Vision and acceptance of UP president Alfredo E. Pascual

(Second of two parts)

To continue with my talk, allow me to share further thoughts on some key points of our vision for UP.

On relevance. As the national university, UP must give paramount consideration to national concerns. UP has a historic commitment of service to the Filipino nation. We shall continue to provide a fertile ground on which to nurture and harness the creative and innovative talents of our people in science and the arts. In the 21st century, we shall also help the country become a significant and positive player in global society through innovation.

UP must be heard and seen by the nation. Our experts in various units of the University have already been doing excellent work in addressing policy issues and getting their voices heard. We shall institutionalize a system by which our experts can provide a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving and policy making.

On research. To be able to truly impact national development, UP must upgrade its research and development (R&D) capability, building it up from its existing and promising centers of excellence. Through R&D, we shall work to find innovative solutions to problems of the country, our people and our industries, and introduce technology-based products to create new industries that can spur job creation.

Our faculty members produce research and creative outputs in the natural and social sciences, humanities, and the arts. We shall have a program to communicate these outputs in an accessible language. This will facilitate their easy application by our people and industries. In addition, we shall protect the intellectual properties coming out of our laboratories and facilitate technology transfers that will yield fair economic benefits to our researchers and the University.

On our faculty and staff. UP must recruit, maintain and develop the best academic staff. Through incentives and professional development programs, we shall entice our best graduates and the best graduates of other great universities in the country to commit themselves to professional careers in the University.

Our personnel are a precious resource of the University. We shall observe employment terms that are fair to all categories of staff. In due course, we shall review the principle and practice behind the UP compensation system. The review will emphasize the links between productivity, equity, motivation and improvements in compensation, especially the non-cash components, such as housing and healthcare. Performance-based incentives will also be explored.

On our students. Surely, UP must admit only the best high school graduates in the Philippines. But as the national university, UP must also take steps to adopt an inclusive policy that democratizes admission. We shall work with local political leaders in preparing top high school graduates in provincial areas to compete for UP admission.

Much as UP is badly in need of funds, raising tuition fees in our undergraduate and research programs will not be our default solution. Our students must remain as Iskolar ng Bayan - enjoying an excellent but affordable tertiary education in a public university. Sometimes qualified students are forced to forego a UP education because of financial inadequacy. We shall do our best to prevent this. We shall strengthen our scholarship and financial assistance programs to provide adequate and timely need-based support.

With globalization, our graduates will be working in a fast-changing world in the age of information. Through curricular reviews, we shall ensure that our students develop the capacity for critical thinking; for continued learning; and for effectively dealing with ambiguity, complexity and uncertainty.

In addition, as the national university, UP must also prepare its graduates for leadership roles in the country or in their respective disciplines and professions. We shall ensure that our curricula and teaching methods are designed appropriately to respond to these needs. A strengthened general education program should enable our students to develop broader perspectives and a cross-disciplinary orientation, sound ethical standards, the values of good citizenship and, hopefully, a strong bias for serving the country.

On financial sustainability. For UP, financial sustainability is a serious concern given the need to modernize its campuses, retain talents in its faculty, and achieve a world-class research university status. Under the 2008 charter, for instance, UP may get out of the ambit of the Salary Standardization Law and fix competitive salaries for its faculty. But for us to do this, we must be sure of a reliable inflow of extra funds, beyond our annual budget, to sustain the increased funding requirements. For this we need to build up sizeable endowment funds and/or implement sufficient revenue-generating activities. To illustrate, for us to provide our close to 4,000 faculty members an extra pay of just P100,000 annually on average, we need a commercial venture that provides an annual income of P400 million or an endowment fund with a corpus of no less than P8 billion (assuming a five percent annual return). In reality, we need multiples of the illustrative amounts given.

On generating funds. Many say the problem is availability of fund sources. That is true in some sense. But we have to look also at what we present for funding. My banking experience tells me that good, bankable projects seldom have problems getting funded. We shall thus exert efforts to formulate our projects and programs very well in order to attract funders, be they the government and its agencies, donors, investors, corporate organizations, or international institutions. 

