NO MORE TEARS, NO MORE DEATHS OF ISKOLAR NG BAYAN:
HONOR KRISTELS MEMORY BY RAGING AGAINST THE PROFIT-WORSHIPPING EDUCATIONAL MACHINE
Statement of Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy University of the Philippines Diliman on the First Anniversary of the Death of Kristel Tejada 15 March 2014
The Filipino nation was shocked on March 15, 2013 when Kristel Tejada, a 16-year old freshman studying Behavioral Sciences in University of the Philippines Manila, daughter of a part-time taxi driver and housewife, took her life after failing to settle a previous loan and was advised to file a forced leave of absence (FLOA). Politicians, students, teachers and school administrators were thrown into disbelief. Her death painfully demonstrated that even in a state-funded university, poor students are not excused from the crunching violence of the system that puts profit before students welfare.
But more dreadful than her death is the on-going brutal assault of the US-Aquino Regime against state universities and colleges by subjecting them to downsizing, foreclosures, rationalization, and budget-cut. In the middle of this rising tide of neoliberal barbarism and the brutal onslaught on our educational system, teachers, educational workers and students have been building stronger alliance with other patriotic and progressive sectors of society to demand justice for the pointless death of an iskolar ng bayan! Beyond Kristel as the icon of the failure of neoliberal policies of commercialization and privatization of education, teachers and students are now strongly demanding greater state subsidy for public education. The death of Kristel had intensified the simmering anti-capitalist rage among educators and students to demand that the state be held responsible in providing basic social services to the people. The people are now building up irrepressible resistance to the continuing abandonment of education by the state. Now, we are faced with a forced choice: more deaths of iskolar ng bayan or a humane future.
On the first year anniversary of the death of Kristel Tejada, as we remember this painful memory in the history of the University of the Philippines, as we remember how our useless government and the callous bureaucrats in the state university abandoned Kristel and her family to fend for themselves, we, the members of Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy UP Diliman, stand united with the family of Kristel and all the iskolar ng bayan who are seeking justice for her tragic death. We are resolved not to allow the barbaric policy of neoliberal reforms of education to claim another life of iskolar ng bayan and be offered at the cathedral of profit.
We refuse to be coaxed by those reactionary establishment psychologists and bogus existentialist detractors who use Kristels so-called psychological weakness to explain away her ordeal rather than condemn the unjust system that allowed her death. We denounce those who continue to blast the people who found political cause in her death. We demand justice against the Pilates who washed their hands from this meaningless death. We will not allow her death to go in vain. As her memory is silently passed over by the coldblooded US-Aquino Regime and the merciless bureaucrats of higher learning, we will rage against the sadistic system that forced Kristel to take her life. The mourning is over. We cannot remain forever paralyzed in fear and despair. Its time to move on and heighten our struggle against the bureaucratic machine that killed her. We should not allow this system to continuously pommel violently the iskolar ng bayan and their families.
We will continue to demand justice! Her memory, no matter how painful and brutal, will guide and inspire us to take courage to fight until the end. It will be a mockery of Kristels death if we simply remember her today without waging war against the STFAP system that sealed her fate even if today it mutated as the STS (Socialized Tuition System) monster. Today, our challenge is to harness the immense indignation and the grief we felt and use it creatively and militantly to wage a total war against a system that breaks students will, and plunges them to destitution and hopelessness.
No more tears. No more deaths! We the members of Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy resolutely pledge our relentless pursuit of justice for all iskolar ng bayan. We will always remember Kristel! We will always see Kristels light in the weary faces of poor students and their parents. We believe that the liberation of Kristels memory from the brutalizing narrative of state abandonment of education can only be accomplished if we persistently work to liberate the iskolar ng bayan from forced subjection to daily despotism of the profit-worshipping educational machine. We will abide by the teaching of Katipunan: Defend the oppressed and fight the oppressor!
No more Kristel Tejadas! Justice for Kristel Tejada and all iskolar ng bayan! Down with commercialized education! Oppose neoliberal reforms of education! Fight for free education in all levels! Fight for a nationalist, scientific, and mass-based education!
Antipode Volume 21 Issue 1 1989 (Doi 10.1111/j.1467-8330.1989.Tb00176.x) John Lovering - Postmodernism, Marxism, and Locality Research - The Contribution of Critical Realism To The Debate