Iskolar ng bayan—a title aspired by many students and yet few are given the chance. Hence, making it both an opportunity and a privilege to acquire free access to education. Nevertheless, do not be blinded by the label, for with great privilege comes great responsibility.
Polytechnic University of the Philippines, commonly known as PUP, is one of the largest universities in the country in terms of the student population—with over 70,000 enrolled students. The university has more than twenty campuses and extensions ranging from Central Luzón, Southern Luzón, and Metro Manila. Even before the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, that requires to give all students at public universities and colleges right to free tuition and fees, was passed in 2017, PUP’s undergraduate tuition has been exactly ₱12 per unit since 1979—this is due to the student’s active activism against tuition fee hikes.
Now that we’ve mentioned activism, PUP has long been labeled as ”Kuta ng mga NPA” by outsiders or people who haven’t even been to PUP. The university’s reputation for student activism has long been laboring under the misapprehension that it is for the destruction of the government, when in fact, it is an act of practicing one’s basic human rights and being involved in social issues as early as possible. In my ongoing three semesters, as an architecture student, I can attest that the university offers a diverse community wherein you can meet people with different beliefs and ideals; from the progressive thinkers to the conservatives, from the leftists to the pacifists, from the passable rich to the poorest of the poor—individuals that we don’t know we needed to widen our perspective in life. Being in the university means you are constantly surrounded by principles aimed at improving the lives of Filipinos and they may represent it through a variety of ideas and notions. Some people might use activism to communicate their views, and some may be physically silent but are a part of a publication or in the creative industry. As a result, it is impossible not to be aware of the country's numerous issues and to participate in whatever way is possible. With this fact, I have learned to get along with different people and accept views different from my own. Moreover, being in PUP will give one an immersive experience of being in other people’s shoes; sharing the same struggles, the same sentiments, and one ideology—humility, empathy, and nationalism.
The Polytechnic University holds plenty of symbols of its values and principles that can be seen not only inside the campus but within most of its students and product—some of the noteworthy graduates are Ar. Royal Pineda; the Co-Founder and Lead Architect of BUDJI+ROYAL Architecture+Design, ABS-CBN Radio commentator and broadcast journalist; Ted Failon, and Rustica Carpio; an actress, playwright, philanthropist, and a former public servant.
Staying at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines will teach you a new language you never thought you could understand; radical love and equality. Meeting its diverse people will let you see all your prejudices, bigotry, and injustices you never know you had. What’s good in this is you get to have yourself unlearn the toxic traditions passed down from generation to generation and reinvent yourself for the better and the betterment of the country. To be clear, they don’t teach this in-between classes or allot a whole subject for this matter, but just by simply staying in the university, observing and being involved, you’d already be enlightened to what society we are living in.
If you are a freshman or a transferee of the university and see yourself gradually changing from how you talk and how you think towards society and ideas, don’t fret. You are just starting to talk in the language of PUP that you never thought you could understand; radical love and equality.
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