SAKBAYAN, onward with 15 years of genuine student representation
July 16, 2011
Since its foundation on July 1, 1996 as an alliance of then 25 organizations, fraternities and sororities with a common interest for advancing a pro-people and pro-student education, Samahan ng Kabataan para sa Bayan (SAKBAYAN) remains the widest alliance of student organizations in the whole UP System with more than 50 member organizations to date.
Despite the continuous and direct assault on students’ democratic rights, our alliance, together with the broadest ranks of students and progressive sectors in the university, remains unwaveringly committed to our noble cause of genuine service as “Iskolar ng Bayan”.
For fifteen years, our alliance, backed by the students and the people, has always been the perfect manifestation of success through collective action. In 1997, we were successful in scrapping the then proposed dormitory fee increase in the university. Two years later, we have ousted the anti-student administration of then OSA Director Vivian Gonzales. Moreover, our alliance led more than 5,000 students in our campaign to overthrow the corrupt Estrada Regime in 2001. Recently, we have succeeded in uniting more than a thousand students in UPLB to fight against Large Lecture Class Policy (LLCP) as a commercialization scheme to education.
Consistently, SAKBAYAN pursues the interests of the students whose rights for accessible and quality education have been stepped upon for more than fifteen long years.
As we continue to face repressive actions from the part of the administration, posing insults to our most basic right to education, manifested in the recent STFAP Rebracketing and Tuition Fee Increase, Budget Cut, Large Lecture Class Policy, Dorm Fee Increase and stringent Org Recognition Policies, history will attest to the veracity and validity of our cause. The ever expanding membership of our alliance is a truly tangible proof that our cause and struggle reflects the genuine interests of the students and the people.
Our alliance triumphantly led a 15-year struggle against commercialization and campus repression. As commercialization and fascism become glaring realities we each have to face in the university, dissent and protests becomes imperative for the scholars of the people.
We are ready, more than ever, to make history for another fifteen years of genuine student representation and united struggle against commercialized education!
LUMALAKAS, LUMALAWAK, LUMALABAN, SAKBAYAN!
Posted by maui.