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STRUGGLE FOR EDUCATION RIGHTS, RESIST STATE ABANDONMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION OF EDUCATION
Solidarity Statement from the Philippines
March 4, 2010
Various students and youth belonging to the ANAKBAYAN Philippines (Sons and Daughters of the People), League of Filipino Students and Student Christian Movement of the Philippines, together with the National Union of Students of the
Philippines and College Editors Guild of the Philippines, join in solidarity with the students, youth and education sector across the
United States of America in the March 4 Nationwide Day of Action to
Defend Education. The picture is clear everywhere. It is
the people who bear the brunt of rescuing big capitalists in this
great recession, with the increasing slash on social welfare funding
including education.
In the US, the anti-students and
anti-people policies like the policy of 32% tuition hike passed by
the University of California Board of Regents last November 2009
deserve the strongest condemnation of the youth. Most affected also
are the peoples of color and the students from working families who
are still struggling with their outstanding mortgages.
Similar cases of tuition hikes have
also been experienced in other states, all blaming cutbacks in
government funding.
Last year students, workers and faculty
in the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New
York (CUNY) also militantly defied Governor Paterson’s ill-willed
proposal of $698 million education budget slash which were to
directly effect a raise in tuition fee for SUNY up to $620/school
year, $600 for CUNY and $400 for community colleges.
In Europe too last November, there had
been massive workers-supported students strikes like the mobilization
of about 250,000 all across Germany in the clamor against the
introduction of tuition increases and curriculum revisions.
Students in Austria and even in
Scandanavian countries decried the bail-out for the banks and held
walk-outs and “university occupations” in resistance to the
European Union’s Bologna process which is to drive education more to
serve imperialism.
Student movements in Asia Pacific
especially in Indonesia, India and Korea had also agitated against
the worsening condition of the youth with the state abandonment of
education.
We therefore commend our fellow youth
and students in California, New York City and throughout the US for
their courage to stand up inside the “belly of the beast”.
Cut-backs on state funding is
abandonment of government’s responsibility and an outright attack to
the people’s most basic right to education. It paves way to tuition
and exorbitant fee increases, academic staff lay-off, cramped up
rooms, and a host of other infringement as commercialized regime on
education is imposed in various levels.
To delude the public, the government
use as an excuse the “nominal increase” in education funding
which is always lopsided and unproportional to number of new
entrants. The more obsene is the use of the argument that higher
education is no longer a right and therefore with the use of the
“globalization mantra” everyone is urged to pay for their
education. Education is a commodity with a price-tag.
In the Philippines, the myth of the
“liberal education” instituted from the American direct
colonialism in our country up to current regime, is unmasked as an
ensuing and worsening education in crisis that is colonial,
commercialized and fascist in character.
The global recession only further worsened
the Philippine education sector for in truth, the current Arroyo
regime has been ruthlessly attacking our basic right and with all
servility imposes the policies of imperialist globalization that has
led to worsened commercialization of education. In the tertiary level
from 2001-2008 alone, the Arroyo regime presided over the 70%
increase of the national average tuition and an allotment of measly
1.8% of GDP given to the entire education budget, pathetically way
below the international standard and among the lowest in the world.
This attack is done side by side the enriching of international
usurers as the government favors foreign debt servicing and
militarization in the annual national budget.
What happens to the youth who cannot
continue their education? They are added to the battalions of reserve
labor force or unemployed or join the cheap semi-skilled work-force
who are most exploited in times of capitalist crisis.
Faced with such attacks on our
fundamental rights, we have no other option but to fight back. This
is a lesson we have learned through decades of fearless struggle, and
a lesson we will continue to uphold until we are victorious.
Once again, we Filipino youth raise our
fists in solidarity with you in the continuing struggle to end the
foreboding annual budget cuts and tuition increases. We must join our
hands in resisting the onslaught of imperialism against our education
and the youth’s future.
Education is a right, not a
privilege!
Long live international
solidarity!
