Dear Dr. Azanza:
I write as a concerned senior faculty member of the Catanduanes State University, but I may as well invoke my being a former part of your close-in team as Vice President for Research, Extension and Production Affairs (VPREPA). I raise urgent concern re developments in the last seven months or so where you were apparently carrying out sustained and concerted initiatives for prospecting – and arguably for early campaigning – for a local elective position.
You may not have expressed your intentions explicitly – as that would be against the law – but your actions speak louder and plainer than words. Indeed it had now become a taken-for-granted fact among CatSU constituents and the public-at-large. It is currently the talk-of-the-town in various settings high and low, both for speculations among pundits or for the manufacture of juicy intrigues by lesser mortals.
Therefore, Mr. President, you are now on the spot. Arguably, you are much more famous now than when you started out in July 2021. While that would spell great advantage to one trying to create name-recall among the electorate, it is worth reminding that it can work the opposite direction, too.
But whichever, my main concern is not so much about your political prospects: I am taking issue this far because it is weighing so heavily and badly on the University. Surely, this is a free country and anybody can aspire to compete in the electoral arena. But it becomes anomalous when a sitting university president prematurely takes initiative towards this end. We, the constituents of CatSU, are being made to endure the spectacle of our academic Chief Executive engaging in the un-academic game of politics, played out through its most unbecoming tricks such as the engagement of trolls (e.g. the Agta vs. Amigo showdown on social media). Such an ordeal most of us bear in discomfiture, from head-scratching embarrassment to utter resentment.
All that, Mr. President, is eroding the University’s sense of academic dignity. It diverts our focus from our sworn purpose, diluting and dissipating our driving motive force for the pursuit of academic excellence. It is an aberration of the academe’s raison d’ etre, an adulteration of the University’s true nature. Suffice it to say that it is causing serious values disorientation especially among our primary clientele, the students.
In this regard Sir, with due respect, I am strongly putting forth the suggestion that you give up posthaste your position (read: resign) as President of CatSU. At first look, it might be construed as a weakness on your part, but it could be the very mark of uncommon strength given the circumstances. It is the noble and decent thing to do. In your particular case, such an act stands to redound to the benefit of both yourself and the CatSU:
It will allow you full concentration on doing groundwork for your political plans, surely a demanding undertaking for a start-up. It will rid you of the baggage of accusations of opportunism among the people who cannot help but think that you might be using your prerogatives as university president for your personal vested interest.
It will relieve the University of the unwanted ordeal and start the process of restoration to its essential sense of being, a necessary “detox” or purging to bring back academic integrity and health.
I daresay that any delay in employing the suggested corrective measure will only exacerbate damage on both parties. To wait for this irregularity to continue up to October 2024 is to confirm the opportunistic intent on your part. Indeed, Mr. President, your immediate action on this matter, surely a sacrifice on your part, will be inscribed in the University’s annals as a master stroke of statesmanship, a selfless gesture of upholding the common good over one’s self-interest. It will accrue to your already impressive qualifications and prove your métier as genuine “Public Servant.” Who knows, it could enhance chances of winning hearts and minds of the electorate.
I must clarify that this is not about your accomplishments. I was witness to some of the goods that you brought to CatSU. In due time, credit will be given to whom credit is due. You know well about your legacy, albeit any claims of a “Golden Age” (as has been intimated by some over-enthusiastic assessment) is preposterous and premature; it will have to be established after some distance in time, during more sober and objective reckoning.
This, too, is not about the host of accusations of malpractice of governance on your part that circulated in the wake of your change of gear towards political ambitions. You know well that such is part of the territory, this unearthing, manufacturing and hurling of dirt. In any case, those accusations will have to be objectively threshed out in the proper forum.
This, Sir, is simply a giving vent, an articulation of an urgent concern among those who care about the University. Let go as soon as possible and allow both yourself and CatSU to flourish on according to each other’s respective fates.
But just to wonder aloud, I am really perplexed at your seeming willingness to abandon your commitment to CatSU short of your complete tenure. It is demonstrated not only in this current much-hyped pursuit for a local elective position come May 2025, but earlier on in your application for UP presidency even while you were not halfway in your term of office at the University.
To end, let me thank you publicly for allowing me to be your VPREPA for two years and share with your original HOPE program of governance. I had my misgivings about those two years which I have conveyed to you in a confidential letter immediately after I was eased out of office, but which must remain between the two of us. I extend, too, my wishes of good luck to your future endeavors. If ever, the battleground of electoral politics is a veritable “jungle out there,” a Wild, Wild West as you must have started to realize.
Very truly yours,
RAMON FELIPE A. SARMIENTO, PhD
Faculty member, Department of Social Sciences