At a glance:

• Claim: The University of the Philippines (UP) campus in Diliman, Quezon City is a barangay (village). It is the only barangay in the Philippines without a police station.
• Rating: MISSING CONTEXT
• The facts: The University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, is different from Barangay UP Campus, but the university occupies a huge part of the barangay. The university also has its own police force that cooperates with the Philippine National Police (PNP).
• Why we fact-checked this: A reader emailed the claim to Rappler for verification. 

Complete details:

A Facebook post by a Monching Lumantas on Friday, January 22, claimed that the UP campus in Diliman, Quezon City is “not only a university campus” but “is a barangay.” 

The post added: “It is also the ONLY barangay in this country which has its own ‘private army’. UP Diliman has 240 guards securing the university, a figure which is not enough to cover the large land area covered by the premier state university.”

This is missing context. UP Diliman, the university, is not a single barangay but extends through several barangays in Quezon City. The whole campus grounds span 493 hectares.

There is a barangay called UP Campus, but it does not cover the entire university. Even Lumantas’ post acknowledged this. While the university occupies a large part of the barangay UP Campus, the zoning maps available at the official website of the Quezon City local government show that the whole UP Diliman extends through the barangays of UP Campus, Krus na Ligas, San Vicente, Culiat, and Pansol. These areas are also surrounded by informal communities.

In an Inquirer.net report on Saturday, January 23, UP Diliman vice president for public affairs Elena Pernia said that these barangays are under the jurisdiction of the Quezon City government. She added that UP Diliman campus should not be interchanged with Barangay UP Campus.

“When you say UP Diliman, it refers to the academic institution. UP Diliman is headed by the chancellor. Then it also has UP System offices. UP Diliman also has various buildings, housings,” Inquirer.net quoted Pernia as saying. “But when you talk about Barangay UP Campus, that’s an LGU (local government unit).”

UP Diliman, the university, also has its own police force called the UP Diliman Police (UPDP). It is the university’s primary police body following the 1989 accord between UP and the Department of National Defense (DND).

Although UPDP is not under the jurisdiction of the PNP, it has been cooperating with the Quezon City Police Department Headquarters and Anonas Police Station 9, according to a statement UP released on Sunday, January 24.

In the same statement, the university said that the UPD Public Safety and Security Office has “over 620 security personnel who perform 24/7 operations around the campus.”

UP released the statement to address the government’s allegations of drug activities inside the campus and the area being  a “crime hotspot.” The university denied this and said that data from UPDP “saw a drop of 63% in the number of recorded cases, from 247 in 2019 to only 91 in 2020.” (READ: ‘What if there’s a shabu lab in UP?’ AFP uses drug war to justify termination of accord)

A reader emailed the claim to Rappler for verification. The post had 310 shares, 508 reactions, and 15 comments and as of writing. It was posted after the DND on January 18 ended the government’s decades-long accord with UP that prevented state forces from entering its campuses without permission. – Pauline Macaraeg/Rappler.com

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