“MORE than half of the Filipino student and youth sector is made up of women. They experience the gravest character of the Philippine educational system. Incessant tuition and school fees increases, militarization in the campuses, harassment and sexual aggression are among the lashes experienced by our Filipina students and youth,” Ms. Sheryl Alapad, Secretary General of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) said.
SheStudents are faced with the threat a new round of school fees increases and impositions as school administrations have started this February to propose such fee hikes. As prices of commodity goods and other services have escalated to stratospheric prices, Filipina students and youth are forced to drop out of school and/or to engage in anti-social means like prostitution. “Either Filipina students drop out of school or sell their bodies in exchange for the amount of their tuition fee in what is touted as “prosti-tuition,” Alapad said.
“NUSP has also received reports of increasing military aggression in our colleges and universities, where elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have red-tagged progressive student leaders, illegally procured personal and private information of student activists, many of whom are women, and instigated fear by stalking and harassing the students,” Alapad said.
“The University of the Philippines, for one, continues to seek the whereabouts of its students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan ‘disappeared’ or abducted by elements of the AFP,” she added.
NUSP also said that many schools discriminate Filipinas students by not addressing complaints against sexual harassment and aggression. In the past months, NUSP said that Filipina students have been bullied, harassed, beaten and murdered. “We are far from just being alarmed at the increasing rate of sexual harassment and aggression, that’s why we call on schools to ensure policies on gender and sexuality necessary to protect the students,” says Alapad.
“These are but only a few of why the student union affirms its stand to end violence against women. We call on our fellow students and youth, men, women or members of the LGBTQI sector, as well as our teachers and school officials, to join in our demand to end the wanton violence against women,” the group said.
“Now, more than ever, it is imperative to expose and end the commercialized, colonial and fascist educational system as one of the requirements to end violence against women. It is also imperative to institute a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented education,”said Alapad.