UPV Chancellor: beyond the cards

Green. Blue. Red. Orange.

For a few hours on Sept. 14, choosing the next UP Visayas chancellor looked deceptively simple. Green meant in favor. Blue meant in favor with reservations. Red meant against. Orange meant against with reservations. Dr. Clement Camposano and Dr. Joefe Santarita raised their positions, one issue after another, while the UPV community watched, compared, agreed, disagreed, and probably took screenshots. It was clever, visual, and refreshingly direct. But when the next chancellor finally sits behind the desk, there will be no colored card marked “right answer.”

As a UP Visayas alumnus, that was my main takeaway from Tapatan 2026. Students, faculty, REPS, administrative personnel, contractual workers, campus journalists, and transport representatives brought both nominees into the same room to face the same questions. Unlike the formal consultations and separate public forums held earlier, Tapatan allowed members of the community, both online and in person, to compare not only the nominees’ positions but also how they explained them. The forum was organized by the All UP Academic Employees Union – Iloilo Chapter and the UPV University Student Council.

And there were many questions. The stance-building portion ranged well beyond matters a UPV chancellor could directly decide. At the UP System level were the proposed PHP 2.95 billion budget cut, the UP-DND Accord, UPCAT, the proposed 36-unit reframed General Education curriculum, professional development grants, and rules governing off-campus research and immersion. Campus questions included the 4.0/5.0 Latin-honors disqualification rule, an institutionalized midsemester wellness or reading break, transportation, student and cultural spaces, regularization of long-serving contractual workers, fiscal autonomy for student councils and publications, rights-based personnel promotion, and the Collective Negotiation Agreement. The nominees also faced national, international, and local questions, including the SOGIE Equality Bill, the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, the West Philippine Sea, Atin ang Kinse, Gaza, immigration, the Panay-Guimaras-Negros bridge, Jalaur, public-market privatization, Pandan-Ibajay Road, and regional power-grid stability.

Not every question concerned something a UPV chancellor could directly decide. That did not make the questions irrelevant. UP leadership carries a public and intellectual responsibility, and a nominee’s position can reveal how he understands rights, autonomy, public institutions, and the University’s role beyond its gates. Still, a colored response card should not be mistaken for an administrative promise. Some questions tested what the nominees would do; others tested how they think.

The questions closest to campus life were even more revealing: faculty tenure, plantilla items, publication autonomy, workplace bullying, transportation, student spaces, and the damaged bamboo footbridge. These are not policy abstractions. People encounter them on an ordinary Monday. A vision paper may promise transformation. A student who cannot get from one campus to another on time experiences that word differently.

Take transportation. A representative of the Bolho-Sapa-UP Tricycle Owners and Drivers Association asked what the entry of four-wheeled public vehicles would mean for existing drivers. Camposano said the arrangement had undergone years of consultation. Santarita acknowledged that he needed to study the issue further. I appreciated that exchange. Leadership includes knowing what you understand and admitting what you still need to learn. The more dangerous answer is confidence delivered before the question has been understood.

Then came the bamboo bridge. Asked about the damaged and unstable passage between the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Technology, Camposano said it had been closed and that repairs were being pursued. He added, almost wistfully, that he liked the bamboo. The line was easy to remember, but the problem beneath it was serious: people needed a safe passage, funds were limited, and somebody had to decide what could be preserved and what had to be replaced. University leadership involves grand visions, but quite a bit of it is also made of bridges.

The discussion became more serious when staff raised unhealthy workplaces. Camposano spoke of workplace bullying and the need to involve psychologists, guidance counselors, and other specialists. Santarita proposed an anonymous feedback mechanism and a grievance committee. Both responses sounded reasonable. The real test is whether such a mechanism can protect complainants, guarantee due process, and convince a frightened employee that speaking up will not make working life worse. That is where a forum answer becomes governance.

The nominees came into the room carrying different burdens. Camposano entered near the end of his second term with an administrative record open to examination. Incumbency offers proof of experience, but it also brings unfinished work and difficult questions. Santarita brought the perspective of a former UPV faculty member, UP Diliman professor, and former dean. He had no UPV chancellor’s record to defend; his burden was showing that his proposals could survive budgets, bureaucracy, and compromise.

So I hesitate to make Tapatan a scorecard. We could count the colors and assign each nominee a convenient label. It would make the comparison simpler, but not necessarily clearer. Leadership rarely is. A reservation may indicate hesitation, but it may also indicate that someone sees a complication worth examining. Agreement may reflect principle, or simply that an issue is easy to support in public. Even disagreement needs context. On the 4.0/5.0 Latin-honors disqualification rule, Camposano supported the policy while Santarita opposed it. On the proposed institutionalized midsemester wellness and reading break, Camposano was against with reservations, while Santarita was in favor with reservations. The colors tell us where they stood. The reasons tell us much more.

This has not been a quiet chancellor search. In a public statement, former Iloilo City mayor and UP alumnus Jed Patrick Mabilog urged stakeholders to reject personal attacks, character assassination, misinformation, and fake news. His appeal did not ask anyone to soften legitimate scrutiny. An incumbent’s record deserves examination, and a challenger’s promises deserve testing. Allegations should be investigated, but they should not be repeated as established facts before the evidence is checked and the person concerned has been heard. A forwarded screenshot does not become proof simply because it confirms what we already want to believe.

There is another lesson in the process itself. Consultation is essential, but the loudest applause should not decide everything. Under the UP Charter, the Board of Regents elects the chancellor upon the UP president’s nomination, following consultation with the constituent university. The challenge is to listen seriously without turning consultation into a vote, and to exercise judgment without using it as an excuse not to listen.

I hope the next chancellor listens especially to those easiest to overlook: the contractual worker still waiting for a plantilla item, the campus publication navigating paperwork, the student counting every additional fare, and the driver wondering whether a new transport arrangement will erase his livelihood. They are not side issues. That is what the University feels like on the ground.

Political will matters, but stubbornness is not political will. Good leadership listens without becoming afraid to decide. It requires compassion that can survive budgets, rules, deadlines, competing demands, and the occasional angry Facebook post. The next chancellor should know when to change course, when to hold the line, and how to explain the difference.

As an alumnus, I have my own impressions. Other alumni, students, faculty, staff, and community members will have theirs. That is as it should be. The point of Tapatan was not to make everyone think alike. Its value was in putting questions where they could be heard and answers where they could be examined. The forum made disagreement visible, and in a university, that is healthier than manufactured unanimity. It also reminded us that the least glamorous questions can be the most revealing. Ask about academic freedom, certainly. Ask about global affairs. But also ask about the employee who cannot get an item, the organization waiting for reimbursement, the commuter stranded between campuses, and the bridge people are afraid to cross.

Soon, the stance cards will be put away and the screenshots buried beneath newer posts. The next chancellor will then face the less photogenic work of leadership: incomplete information, limited funds, competing interests, impatient constituencies, and decisions for which no green, blue, red, or orange response cards have been prepared.

That is the real test after Tapatan. The cards showed us where the nominees stood. The chancellor’s decisions will show us how he stands when there are no cards left.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.