Upon enrollment at a law school of a Catholic university in Manila, I was made to sign a conforme prescribing the kind of conduct and discipline the university imposes on all its students.

At the onset, I was taken aback. Not only because I had come from a relatively more liberal environment in the University of the Philippines, but I simply found it repulsive that there are specific prohibitions on what I’ve always thought were personal and political rights.

I understand the concept of “academic freedom” on the side of educational institutions and that they are granted institutional liberty to define what to teach and how to teach concepts and even character and values, but when institutions use this liberty to invade the realm of personal conduct and even appearance in guise of character-building, I think it is wrong.

Aside from prescriptions on personal and inter-personal conduct, there are also vague prescriptions on political actions such as rallies and strikes. In the list of policy guidelines, it is noted that in order to achieve and maintain “peace and order,” students must refrain from “joining boycotts, assemblies, parades or marches, or other gatherings that tend to create unnecessary noise and/or disturbance.” Another provision desists students from “instigating or leading illegal strikes/rallies or similar concerted activities resulting in the stoppage or disruption of classes.”

These provisions virtually bans all rallies, because all rallies create “disturbance”. It is in the very nature of such demonstrations. These provisions were used consistently to suspend and expel student activists in the university.

That was odd, too, I thought. Were they spitting at their own rules when they sent contingents to oust a president in 2001 and sanctioned mobilizations and campaigns to abolish the ROTC that same year, or when they joined anti-government demonstrations in 2005, 2006 and 2007? Were they not creating disturbance when they vehemently campaigned against the Reproductive Health Bill? Also, how come they are honoring and claiming national heroes and martyrs as their own, when they branded them as subversives and heretics during the times they were fighting for independence from the institution’s own colonial roots? Should we not emulate them?

I do not fault the university for bending its own rules–for its hypocrisy. In fact, such instances reinforce the basic idea that institutions of learning and education can never be insulated from the economic and socio-political environment, regardless how they try to refrain from engaging in political activities. As a community of concerned individuals, there will always be an attachment among its members to the greater society.

I hope that students of this university I’m going to be a part of will not be afraid to heed the call of the times. When the times call for us to defy our own rules, so be it, with our without the sanction of the university. They may call us heretics or hooligans, and they may even expel us, but history will judge us as heroes and revolutionaries who served the people with all our hearts and passion, the same way the very institution now claim fame and honor to a handful of patriotic martyrs of the past. In taking sides with the oppressed, we would have served God more than any of them probably would.

I eventually signed the conforme because I will not be able to enroll if I didn’t. More importantly, regardless of the conforme’s prescriptions, I have faith in what is just and right, and I know we can defend any action based on the Catholic institution’s own universal ideals of peace and freedom for all peoples.