Author: Enrico Sebastian Salazar

Advanced enlistment slots have been one of the University’s ways to reward students for their academic excellence and involvement in extracurricular activities. Such benefits are distributed based on recommendations of various offices such as the Office of Student Affairs, the Office of Sports Development (OSD), and the Office of Career Counseling and Services (OCCS).

The Office of the Registrar (OUR) allocates a limited number of those slots to certain student organizations, but it has been common practice for executive boards to offer more slots than that limit. It was only in Term 1 AY 2022-2023 that OUR started enforcing the slot count strictly, much to the dismay of organizations who were once able to have many of their members enlisting as early as Dean’s Listers.

Reimposing rules

Amid what seemed to many as a cut, Dean of Student Affairs (DSA) Dr. Christine Ballada clarified that there was actually no decrease in enlistment slots—just stricter enforcement of already existing policies. The OUR justifies their recent stringency due to the influx of students qualifying as Dean’s Listers these past few terms, increasing the number of privileged enrollees.

Given the tightened implementation, Student Affairs and Lasallian Mission units would now have to strictly fill only 350 slots each, according to Ballada. She notes that other offices such as the OCCS are allocated a different number of enlistment slots, which she did not specify. 

“In the past, we went beyond our 350 slots allocation, but the OUR did not call our attention.  However, the OUR [recently] noticed that we were already going beyond the 350 slots and they strictly enforced the limit this term,” Ballada shares.

Student Media Council Director Franz Santos expresses disappointment over the matter. “We are frustrated that the Provost didn’t approve (of increasing the allocated slots) even if we pushed for an appeal a lot of times.”

‘No merit’

Having regular training schedules, advanced enlistment is crucial for student athletes like Animo Squad member Risha Bongabong (II, BS BIO-MED) who is among those who lost their advanced enlistment slot. “Kailangan ko mag-adjust ng schedule at bigyan ng priority ‘yung ibang subjects para mag-fit,” she laments.

(I need to adjust my schedule and give priority to different subjects just so there is no conflict.)

Ballada, the University Student Government (USG), and Office of Sports Development Director Emmanuel Calanog had lobbied for increasing the current number of advanced enlistment slots for both sports teams and organizations over the years with a common argument: the increase in student population.

However, Provost Dr. Robert Roleda found “no merit” in their proposals, noting that the increase would be unfair to students who have no access to the privilege. 

“Regular students will be disadvantaged if more priority enrollment slots are given to a select group,” he justifies.

Adjusting to changes

Various organizations had to rethink their selection processes to accommodate the limited enlistment slots.

Animo Squad Captain Lance Lacsamana (III, AB-SPM) shares that they used to look for qualities such as “dedication,” “leadership skills,” and “active involvement,” but have now decided to narrow these qualifications. Lacsamana expounds, “Ngayong limitado na ‘yung slots, mas bibigyan namin ng priority ‘yung mga consistent sa kanilang commitment at malaki ang naitulong sa team.”

(Now that the slots are limited, we have to give priority to those with consistent commitment and significant contribution to the team.)

With her term coming to an end, USG President Alex Brotonel notes that increasing the number of advanced enlistment slots will now be at the hands of the next set of USG officers. Nonetheless, she assures that her team would continue communicating with the OUR and the Provost. They are also open to collaborate with the incoming USG administration for the next enlistment season.

“The [next] enlistment would [either] be a joint responsibility with or sole responsibility of the incoming electeds,” Brotonel says. “Rest assured that we would still communicate with OUR and the Provost on how we can attain 500 slots for student organizations for enlistment.”

Peace, equity, and justice were the points of discussion in International Lasallian Days for Peace (ILDP) 2020: Choosing to be Catalysts of Peace held last October 16 and 17 via Zoom. The event, hosted by the University Student Government’s Office of the Vice President for Internal Affairs, in partnership with De La Salle Philippines and the International Council of Young Lasallians, saw speakers and participants from across different countries raise awareness on their local socioeconomic issues. 

