AN OPEN LETTER TO UP PRESIDENT EMERLINDA R. ROMAN

ALL-UP ACADEMIC EMPLOYEES UNION
The Union of UP Faculty and REPS
Member, All-UP Workers Alliance


PROMOTIONS SHOULD NOT BE LIMITED TO FACULTY BUT SHOULD INCLUDE REPS AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF


Dear President Roman:

We congratulate you on your investiture as the 19th UP President and the first woman president of our university.

Your investiture speech "The University of the Philippines: A National University in the 21st Century" delineates the attitude and direction of your administration with regards to the challenges of governing UP in the context of reduced government resources for education.

We are looking forward to working with you on areas of agreement between the union and the UP administration while maintaining our union responsibility of critiquing and opposing policies and projects inimical to the welfare of faculty, REPS, administrative staff and students. But as in our past dealing with you as Chancellor of UP Diliman, we know that our relationship would be one of openness to dialogue and principled disagreement and debate.

At the moment, we would like to bring to your attention our concern over official announcements made by the Chancellors and contained in your speech that "funds have been identified to support faculty promotions this year." This is welcome news as the last promotion in the UP System was in 2000. However, we are concerned that while the call for promotion for the faculty appears to be a "sure thing" with funds clearly earmarked for it, promotions for REPS and administrative staff are still dependent on fund sourcing. You said: "We are also doing our utmost to identify funding sources to allow the promotion of ever-dependable and loyal staff who continue to be by our side in pushing the University forward".

The past three system-wide promotions in 1995, 1997 and 2000 involved all three sectors of UP employees. This is but just considering that promotions not only give recognition to the meritorious service rendered by UP employees but also provide step or rank promotion with its corresponding increase in salary. With no salary increase in the past four years of the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency, promotions are one way of adding to the meager salaries of UP employees. Our REPS and administrative staff receive relatively lower salaries than many faculty members and equity considerations demand that promotion should include them as well.

All the faculty, REPS and staff are here as a team performing the various functions that help the University going. Thus, the All UP Academic Employees Union would like to request you to ensure the simultaneous call for promotions of all UP employees and not to limit such call to the promotion of faculty members alone. With this as a starting point, then guidelines for the sharing of the limited resources among the three sectors can be formulated.

We hope for your consideration.


August 3, 2005