Friends and supporters of the "PUP 5" jubilantly welcomed the five student leaders as they were released from detention at the Manila Police District HQ

It’s been almost a week since the tuition-hike saga of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines concluded with the successful junking of the proposal. It was formalized at the meeting of the university’s Board of Regents last Monday, after weeks of relentless protests by militant students to stop the almost 2,000% rise in tuition. Last Monday, the police also released the five student leaders after the PUP administration dropped charges of “robbery” against them. They were detained after they tried to bring to the office of the government’s Commission on Higher Education (CHED) some of their dilapidated chairs as a sign of protest. The reconciliation of sorts with the university administration came after representatives of Kabataan Partylist and other student leaders from PUP met with the PUP President and demanded the release of their comrades. In the meeting, the PUP President conceded and eventually surrendered to the democratic interests of the students and committed to supporting the campaign for greater state subsidy for the largest state university in the country instead of imposing a tuition hike.

The developments in PUP highlight one thing, now that the university administration has taken the side of the students and the people. The trail of responsibility for the neglect of our state universities and colleges ends at the gates of Malacanang and Congress. It is through the proposals and policies of the government, with the prodding of its foreign multinational lenders, that funding and support for higher education in the country has been on the decline. Despite increasing enrollment in the country’s public colleges and universities, state funding for such institutions has been dwindling over the decades. This year, state universities will get P3 billion pesos less from 2009. The same trend can be seen in countries across the world, from Greece to the United States, as indebted governments bow to the policy dictates of multinational creditors.

The continued neglect of our country’s state universities, notwithstanding the victory at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, sets the context that makes it imperative for the scholars of the people, and the rest of us, to continue fighting for the people’s right to education.

Students from PUP Manila and the University of the Philippines marched together to Plaza Salamanca in Manila to pledge their continuing fight for greater state subsidy for education and other social services