For more than a century, the Philippine government has been spending billions and billions of pesos through the University of the Philippines in an effort to provide quality education to the people. The opportunities have been there. If you ever took advantage of these, good for you. If you or your family never did, that was your fault. Not exactly, really.
The putting up of UP Baguio was done more than half a century ago. It is testament to the government’s not having forgotten you and me. The opportunities it offered have been placed right on our doorsteps. We should have picked up some of these and went on to have better lives. But only very few did. While most of the rest of us did not even know about these. Even up to now.
Ask any brilliant kid graduating from high school anywhere in the Cordillera if he ever considered going to UP for college and the chance of him responding to you with a blank state is 99%. He could have just said. “What is that? Is that something to eat?”
Whose fault was that? Why were the people who needed most a UP education so unaware of what the State University could offer— and FOR FREE at that?
Was it UP Baguio’s fault for leaving the Cordillerans in the dark? Or did it not have the necessary budget for extension work to reach out to the nooks and crannies of this region?
Or was it the shameless negligence of the UP alumni members to inform others of the kind of education they obtained which others could have also aimed for?
How about parents, teachers, guardians or educated relatives who could have shared such information if they were in the know?
Finger pointing though would not serve any purpose at this point.It would better serve our while to spread the good news. UP Baguio is now headed by a very compedtent lady chancellor, Dr. Corason L. Abansi, PhD., who has in her heart the future of brilliant kids in this region and nearby areas. It is a part of her unmentioned mandate due to her awareness of the reality around. And perhaps her being married to one who traces his roots to a remote town in Benguet.
She is backstopped in this by the head of the Ugnayan Pahinungod (UP’s volunteer service arm) who is a true blue Kankanaey. The folks in the hinterlands can ask him their concerns about their kids’ going to UP and they would get answers straight from the heart.
And it is not just about getting college degrees. Due to her management expertise, the chancellor was instrumental in the college’s plans of offering short courses, for instance, to bridge the gap between those desirous of earning a college degree and those who just want to learn the necessary skills to make them better entrepreneurs.
There are also the career development opportunities which UP Baguio offers every now and then because education never stops or ends.
Such are concrete and serious efforts to reach out to us Cordillerans, for our better future or for those of our kids. Let us take advantage of these. Or else we will have no one to blame but ourselves for whatever rut we might later find ourselves in.**