University of the Philippines

Here's a blog post from a bitter very opinionated blogger , named Dennis that made UP bloggers and other bloggers go wild at Plurk last night.

UP Students: Fake Scholars

UP students are not supposed to be called “Iskolar ng Bayan” (Scholar of the Nation). They are “paying scholars”. If you are paying more or less PHP 21, 000, would you really feel that you are indeed a “Iskolar ng Bayan”? Upon enrollment, UP students get in line to pay for their tuition holding wads of cash roughly four times thicker than those from New Era University would pay for. I am sure that we don’t need figures, charts, and statistics to prove the veracity of my claim.

Had it been somebody from PUP, PLM, PNU, TUP, or any state university/college who boasted himself as “Iskolar ng Bayan”, I am inclined to agree. Otherwise, if it’s from UP who claims such, I will maintain the same incredulous revulsion.

Braggart, think twice! Admit it or not, you don’t deserve to be called “Iskolar ng Bayan”… in the true sense of the word.

First of all, UP is not a state university but is now the National University of the Philippines.

I do think that his comments are too literal. He based it solely on the financial state or cost of education in the university.

For me, it is not really a big deal if we're calling ourselves as Iskolar ng Bayan; we brand ourselves as such because people pay for a part of our tuition fees. Our tuition fee might get as high as P21,000 but we are still subsidized by the government (06 and below, most specially who only pay P300/unit). The colleges and programs plus other UP chapters' budget are all handled by the government; we get a tiger share from the funds alloted for the national universities. In fact, 75% of the whole fund is alloted to us and that's why we claim that we are Iskolars ng Bayan.

The accusation is too hasty. We are the best of the best, thus we still deserve to be called as Scholars, since we do excel. The fake scholars title point-blank gives me such anger to the author of the blog entry.

He even asked this: Do you really deserve the “label” accorded to you?

And I will answer it with my head up high: Yes. We do deserve the label accorded to us. You see, the label does not limit us of the cost of education or what the heck increase in tuition fee. The service, excellence and the principles embedded in our curriculum plainly magnifies us being worthy of such label.

We admit that the tuition fee increased by a huge percentage but that does not discount us from being scholars. We get quality education. We manage to excel and stand out amongst others.

We don't claim that we are the ONLY ISKOLARs ng BAYAN, but we claim ourselves as such. We justify ourselves by being the best in any path we take. We give back and we do our best to deserve such privilege.


Off Topic:

He doesn't even know that it's good if he's getting hits. Moreover, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

I don't want to get personal. He said he could've enrolled his MA here at UP. Well, good enough you didn't. You don't deserve to be labeled as ISKOLAR ng BAYAN.

In fairness, I got irritated with his post.


Note:

I just can't take it that he called us FAKE. I mean, UP students as Fake Scholars.

FOR ME, the term "ISKOLAR NG BAYAN" is more than pride, privilege or what; it is a challenge for us, UP students to strive hard and prove that we are the best in any way we're heading. That we deserve to be labeled as such because we can prove that we are indeed ISKOLARs ng BAYAN.