohesive nation.

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