Robredo: Termination of UP-DND accord aimed at striking fear among dissent

The Department of Defense’s (DND) unilateral termination of its 1989 accord with the University of the Philippines (UP), which bans the presence of police and military in the UP campus without prior notice, is about sowing fear instead of law and order, Vice President Leni Robredo said on Tuesday.

Robredo was referring to the 1989 pact which Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana called obsolete since UP has allegedly become "the breeding ground of intransigent individuals and groups whose extremist beliefs have inveigled students to join their ranks to fight against the government." The Defense chief also called UP a "safe haven for enemies of the state."

Lorenzana, however, did not specify how such recruitment is happening since there have been no face-to-face classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2019.

In a letter dated January 15, 2021, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana informed UP President Danilo Concepcion of the DND's decision to end the agreement, citing information that communists are recruiting students inside UP campuses.

“If this was simply about law enforcement, all the Accord asks is that military authorities give notice to University officials before any operations in UP. This is neither a difficult nor onerous rule, and five Presidents since 1989 have managed to protect both the UP community and the Republic without breaking it,” Robredo said. 

She was referring to Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III. 

“Clearly, then, this is not a practical gesture, but a symbolic one. One designed to sow fear. One designed to discourage dissent. One designed to silence criticism,” Robredo added.

Robredo, who earned her bachelor’s degree in economics in UP Diliman, then argued that the UP-DND accord was forged more than three decades ago to safeguard the UP community from warrantless arrest. Such an arrest happened in 1989 to a staff member of the Philippine Collegian, the UP student paper, in front of student center Vinzons Hall by operatives of the military, she said.

“This was in 1989, when the atrocities inflicted by the Marcos dictatorship and its armed agents on members of the University community—students, teachers, and residents alike—still burned vividly in the memories of many. When murder, torture, and abduction committed, not by those outside the pale of law, but by those operating openly under its aegis, was a reality too recent to deny, and too painful to forget,” Robredo said.

The Vice President then said it is not about sparing UP from accountability, but upholding democracy where the powerful can be freely held accountable. 

“The Accord was an effort to ease apprehensions, not just within the UP community, but among the public at large, that the reign of violence and terror that held sway during the dictatorship had never really gone away. Its aim was not to exempt UP or its community from any law, but to send the clear message that in a democracy, even a fledgling one, law enforcement was conducted following clear rules, within defined limits,” Robredo said. 

“That in a democracy, there was no place for relentless war waged across all borders, without oversight or accountability, against any person those in power had decided to brand “an enemy. The unilateral scrapping of the decades-old Accord sends the opposite message: That under this administration, anyone, anywhere, at anytime, is fair game,” she added.

In closing, Robredo said the public should courage on amid the scaremongering in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is now up to us to decide whether we will give in. Or whether, at long last, we will stand our ground and speak out,” the Vice President said.

“In this, my faith remains firm, we will find our courage and do what needs to be done,” she added. —KG, GMA News