NUSP wants NYC chair Ronald Cardema to resign

FILE: Students joining a rally. (Photo by Ginno Alcantara/Philippine Canadian Inquirer)

The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) on Wednesday, February 20, told National Youth Commission (NYC) Chairman Ronald Cardema to leave his post after he received backlash from the public and several government officials for proposing to remove government scholarships of students who join rallies or protest against the current administration.

NUSP Deputy Secretary-General Raoul Manuel said Cardema is “copying his boss [President Rodrigo] Duterte] and “acts like a tyrant so insecure that he attacks our right to express as enshrined in the Constitution just to silence critics and watchdogs of government policies.”

“Students of today continue to protest because amidst free public education, majority of students in senior high school and college still suffer from expensive tuition and other fees which increase annually. To our shock, the NYC Chair just wants these students to shut up and suffer in silence,” Manuel stressed.

On Tuesday, Cardema asked Duterte to issue an executive order (EO) eliminating “all rebellious anti-government scholars” from the government scholarship program. He specified those students who allegedly have links with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDFP).

For Cardema, protesting against the government means “fighting the majority of the Filipino people” and also “not fulfilling their roles as the expected breadwinners who uplift their families and as our hope in strengthening our country.”

Apart from his latest remark against the students, the NUSP said the NYC chair committed other “blunders” which the group believes are sufficient basis for his resignation.

These include: “using NYC as platform to endorse administration-backed senatorial candidates, red-tagging legal student organizations, and being silent on pressing youth concerns such as school fee increases and lowering of minimum age of criminal responsibility.”

Malacañang, also on Wednesday, did not agree with Cardema’s suggestion.

“We are [a] government of laws, not of speculations. If that’s only a suspicion, that’s not allowed,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a press briefing.

But if it is proven that the students are allied with groups that want to overthrow the Duterte administration, Panelo said the government has to take an action.

“Kung sila ay sumasama lang sa mga rally (If they are just joining rallies), that’s a right. That’s freedom of expression. That’s freedom of assembly. Unless you can show concrete evidence that they are really part of those who are against this government hindi naman pupwede iyon (that is not allowed),” he stressed.