The University of the Philippines (UP), the country’s premier public university, has offered an honorary degree to every head of state since 1929. But current and former students are drawing a line in the sand this year.
On Wednesday, students and alumni of the university known for its progressive political stance and campus activism, took to social media when they learned that the university was offering to confer an honorary law degree (honoris causa) to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
While the honor has long been standard practice for the school, students say there is good reason to make an exemption this year.
According to the latest police reports, at least 2,555 suspected drug dealers have been killed in police operations. Another 3,603 “deaths under investigation”, or vigilante-style killings have been reported since Duterte declared his commitment to waging a ‘brutal’ war on drugs and crime last year.
Students and alum began posting statuses on Facebook and Tweeting using the hashtags #NoDegreeForDuterte #DuterteNotWorthy
https://www.facebook.com/NUPL.UPLAW/posts/1238332506235095
During the 2016 campaign, Duterte often referred to himself as a socialist, saying he would aggressively pursue a peace deal with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and New People’s Army (NPA).
And before taking office last year, he openly invited “left-wing” parties and organizations to submit their nominees for four key cabinet posts. Among them is UP professor Judy Taguiwalo, who serves as Duterte’s social welfare secretary.
Those left-wing bona fides should have satisfied the student body at the famously progressive university, right? Not quite, according to several students Coconuts Manila spoke with yesterday.
Isa Rodriguez, a law student who is currently on sabbatical, posted the protest status template on her Facebook wall.
“Why would the university offer a man who encourages blatant disregard for due process and the constitution be conferred an honorary law degree?” she explained in an interview.
Whether or not Duterte is given an honorary law degree, he has an actual law degree from San Beda College, where he graduated in 1972.
Duterte worked as a prosecutor in Davao City from 1977 until 1986, when he began his political career after being appointed vice mayor of the city.
Would conferring the degree impact the university’s long-standing identity as a center of progressive thought?
Joy Aceron, a UP political science graduate and director of G-Watch/Accountability Research Center, said in a Facebook status, “If UP wants to throw its progressive track record out of the window to seek patronage from power at the expense of its reason for being, it is UP, the institution, that it will weaken.”
The president’s son and current Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte responded to the #NoDegreeForDuterte backlash in a public statement.
“Knowing my father, he does not give a heck [about] any ‘honorary degree’ simply because he knows he did not work hard for such a degree. All throughout the years of his public life, President Rodrigo Duterte has always shied away from public recognitions,” he said.
“To the so-called learned individuals who frown upon the plan of the University of the Philippines to grant an honorary doctorate degree to the President, you can have that honorary degree for all we care,” the vice mayor added.
Aceron, meanwhile, said that while offering the president of the Philippines an honorary degree may be tradition, “perhaps it is time UP asks itself what exactly does that tradition mean?”
She added: “In this context that the president is accused of being a human rights violator, particularly violating the right to life and due process of the poorest, of advocating use of violence, of being misogynist, what does it mean when UP confers a degree to the president?
“Is it true that UP is offering a degree simply because it is a tradition or is there something that they expect or that have been given in return?”
A protest at the AS steps in UP Diliman was scheduled to take place at 4pm today to further pressure the university to retract its honorary degree offer.
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