14/08/2026
ππππππ πππππ ππππ ππππ πππ ππππ!β£
ππ ππ ππππ
-πππππππ πππππππ ππππππ!
β£
PULSO san Mag-aaram firmly condemns and rejects House Bill 9414 and House Bill 9861.
Behind the polished facade of declaring the University of Eastern Philippines (UEP) as a βNational University for Sustainability Studiesβ lies top-down, unconsulted Charter Change engineered to subvert our institutional spaces, a rebranding built not on reform, but on the erasure of the studentryβs voice.β£
This proposed revision guts the principles of shared governance and democratic consultation. β£
β£
Tingog Partylist Representative Jude Acidre, 4Ps Representative Marcelino Libanan, and Eastern Samar District Representative Christopher Sheen P. Gonzales filed these bills in Congress without presenting them to the Board of Regents, the Academic Council, or the Administrative Council. They did not undergo even a single meaningful conversation with the students, faculty, and staff of the university.
β£
PULSO san Mag-aaram cannot overstate the direct harm this proposed Charter Change inflicts on the studentry. Our own Student Regent has gone on record: House Bill 9414 was never discussed during Board of Regents meetings, and no consultation was conducted with the BOR before it was filed in Congress. The one seat meant to represent student interests in the university was cut out of the process entirely. Worse, the Academic Council, the body that deliberates on curriculum revisions, graduation requirements, and every academic policy that touches student life, has met only once during University President Cherry I. Ultraβs entire term.β£
β£
This reduces student academic representation to a rubber stamp. It took the persistence of our own student publication, The Pillar, not the administration, to even surface these facts to the public. An administration that hides its own governance failures from its students has no business asking them to trust a rewritten charter.β£
PULSO san Mag-aaram and the entire UEP community must not forget the millions in unutilized fiduciary funds accumulated during Ultraβs term. The Commission on Audit (CoA) itself recommended that the funds be released βso as not to deprive students of the benefits therefrom,β confirming what students have long felt on the ground: our own fees, meant for our own welfare, sit idle while facilities crumble and services go neglected. A budget failure that has become a unifying battleground for the entire campus community is not a student issue alone; it is a shared crisis for students, faculty, and staff alike.β£
β£
Moreover, Section 21 of both bills adds insult to injury by quietly charging the cost of this rebranding against βthe current yearβs appropriations of UEP and its other internal funds,β the very same limited pot meant to fund scholarships, faculty salaries, staff benefits, and campus services. While over P72.83 million in student-funded fiduciary money sits untouched during Fiscal Year 2024, students study in rundown facilities, faculty and nonteaching staff endure delayed benefits and poor working conditions, and research goes unsupported.β£
β£
Section 12 of both bills permanently seats the Chairpersons of the Senate and House Committees on Higher and Technical Education as sitting members of the UEP Board of Regents, the Universityβs highest policymaking body that decides tuition, budgets, and the election of the University President. This is no longer the informal political meddling PULSO has fought against before. This is political intervention permanently written into the UEP Charter itself, by law.β£
β£
Let us not forget: politicians do not concern themselves with our University out of goodwill. Control over the Board of Regents is control over the future of this institution, and once written into law, it cannot simply be voted out.β£
β£
Even more alarming is Section 22, embedded directly within both HB 9414 and HB 9861, which automatically hands the incumbent University President a brand new statutory term along with eligibility for reappointment. This backdoor provision bypasses the open, competitive, merit-based search process required by law, trading institutional safeguards for political accommodation. True administrative continuity is built on functional, democratic institutions, not legislative shortcuts engineered to keep one person in power.β£
β£
While the proponents claim national leadership in sustainability, UEP has remained ineligible for the governmentβs Performance-Based Bonus every year since 2017 and received a damning Adverse Audit Opinion from the Commission on Audit in 2024, the worst financial report card a public agency can receive.β£
β£
Meanwhile, in the 2026 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, UEP placed at the very bottom among participating state universities in Region VIII. A university cannot credibly lead the nation in sustainability when it cannot even be accountable to its own students in delivering quality education, providing scholarships, maintaining decent facilities, and ensuring faculty and staff receive the salaries they rightfully deserve.β£
β£
PULSO san Mag-aaram has long been vocal in resisting political meddling in our university matters, and we will stand firm once again.β£
β£
We demand the immediate and total rejection of House Bills 9414 and 9861 in their entirety, a full legislative investigation into UEP's recurring audit failures, and the complete restoration of genuine shared governance. We call on all students, faculty members, nonteaching personnel, and alumni to defend our university against self-serving charter change.β£
β£
The studentry will not be an afterthought in decisions about our own universityβs future.β£
β£
ππππππ πππππ πππππ ππππ πππ ππππ!β£
