LAs discuss SB 1761, VPs in amendments

The Legislative Assembly (LA) held another session today, February 14, following last week’s session where discussion regarding the proposed amendments to the University Student Government (USG) Constitution was concluded.

Today’s session began with Tristan Felipe of BLAZE2016 and Arianna Salazar of EDGE2013 explaining Resolution 2013-47 which focuses on the proposed LA manifesto on Senate Bill 1761. The bill, entitled “Parents as Partners in Learning Act,” aims to establish a concrete partnership between parents and institutions in the education of children. The bill aims to do so by allocating funds to different educational institutions, and these institutions are given jurisdiction to utilize the said budget to create projects.

“The involvement of parents in the holistic formation of their children really has a great effect on the children,” Felipe explained in Filipino. He says that many universities which involve the parents in the educational process of children really prove that such leaves an impact on the students, citing DLSU’s very own Parents of University Students Organization (PUSO) as an example.

Furthermore, Salazar notes that, “[This manifesto] also goes to show that we as students are very concerned about what [the Department of Education] is going to implement for the future generations.”

However, Binky Suarez of 68th ENG disagrees with the points raised in the manifesto. “I think it’s good that they want parents to be involved but this is not the way to do it,” she said. “Although this is very idealistic, this isn’t what we need right now.”

The LA later agreed that the bill was still very raw and still had points for improvement, and the resolution calling for a manifesto regarding the bill was laid on the table.

After running through the entirety of the proposed amendments to the USG Constitution in the previous LA sessions, the controversial issues were brought to light in today’s session following the discussion on the resolution regarding the manifesto on SB 1761. Two of these issues were identified to be the amendments calling for one Vice President in the Executive Board (EB) as well as that calling for significant changes in the batch offices.

Gregg Tolentino of EXCEL2013 explained to the floor the rationale behind the changes made to the amendment calling for only one Vice President in the EB. These changes now stipulate retaining two Vice Presidents, with changes to their respective duties.

Tolentino elaborates that the Vice President for Internal Affairs would have the task of supervising the EB, as well as the rest of the appointed and elected officers of the USG while the Vice President for External Affairs would bridge the gap between the administration and the students, through the help of the President.

The President also oversees both of the Vice Presidents and is given the duty to represent the DLSU student population in events outside the University. This is as opposed to the current Constitution’s provisions which state that the Vice President for External Affairs is the one to do so, Tolentino furthered. To ensure checks and balances, the Judiciary’s Ombudsman is the one to make sure that the functions of each person is properly carried out.

Discussion regarding major structural changes to the batch offices ensued but no further arguments were raised. The provisions stipulated in the amendments, which would result to each batch having only one batch representative and one LA representative, were only recapitulated.

For next week’s session, the LA is hoping for a perfect attendance and targeting a discussion on the proposed manner of voting as well as one full run-through of the completed, amended Constitution, in order to assure that all amendments have been taken into account.