Panaad at Kabilin: Pagtatalaga kay Kgg. Angelo A. Jimenez bilang ika-22 Pangulo ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas
14 September 2023 | Thursday | 9:00 AM
UP Mindanao Atrium, Tugbok, Davao City, Davao del Sur
Thank you all for joining me here today, in one of our beloved University’s most meaningful rites of transition. I am honored and humbled by your presence—not only my colleagues in the University and comrades in arms, but our distinguished guests who have come from far and wide, and our gracious hosts in this beautiful and vibrant city of Davao.
Today my heart is filled with joy, because I have come home—home to this great island of my birth, to the cradle of my hopes and dreams. Those hopes and dreams have never been mine alone. They have been nurtured and pursued by every Filipino born, as I was, far from what have become our country’s centers of wealth and power.
I say this with some irony, because we often forget that once upon a time, Mindanao—and particularly my home city of Butuan—was that very center. As we often say where I come from, “Before there was the Philippines, there was Butuan.” It was a city of goldsmiths and shipbuilders, of a proud and industrious people who ventured far beyond their shores to make their mark in the world.
I, too, have been fortunate to travel far, driven both by my hunger to learn and by the demands of my profession. I went as far as war-torn Iraq where, as a hostage negotiator, I physically grabbed Filipino hostage Robert Tarongoy into freedom and safety in the middle of Baghdad’s bloodied streets. My wife and I also came home with a new daughter, an infant left at our doorstep, a blessing from God whom I am delighted to be with us today.
I also wish my dear parents were here to share this moment with me, but I know that they are watching and listening, happy if not a bit disbelieving how far in life their son has come.
But no matter how far we go or how long it takes, we always come home. That is who and what we are. Like Ulysses, we roam the farthest ends of the earth in search of adventure and bounty—or, in the case of our 10 million OFWs, of a better future for their children.
I am home today not to boast of what I have achieved by the grace of God, but to share what I have learned, and beyond myself, what this great institution I am now privileged to lead has achieved and what it can still offer.
Datu Mankalagan to my Manobo family, and Angelo Azura Jimenez to everyone else, I humbly accept the honor and the challenge of serving as the 22nd President of the University of the Philippines. I do so with much optimism and enthusiasm, tempered only by my awareness, gained over these past six months of practice, that the leadership of this University is one of this country’s heaviest and most complex responsibilities.
But it is also the opportunity of a lifetime—not just mine, but that of my generation—to serve the Filipino people with all I have learned from this institution and from my engagements with the world.
I came of age under the shadow of martial rule. I learned that even under adverse circumstances, there was much that could be done to seek for ourselves and our society the benefits of knowledge and collective action. As a student leader, I felt and understood what burned in the heart of every Isko and Iska: the desire to serve and to make a difference in the lives of our people. Beyond our much-vaunted talent, this is the true hallmark of a UP native, the service gene that seems to have been coded into our DNA.
We chose our own paths. I became a lawyer, and devoted myself to advancing the welfare of our working men and women. I never expected then that I would be where I am now, coming full circle, on an upward spiral, from student to president.
But as I am reminded every day by the many exciting things that pass my way—a new research program, a request for UP’s expertise—I remain and will forever be a student. In these years ahead, I will listen to you, my dear colleagues, my seniors and my juniors, drawing on your wisdom and experience to make the best possible decisions for the good of our University and our people.
I pledge to be fair, to be transparent, to be accountable, and to serve you to the best of my ability. If I do wrong, let me know how we can set things straight and move forward. If I do right, then encourage me to stay the course, to be firm and strong, and above all, to be humble.
I’m especially honored to be joined today not only by my UP family, but also by the presidents and representatives of our State Universities and Colleges, for whom we have organized a summit meeting. This summit will explore the many possibilities for enhancing and strengthening partnerships between our institutions. I will address these possibilities in our meeting tomorrow, at length and in greater detail.
But let me share with you today the three main concerns that have occupied my mind since I submitted myself to lead this University.
First, UP has had more than a century to produce leaders of the highest intellectual caliber and technical expertise. And yet, too many of our people remain mired in abject poverty, in hunger and despair.
When UP was founded, its brief was simple: “to give advanced instruction in literature, philosophy, the sciences and arts, and to give professional and technical training to every qualified student irrespective of age, sex, nationality, religious belief, or political affiliation.” Rafael Palma gave it a higher purpose: “In the struggle of the Filipino people for nationhood, the University is the embodiment of the hopes and aspirations of the people for their cultural and intellectual progress.”
But beyond nurturing the Filipino mind and spirit, should UP have been more explicitly charged with raising our people’s material welfare? Are we doing enough at present to promote economic progress and social justice among our people?
Second, UP was conceived as a university for the Filipino people—and by “people” today we mean more than 110 Filipinos spread out over 82 provinces and 17 administrative regions, not to mention almost 200 ethnolinguistic groups. But how well is this diversity represented in our student population, even across our eight constituent universities?
About 60 percent of our students today come from private schools, and we know why. Our educational system remains terribly skewed in favor of children from privileged and urban-based families, and our admissions policy unfortunately does not do enough to correct that bias. If we are to be a truly national university, this has to be addressed.
Third—and speaking of our special status as a national university—UP all by itself accounts for 20 percent of the national budget for higher education, with the balance to be shared by more than 100 other state universities and colleges. There are reasons for what seems to be our inordinately large budget, given UP’s advanced capabilities in both teaching and research.
But with this tremendous privilege comes the commensurate responsibility to share what we have and what we know with others. A true national university cannot stand in isolation from its environment, but must nurture that environment. If not everyone can come to UP, then UP must go not only where it can help raise academic standards, but also where it can cooperate and collaborate as an equal partner, and learn from SUCs with advanced and specialized expertise in certain areas. Like myself, UP must remain an eager and active learner.
In all these, our guiding principle must be service to our people and to humanity at large. When our chancellors, vice presidents, and strategic advisers met recently to help me chart the course of my administration, our most significant decision was to add one word to UP’s hallowed motto of “Honor and Excellence.” That simple but deeply meaningful word was “Service.” Honor and excellence inhere in the individual, but service looks beyond the individual and locates him or her in our nation and society. It reminds all of us that a UP education has been paid for by the sweat and the sacrifice of our people, and that every UP graduate has a lifelong responsibility to pay back that debt through service to society.
As an institution, under my administration, UP will discharge that responsibility by sharing its knowledge and resources with other SUCs.
I am also a firm believer in initiative and resourcefulness. We all deserve more support from the government, but there is much we can do by ourselves, among ourselves, regardless of what the government can provide. The synergy we can create—between and among our CUs within UP, and between and among our SUCs—can be a vast resource for Philippine higher education.
In this age of globalization and artificial intelligence, and faced with threats and opportunities on all sides, we have little choice but to venture forth into that brave new world and meet whatever is out there—like Ulysses, that traveler to distant lands, driven by his desire “to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.”
I have no doubt that with the right attitude and preparation, we will survive together, we will prosper together, and we will prevail together.
Mabuhay ang UP, mabuhay ang Pilipinas, at mabuhay tayong lahat. Marami pong salamat!
