LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The newly elected president of the State-run Benguet State University (BSU) stands to face serious problems on housekeeping and effective and efficient management brought by the fragmented groups within the higher education institution.
Dr. Feliciano Calora, Jr., a former vice president for academic affairs of BSU and a Director of the Science Research Division of the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Aquatic Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), was elected by the BSU Board of Regents Tuesday amidst strong opposition from various sectors in the institution considering that the community, alumni and the institution were deprived their respective voices during the selection of the new BSU president.
The 4-year term of Dr. Ben D. Ladilad as BSU president expired last December 5, 2015 and he was not renewed for a second term after he missed the outstanding rating by merely 2 points after members of the private sector who assessed his performance gave him a failing grade.
Some representatives of sectors in the institution consider the appointment of Dr. Calora as a positive step towards realizing the vision, goals, mission and objectives of the institution compared to the other three applicants who are all insiders from the school.
Calora was able to obtain 5 votes from the 8-member Board that voted during a closed-door meeting at the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) central office in Quezon City while the three votes were reported distributed among the other applicants, Dr. Janet Luis, Dr. Felipe Comila and Dr. Dominador Garin, all occupying sensitive positions in the university.
BSU insiders who worked with Calora when he was with the university then claimed that the new president has the bias against Igorots considering that he relies on the advises of his province mates from Laguna and the alumni of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) who want to control the affairs of the institution.
The sources warned that if Calora will continue to be allegedly anti-Igorot and will bring back the Laguna and UPLB connection, he will not enjoy the support of the administration and staff, thus, he must listen to the advises being given to him by Cordillerans because they are the ones who are aware of the affairs of the institution compared to those from his Laguna and UPLB connections.
According to sources, Dr. Calora will be confronted with serious problems created primarily because of the fragmented groups inside the institution who want to lord it over for their own personal and political interests at the expense of the interest of the institution as it tries to vie as one of the premier public higher education institutions within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community.
While some groups within the university welcome the election of Dr. Calora, other factions in the institution continue to lament the members of the Board of Regents for their failure to assert their authority over those who maneuvered the pursuit of the election because the full representation of the community was not attained with the appointment of one of its representative as a labor arbiter.
Further, the issues on the federation of the faculty and the alumni were not settled by the Board before the conduct of the elections which casts doubts on the integrity of the exercise and the outcome of the same.
BSU is being eyed as the center of the regional university system being proposed by the CHED in the Cordillera but because of the current state that it is encountering as a result of divisiveness which have been imitated by various interest groups, its compliance to international standards of education is being compromised.
Some of the neutral groups in BSU called on feuding factions to get their acts together and give a chance to the new leadership to settle down before voicing out there sentiments for the greater interest of providing quality education to the present and future generations of students wanting to enrol in the state university. By Dexter A. See