What is the DND-UP accord and why does its termination matter?

After 31 years and five Presidents, the Department of National Defense unilaterally terminated its agreement with the University of the Philippines that bans the entry of military and police officers into the university if they have no prior coordination with UP officials.

According to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, the agency decided to end the pact after citing “information” that communists are recruiting students inside the UP campuses.

However, UP President Danilo Concepcion denied these accusations, maintaining that the university does not condone sedition, armed insurrection, or the use of violence for political ends.

Many critics, students, and lawmakers have denounced the termination, stating that the very act attacked the university’s academic freedom.

What is this pact all about and why should its termination matter to everyone?

1. It was created after a student was tortured.

In 1989, Donato Continente, a staff of UP’s official publication Philippine Collegian, “was abducted, tortured and forced to confess to the murder of American soldier Col. James Rowe.”

According to UP Professor Danilo Arao, the agreement was signed 14 days after the incident, on June 30, 1989, so that it will never happen again.

“Essentially, both accords provide guidelines on military and police presence on campus, particularly the conduct of operations and arrests of UP students, faculty, staff and other constituents,” Arao told GMA News Online.

Arao said the pact, signed in 1989 by then National Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos and UP President Jose Abueva, was an update of the accord between student leader Sonia Soto and former Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile in 1982.

Amid the pandemic, DND decided to end the accord as it claimed that UP had become a “breeding ground” for communist rebels.

UP Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo denied this and asked how this could happen when most of their students weren’t on campus and were studying in their homes.

“Remote learning nga ngayon eh,” he said. “This is an agreement between two parties kaya nakakagulat na bigla nalang ay sabihin wala na ’to. Sabi ng militar, ‘We respect academic freedom in the university kaya kung gusto namin pumasok, magpapalaam kami sa ’yo.’ Gano’n lang naman ‘yun.”

He added: “Kinikilala naman namin ang tungkulin ng pulis na mag-enforce ng law. Kailangan lang ng respeto sa isa’t isa. Ang nakakatakot dito, ang agreement kasi, in a sense, represent the mutual respect between two institutions.”

2. The pact protects students attending peaceful protests.

As seen on the copy posted by the Philippine Collegian, the DND-UP pact bans the military and police forces from entering the premises of any UP campus except in “cases of hot pursuit and similar occasions of emergency.”

Prior notification should be given by a commander should they conduct any military or police operations inside UP.

More importantly, the clause stated that the military and police “shall not interfere with peaceful protest actions by UP constituents.”

The pact also stated that the arrest or detention of any UP student, faculty, or personnel shall be reported immediately by the AFP or PNP to the UP president, chancellor or dean.

The UP administration should also be informed of any search or arrest warrant on any student, faculty, employee or invited participant of the university. No warrant shall also be served without the presence of at least two faculty members designated by UP officials.

Aside from this, “no UP student, faculty, or employee shall be subjected to custodial investigation without prior notice” to the university administration.

With the pact gone, the military and police can now enter UP freely.

“The signing of the UP-DND accord is meant to stop the military and police from abducting UP constituents like Donato Continente who was then our staff at the Philippine Collegian. To terminate the accord is to legalize the deplorable,” Arao said.

3. The move is seen as an attack on both academic freedom and freedom of speech.

Numerous youth organizations and lawmakers denounced DND’s move to terminate its decades-long agreement with UP.

Many UP student councils have spoken up and said that the government’s decision was an attack on both academic freedom and freedom of speech.

The League of Filipino Students (LFS) said the termination was a demonstration of the government’s distorted sense of priorities especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group also said that the movement stemmed from the Anti-Terrorism Law, created only to silence government critics and student-activists. They added that the government’s use of an alleged ”recruitment of students by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA)” was simply an excuse to attack the academic freedom of students the government had “red-tagged.”

However, UP is not the only one to fight against this as Lorenzana has said that he is also looking at terminating the agreements with other schools and universities. 

To address the issue, senators have filed Senate Bill No. 2002, which seeks to institutionalize the essence of the agreement between the University of the Philippines and state forces to uphold academic freedom.

“By institutionalizing the accord into UP’s own Charter, we are sending a message that academic freedom is non-negotiable and must be upheld at all times as it is enshrined in the Constitution,” said bill co-author Sen. Grace Poe.

The Philippine Army, however, said that it was not against UP’s academic freedom and its dissent, progressive acts and peaceful activism.

“What we are after is to end NPA’s armed struggle wherein they use students for their own advantage,” said Army chief Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana. “The Philipine Army is mandated to serve the people and secure the land. UP compound is a public domain and with the issue at hand, the military should not be prevented [from] doing their job.”

Meanwhile, governance professor and former UP Diliman National College of Public Administration and Governance dean Edna Co told GMA News Online that the termination came at the “right time” since not a lot of people could go out to protest due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Ito ’yung right time na talian ’yung kamay ... nasa probinsya estudyante namin, sino magra-rally?” she said. “That’s why ’yung pandemic ang daming consequences, hindi lang sa health, sa economy, pati na rin sa kalayaan.”

4. Academic freedom has both moral and legal implications.

“‘Yung ‘academic freedom’ kailangan i-lay down muna,” said Co. “It is both moral and legal concepts na may pinanggagalingan siya.”

It is moral, she said, because it’s related to value and conviction. “It is the freedom of inquiry, freedom to understand. Kakambal niya ang freedom of speech.”

It is legal, she said, because academic freedom is enshrined in numerous laws and constitutions all over the world, including in the Philippines.

Even in the 1987 Constitution, it is written that “academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher learning.”

“Hindi UP may academic freedom lang,” Co said. “I’m saying historically, legally and technically as a university, nakabaon ’yan. Kaluluwa ’yan ... naka-build sa nature ng isang academic institution ’yung freedom na ’yun.”

“It is the essential basic mission of an academic institution that scholars have freedom to teach, communicate ideas and facts … without being targeted for repression, for imprisonment, or for job loss,” she added. “Dapat academic freedom is without fear, without any institutional censorship. Dapat walang restraint.”

The former dean also said that if there was a problem with the “product of freedom,” then that should be held accountable and not the freedom itself.

“Kung NPA habulin niyo, kung ganoon ’yung labanan, pero hindi mo pwede atakihin ’yung bearer of freedom. Kumbaga that’s below the belt, doing away the character of the university,” she said.

“Kung may problema ka sa outcome, habulin mo ’yung actor, hindi ’yung institution,” she added. “University is bearer ng freedom of speech. Parang tinanggalan mo siya ng basic character ’pag inalis mo ’yung academic freedom.”

Ateneo School of Government dean Ronald Mendoza also said in a statement that with the context of today’s “red-tagging, and human rights abuses linked to extra judicial killings,” the termination of the accord by DND sends “the wrong signal” to all academic institutions in the country that provide “safe spaces for independent academic thought and freedom.”

GMA’s in-house political analyst Richard Heydarian also told GMA News Online that the termination is the latest assault on the “independent thinking and political conscience in the country.”

The abrupt end, said Heydarian, only revives “the dark memories of Martial Law” and “reinforces the spectre of systematic red-tagging under the shadow of a creeping authoritarianism.” 

Concepcion had called on Lorenzana to reconsider his decision and instead have a discussion with the university.

Lorenzana said he was willing to talk to UP officials, but they had to explain why their students were among those killed during encounters between government troops and communist rebels. – RC/LA, GMA News