We need a new chancellor for University of the Philippines Cebu because:

1. The current leader of the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu will have served for six years. Transfer of power testifies to and is good for democracy.

UP Cebu’s present dispensation will have been in place for six long years come Dec. 3, 2018. In 2012, Liza D. Corro, a lawyer was appointed UP Cebu’s dean, becoming the unit’s highest official until her office was upgraded to acting chancellor and chancellor with UP Cebu’s rise from an autonomous college into a full constituent unit of the UP System—a development over which she presided only with tremendous help from Cebu’s UPians.

The nation’s chief executive as well as UP’s president are each given only a single six-year term of office. What is true in the Philippine executive branch of government and in the UP System would be wisely held likewise true for the leader of UP Cebu, more so because as part of the pambansang unibersidad (national university), UP’s leaders have a moral responsibility to demonstrate to Filipinos exemplary detachment from power. The incumbent UP Cebu chancellor faces a golden opportunity for such a demonstration.

Discerning citizens decry the return, continuation in office, or reelection bids of discredited government officials. The audacious powerlust of members of political dynasties have left Filipinos aghast, miserable, and often on the verge of despair. Members of the UP community have a vocation to not only protest the phenomenon of addiction to power—as they have done in various contexts—but also to model the virtuous ability to relinquish power.

Should the current chancellor bid her office farewell after having led the UP Cebu community for six long years, she would make a timely, ringing, precious, and historic sacrifice in favor of democracy. She would show that UP leaders not only have the utak (brain) to assail stubborn grip on power, they also have the puso (heart) of genuine stewards capable of graciously handing over power.

Democracy finds nourishment in power’s regular, peaceful turnover rather than in its retention. Such periodic changing of the guard thrives in humble faith that worthy servant-leaders are not scarce. In a mature democratic setting, power should circulate, not be concentrated at length in one person.

In UP Cebu, a transfer of power to a new chancellor with fresh ideas for community synergy in moving forward, a mandate to redistribute responsibilities, and the will to review resource allocation and change priorities is far more likely to open new paths to progress. Such power transfer far better testifies to the vibrancy of democracy in the unit than does the perpetuation of the status quo.

2. Administration-heavy chancellorship has done its time. Academism must once again set the tenor of leadership.

With expertise in law and familiarity with the managerial, the current UP Cebu leadership was uniquely positioned to facilitate the highly bureaucratic, corporatist, and clerical process of the unit’s transition from autonomy to full-fledged university constituency. It was also well-placed to inaugurate the period of rapid infrastructure building that has benefited UP Cebu’s campuses in Lahug, Cebu City and in the city’s South Road Properties. Administrativa and infrastructure, however, are auxiliary to academic life. They do not constitute the heart of scholarly vocation and community. Deserved appreciation has been rendered the present leadership for what administrative and infrastructure goals it achieved, but sadly, after six long years, UP Cebu remains inchoate in taking strides in its academic mission.

As a scholarly community, UP Cebu should be led by a chancellor who is a superior scholar. A superior scholar-chancellor would handle the law and bureaucratic pressures in ways that do not stifle education. He would instead ensure that scholarship’s best lights, diffused with honor and excellence are brought to bear on UP Cebu’s fulfillment of the law, particularly the University of the Philippines Charter. Furthermore, a renowned scholar chancellor who is also a widely acclaimed public servant with deep compassion for and involvement with the masses would be an invaluable inspiration to students, teachers, staff, and alumni of UP Cebu. He would speak their language. He would understand their struggles. He would feel their pain, bring clarity to their doubts, and rejoice deeply in their triumphs. His regularly palpable, prolific love of learning and demonstrable familiarity with high quality academic life would empower members and publics of the UP Cebu community to be the best they can be in ways that no other type of chancellor will.

Since a university’s primary responsibilities are instruction, research, and extension, UP Cebu, looking forward under new leadership, should have a fit-for-purpose administrative structure. UP Visayas, UP Diliman, and UP Manila to name a few other units have vice chancellors for (a) research and extension, (b) student affairs, (c) community affairs, and (d) planning. A new chancellor should be sworn in who would advocate for the creation of offices such as those enumerated to unburden and raise the efficiency of its vice chancellors for academic affairs and administration while empowering crucial arenas of the academic community. Such a change anticipates the rise in the student population with the end of the K to 12 transition years and the institution of new academic programs.