Fear of ‘dishonor’

“Seventeen percent of Filipino women will experience physical, sexual, or intimate violence in their lifetime,” pointed out Riza Torrado, National Program Officer of the United Nations (UN) Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, in her opening statement. One of the three main speakers of the conference, she gave the international audience a glimpse of the gender issues plaguing the Philippines.

According to her, poor women are more susceptible to abuse and are often unable to leave toxic relationships because they lack their own sources of income. She lamented, “They fear that if they will separate from [their] husband, they will not have something to fend for themselves and most especially for their children.”

She explained that in some parts of the country, a troubled household is perceived as a “dishonor” to the family, which convinces more than 41 percent of women to remain silent rather than speak out about the abuse they experience. 

“It should not be the victim who should feel ashamed [but] the one who perpetrated the crime,” she stressed. 

Torrado highlighted how some organizations have drafted policies to address such forms of violence. One of these is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Treaty, an international bill of rights adopted by the UN General Assembly. Meanwhile, she added that the Philippines has the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004 and the “Bawal Bastos” law to penalize abusers.

“Speak up—violence against women and gender-based violence is a crime and not a private family matter,” she appealed to the audience. “Maybe in the time of our grandparents, this is the dominant perspective…But no, that perspective has to change.”

Attaining peace

In another session, Maryann Donohue-Lynch, the Associate Executive Director for Mission and Ministry of the Lasallian congregation’s District of Eastern North America, reminded the audience that racial discrimination still exists today.

She pointed to the case of George Floyd, whose brutal arrest and subsequent death at the hands of a police officer sparked widespread uproar that resulted in protests and riots across the United States.

Even in the educational system, there are cases of inequality, Donohue-Lynch said, citing how educational performance is sometimes tied to one’s ethnicity or race. “Many have argued that it should actually be termed the ‘opportunity gap’ because the problem is not in the inability of the students, but in the disparate opportunities that they are afforded,” she explained. 

This deprivation of opportunity, which she said is sustained by “systematic racism”, is rooted in “a history of oppression from colonialization, to slavery, to [the] ‘separate but equal’ [doctrine].” 

Meanwhile, social justice advocate Fatou Wurie, the third speaker of the session, described what it was like coming from Sierra Leone, a country that was embroiled in an 11-year civil war from the 1990s to the early 2000s. Despite having some semblance of peace and reconciliation in the years that followed, “we emerged fragile—economically, socially, [and] politically,” she said.

Wurie stressed that true peace would require “intentionality” and the “rebuilding of social [constructs] that [have] been degraded by violence”—something that she admitted may take years to accomplish.

Loving one’s neighbor

Familiar with the “complexities” of the world, Wurie stressed the importance of safety, and how having access to education, shelter, and food has become a privilege. 

“I understood what safety meant,” she added. “That is a feeling that I want [for] every young girl and boy, especially people from disadvantaged [and] marginalized communities.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has only further widened inequality; marginalized communities not only experience poverty and starvation but also have to contend with the possibility of contracting the disease.

Lasallian East Asia District Visitor Br. Armin Luistro FSC encapsulated this divide by pointing out that although people “may be in the same storm,” they are also “on different boats.” 

While he believes that it is justified for people to think about their own safety and forget the rest of the world in times of crises, he nevertheless argued that those who are privileged enough to have proper food and shelter must take the opportunity to help communities in need. 

“The challenge of the pandemic today is to recognize that which is essential—which is deepest and to be able to share that with somebody else,” Luistro said, maintaining that the only way to truly attain peace—especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic—is to see and treat one another as a “brother” or “sister” despite differences in language, skin color, and tradition.

“It’s kind of scary,” expresses Galilee Tan (I, AB-SOC) as she recounts stories of sexual harassment in DLSU.

Empowered by the personal anecdotes that have been posted online, Tan herself shared online her experience of abuse and harassment from her former boyfriend—a De La Salle-Santiago Zobel School (DLSZ) alumnus and a current DLSU student. She has since begun a movement called The Naked Truth, calling for proactive measures within the University to ensure a safer space for all.

Her advocacy had its start last July 12 after screenshots from 2018 resurfaced online, showing several male students from DLSZ making lewd remarks toward female schoolmates—mostly minors—on a private Facebook Group, with an incumbent Business College Government (BCG) officer being among the groups’s participants.