The new charter provides for 150 percent tax deductibility of donations to UP. In an era of rigorous tax enforcement, this incentive can serve as a material inducement to prospective donors.

On government funding. UP needs a long-term funding commitment from the government over and above what is currently being allotted to it annually. We shall try to get this commitment by preparing a long-term strategic development plan that builds the case of UP as a key player in national development.

On development of idle properties. As a land grant university, UP has around 18,000 hectares of idle lands mostly from government. We shall pursue the development of these assets in partnership with the private sector to generate extra revenues for UP. Such partnerships for commercialization of assets should be distinguished from commercialization of education, which is not at all acceptable. We shall observe proper safeguards to maximize the financial gains of UP from its assets. These extra revenues should not replace, in whole or in part, the annual appropriations provided to UP by the national government as assured in the 2008 charter.

On our alumni. Our alumni are an untapped resource for funds and expertise. We shall strengthen our alumni relations in a seamless cooperation with the UP Alumni Association. We shall make our alumni feel they are valued members of the UP community. We shall not scrimp in giving our alumni achievers due recognition. Our goal is to promote among our alumni a culture of giving back to the University.

On efficient administration. It is one thing to raise funds; it is another to use funds efficiently. UP must ensure that wasteful expenditures are checked and administrative processes (such as procurement and hiring) are expedited. The use of information and communications technology (ICT) to reduce voluminous paperwork will be a key to achieving administrative efficiency. There are opportunities to also save on power bills, while transforming UP into a “green” zone. We shall also implement productivity improvements among staff through the creative use of technology and regular training for honing skills and changing mind-sets.

On democratic governance. We shall observe the principles of democratic governance based on collegiality, representation, transparency, predictability, and accountability. In the management of funds and other resources entrusted to the University, responsible stewardship and ethical conduct shall additionally characterize good governance.

The work ahead will not be easy, given the eclectic character of the University and the administrative and financial challenges we face. But with the faculty, research and administrative staff, students, and alumni joining hands with us to move the University forward, I am sure we will make much headway with our vision.

The Office of the President will keep its communication lines open to the UP community. I would love to hear your views, comments and suggestions.

In closing, let me paraphrase the song Tagumpay Nating Lahat: Together, let us reach out to the highest star. Our success will be a triumph for all.

I now call on my team: let us go to work and lead in this quest of making UP a great university - the best in the country and one of the best in Asia and the world.

Maraming salamat po.

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Alfredo Pascual (Fred) assumed the presidency of the University of the Philippines last Feb. 10. He is 20th president of UP and the first to have been elected under a new charter, which was signed into law in 2008 (UP’s centennial year) and which designated UP as the national university of the country. The university he will lead during the next six years is a system consisting of seven constituent universities spread over 12 campuses across the country. UP currently has over 52,000 students and close to 10,000 faculty and staff. Prior to his election, Pascual was the president of the UP Alumni Association and a member of the UP Board of Regents. He is a finance professional who made significant contributions to progress in the Asia-Pacific region as an international development banker and educator. Working at the Asian Development Bank for 19 years until 2008, he charted a successful career that brought him to senior positions in this multicultural organization. At ADB, he pursued pioneering projects and institution-building initiatives that helped the bank respond to the emerging financing needs of the region and catalyze investments in the region’s developing economies, particularly in the infrastructure and financial sectors. Before becoming an international development banker, he was an academic and an investment banker. He spent nine years devoting himself to preparing managers for Asia as professor of finance at the Asian Institute of Management. At AIM, he innovated by introducing new courses to better prepare students for careers in banking and finance. He also nurtured the Institute’s advanced bank management program that attracted many bankers from Asia back to school for skills enhancement. Very early in his career, he contributed to education by serving as an instructor at the UP Department of Chemistry for about a year. Right after his MBA, he served as a lecturer on a part-time basis for four years at the Department of Management Engineering and Department of Business in the Ateneo de Manila University. E-mail him at [email protected].