University infrastructure, furthermore, should ideally buttress its research activity. Heavy investment in continuing subscriptions to world-class journals for multiple disciplines should now be of utmost priority to deepen and broaden the store of knowledge in the custody of the university library. Faculty, students, and researchers can do more scholarship with greater access to more knowledge. Future members of the UP Cebu community should enjoy not only new construction projects but be freed from the need to improvise and rely on external funds for research and its dissemination.

The recurrent problem of administrative work as added yoke for teachers must be dealt with under a new chancellorship. For a long time, teachers have had to accept overload that effectively undermines their classroom instruction, research and creative work, and community outreach. Faculty members whose advanced studies were financed by the Filipino people attest that much of the expertise they honed while on study leave end up dormant upon homecoming. The tasks thrust on them upon resuming work leave them with so little time just to exercise their teacherly development through scholarly reading and reflection, class preparation, grading, and consultation with students. The overload regime should end. New leadership is required to break the setup that overburdens teachers. Such new leadership should enact new policies that will enable faculty members to benefit students and the beneficiaries of research, creativity, and outreach.

As a constituent unit of the national university, UP Cebu needs a new chancellorship to prioritize the growth of academic programs into centers of excellence and centers of development. A center of excellence, in line with the Higher Education Act, is “a department within a higher education institution, which continuously demonstrates excellent performance in the areas of instruction, research and publication, extension and linkages, and institutional qualifications.” That there is only one center of excellence among UP Cebu’s many programs, that most programs have been unable to become departments after six long years means so much is left to be desired in the constituent unit’s academic life. Such enhancement of academic life would be the clear priority of administration under a superbly scholarly chancellor.

3. A chancellorship that is uncompromisingly consultative in its mode of governance is needed.

A high wall has risen in front of the Oblation sculpture and Administration Building of UP Cebu. Behind the building, a high-rise is in the works. Granted that these projects are useful, a community of iskolars ng bayan (scholars of the nation) like UP Cebu nevertheless needs leadership that can and will rise above utilitarian considerations in expanding or renovating the school. The campus is not only a second home to Cebu’s UPians. It is also a showcase of results of excellent communal thought. Through broad consultation, stakeholders would have been able to state that the Administration Building demands more respect as a treasured artifact of cultural heritage, that its aesthetic elements should not be sullied by nearby obstructions. Through broad consultation, students, teachers, staff, and alumni would have had the chance to point out that the high wall draws a line of separation, both physical and psychological that makes UP Cebu uninviting and unwelcoming to the people who are supposed to be the ends of its pahinungod (oblation).

A new chancellorship is needed to revive the culture of consultation and participatory governance in UP Cebu. That UP Cebu holds twice-yearly University Council meetings exclusive to teachers who are at least assistant professors and twice-yearly multi-sectoral assemblies does not automatically mean it fosters consultation geared toward democratic governance. Lecturers and instructors who make up a large segment of the teaching force are disenfranchised by being excluded from the University Council by default. New leadership should restore the regular holding of unit-wide meetings that give not only senior but also junior and auxiliary faculty in whose hands lie the teaching force’s future opportunity to participate in university governance. A new chancellorship is also needed to reenergize university-wide committees, arenas that empower even students in university governance. The next chancellor’s promotion of a new culture of consultation should reach the Chancellor’s Advisory Council. It would be enriched by alumni and other sectoral representation.

4. Leadership that is willing to confront national challenges is in order.

Our nation-state’s democratic experiment is in grave danger due to resurgent authoritarianism, populism, illiberal trends and disinformation in public discourse, attempts to upset our constitutional order, and consequences of the government’s foreign policy and geopolitical decisions. Likewise, the Filipino people contend with continuing woes of unemployment, underemployment and non-inclusive economic progress, as well as with perils intrinsic to living in a disaster-prone region of the globe in a time of climate change.

As the voice of the national university in Central Visayas, the chancellorship should be by nature inclusive. As leader of a community of the learned, the chancellor should be the first to speak on behalf of the afflicted, bringing the university’s primarily intellectual resources to their aid. They include the urban poor who as UP Cebu’s neighbors have a claim to its assistance in their quest for shelter rights; victims of human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings who cry for justice; persons enslaved by illegal substances who need rehabilitation; survivors of catastrophes like landslides who need help in rebuilding their lives, and people as in the education, religious, and labor sectors suffering hate speech and other forms of oppression. These communities and others have an urgent moral claim to the university’s outreach. After six long years, they will be best served by a new chancellorship, one that envisions a UP Cebu that ignores fear of consequences to stand with and care for the larger community.