Out in the open

Tan first filed a case against her former boyfriend to the Student Discipline Formation Office (SDFO) early this year. Having witnessed firsthand how her sexual harassment case was handled, she asserts that the University’s response system is “lacking in something”.

She recounts how the team assigned to her case was “very insensitive” during their first and last meeting last May. “They didn’t even read my incident report [before the meeting],” she notes. 

While she believes that it was probably not the office’s intention to appear apathetic, “It made me feel like I’m just a problem for them to solve [and] they just [wanted] to get this out of the way.”

As of press time, Tan has not received any updates or follow-up questions from SDFO after the aforementioned meeting. 

The LaSallian had also approached Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business (RVRCOB) President Nathan Driz for an update on the ongoing case with the BCG officer. He declined to provide further comment as details on the matter remain highly confidential.

Efforts made

Strides toward building a safer campus environment have been long-standing issues for student leaders. Early last year, the Legislative Assembly (LA) drafted a manifesto on sexual harassment following a claim made by an anonymous student via Facebook of a Marketing and Advertising Department (MAD) professor that sexually harassed her and her classmates. The post caught the attention of University administrators, who replied to the post assuring that an investigation was underway. 

The manifesto was unanimously passed by the LA, but it was never published.

Maegan Ragudo, FAST2018 LA Representative, promised to “[lobby] for a strengthened Anti-Sexual Harassment and Discrimination policy” during the 2019 General Elections. Ragudo is now a proponent of the DLSU Safe Spaces Initiative, which is backed by University Student Government (USG) President Lance Dela Cruz. 

As of press time, the draft of the said initiative is “in its final stages”, according to Dela Cruz.

The USG President also acknowledges the quick action taken by the USG on recent cases such as the one involving the aforementioned BCG officer and an incident involving a part-time faculty member from MAD.

Last June 14, the aforementioned faculty crafted a Facebook post insinuating that Sen. Risa Hontiveros should be sexually harassed by New Bilibid Prison inmates, following the senator’s statement against rape culture to “teach men not to rape”. The USG denounced the faculty’s Facebook post and immediately coordinated with DLSU administrators. A day after the incident went viral, MAD Chair Mary Julie Balarbar confirmed that the faculty member’s contract has not been renewed for Term 3.

A systematic change

Yet, despite these efforts, Dela Cruz stresses that changes still need to be made in the University. The USG President criticizes the male-dominated composition of the University’s Committee on Decorum and Investigation—the body that deals with sexual harassment cases sent to the SDFO—asserting that the imbalance could prevent the committee from properly empathizing with victims. 

“Ayokong puro lalaki ‘yung nakaupo dealing with cases that predominantly affect women,” Dela Cruz expresses. 

(I dislike that mostly men are dealing with cases that predominantly affect women.)

Along with ensuring that justice is served, Dela Cruz emphasizes that the victims’ well-being should also be a top priority. “[We need] to make sure that from accommodating their cases down to investigating and giving the right ruling for the cases, naproprotektahan ‘yung biktima,” he furthers.

(The victims must be protected.)

Dela Cruz says that his office has coordinated with the Office of Counseling and Career Services to “[ensure] na may proper counseling sila (victims) so that they would be able to deal with the situation.” 

Tan also continues to advocate for a systematic change in the University. Under the unifying call of #DLSZDoBetter, she had embarked on documenting malicious public tweets and created a “masterlist”, which she initially planned to publicize to “bring [the incidents] to the attention of the [University] administration.”

“Our plans have changed since then,” she shares, having instead been in contact with both the USG and DLSZ Alumni Association to take “a passive role [and] educate [through] online platforms about [stopping] sexual harassment and the discirmination against women” and to tackle “toxic masculinty”.

“To put an end to this kind of culture—to this kind of problematic culture—we really need a systemic change in our policies,” reiterates Dela Cruz. He hopes that during his term, the University’s policy on sexual harassment will change “down to the very people” who decide the internal policies of the University so that students will be “reassured that the system [is] working for them.”