Dysfunctional campus politics: The future begins here

Disheartening.

This is how I would describe what I’ve learned of politics in my entire stay in De La Salle University. It’s been 4 years since I entered this school and I’ve become more and more pessimistic about politics in general.

Unlike most universities, we don’t have a ‘student council.’ Some time ago, the student council decided to pattern itself after the Philippine government – not exactly the most functional model to follow. They began to call themselves the ‘University Student Government’ (USG).

It’s a system so needlessly complicated that most students graduate without ever understanding how it works. There’s a central government of sorts that’s divided into several offices, which doesn’t include the legislative and judiciary branches. There’s also a college government for each college, and a batch government for each batch in each college. Got all that? It’s as complicated as it sounds.

There are so many students in the government that it’s ridiculous. In the past year, there was one office that was said to have as much as 600 students. What this many people do, I can’t say for certain. But student representation is barely one of them.

Throughout my stay in this university, the two biggest changes that affected me were the shift from a 4-day school week to a 6-day school week and the shift back to a 4-day school week the following year. Many of the faculty and students were against it, but we never got an explanation for the whole process. I did not feel, even once, that my student government stood up for me during the whole debacle. Instead, I heard excuses that there was nothing the USG could do against the administration.

We have a USG that bows down to the dictatorship of the school’s administration – an administration that rarely ever listens to the voices of the students. But isn’t the point of having a government to have someone fight for the students who can’t stand up against the school’s administration by themselves? Shouldn’t standing up for students be, first and foremost, the priority of any student council or government?

There are so many places in our university that are in need of this. For example, we have a justice system where students are guilty until proven innocent. If a student is accused of cheating, because of the slow pace of the proceedings, only one or two terms after the student has failed the course can the student have the case reversed if s/he was innocent. This would tremendously delay the student’s graduation.

These problems should be the focus of the USG, yet they would rather have their impact felt by hosting parties and selling T-shirts.

Campus war 

Another noteworthy thing about DLSU politics is the two-party system made up of Tapat and Santugon. These two political parties have been embroiled in a rivalry that’s as filled with vitriol as an ADMU-DLSU basketball game. There’s name bashing, rumor spreading, and backstabbing from both sides. I can’t remember an election where one party didn’t try to get the other disqualified.

When these two parties campaign during election period, they have the same gimmicks found in our country’s politics. The parties go room-to-room doing a ‘sabayang pagbigkas’ like the ones found in high schools, except these one’s are in major want of substance.

If parties spend 5 minutes in a room – already a small amount of time –  about 4 minutes is spent either repeating the names of party members like broken records or claiming they stand for ambiguous virtues like ‘a just and free society.’ But these virtues don’t tell students anything about the candidate’s platform. And the funny thing is that this benefits no one. Students hate this style of campaigning and so do the candidates, yet they do it year after year.

This style of campaigning, I strongly suspect, is a significant contributory factor to the animosity students feel towards the political parties. Last year, an independent candidate won, and a lot of people who I knew didn’t vote came out to vote for him. It brought hope to a lot of people that things would change within the government, but students are divided as to whether that change did happen.

Student apathy

The biggest problem in DLSU politics, however, is student involvement. While the voter turnout in DLSU is higher than most colleges and universities, there’s still a general sense of apathy among students. (READ: Is our generation anti-political?)

I’ve had many a conversation with students saying they don’t see what the student government is doing. But these same students don’t even know of things they ought to know, like the government’s (complicated) political structure or that the minutes of the meetings of the government’s legislative branch are (supposedly) available online. These same students are the ones who fail to let their government know their discontent.

The state of DLSU’s student politics is similar to that of our country: it’s dysfunctional and too many people feel hopeless about it. But the university is such a small community – the issues are less complicated, and the repercussions are less severe – so it should be a lot easier to get it to work. Yet, we still can’t seem to.

That’s why it’s so disheartening. If it’s already so difficult to change things at the university level, then how much more when things get harder, when the stakes are higher? If we can’t make things work in the university setting, then what hope can we have for our country?

In the words of my university, “the future begins here.”– Rappler.com

John Sarao is a 4th year student in De La Salle University-Manila pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Economics. He is currently a feature writer in The LaSallian, one of the school’s student publications.

What is campus politics like in your university? Share your thoughts and stories to move.ph@rappler.com.