WVSU law students hold silent protest vs First Lady as faculty

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

Law students from West Visayas State University (WVSU) on Tuesday evening held a “silent protest” against the hiring of First Lady Louise Araneta-Marcos as one of their part-time faculty.

During their college’s orientation, some students wore shirts inscribed with the hashtag “#NeverAgainToMartialLaw” on the back.

One of them told Daily Guardian that the shirts also bore the words “History Is The Best Teacher” on the front.

Two students also spoke to Daily Guardian on the condition of anonymity to explain the importance of the protest.

Dennis* said WVSU was failing to live up to its core values by hiring Araneta-Marcos, who prior to the election was found to have falsely claimed membership to the New York State Bar Association.

The affiliation is still up on her profile as founding partner of the law firm M & Associates.

Of course, the student likewise magnified the atrocities of the Marcos family during the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., calling the current first spouse an “enabler.”

“When we were being oriented as first-year Law students, the Dean highlighted that WVSU-COL’s goal is to produce morally upright lawyers with a strong sense of social justice. It is therefore extremely hypocritical for the College to hire a lawyer as Criminal Law 1 Professor when said lawyer is an enabler of convicted criminals and human rights violators,” the student said.

“Hiring a Marcos as a faculty member in WVSU is giving the Marcoses a platform for disinformation and historical distortion in Region 6, one of the last remaining anti-Marcos strongholds in the country. This act of supposed public service is nothing but a Trojan horse for their political agendas,” they added.

Milton* agreed with his fellow WVSU law student, saying that allowing the first lady to teach at the college was akin to being an enabler as well.

“As a Taga West, I cannot embody and uphold excellence if I am silent to oppression and historical revisionism. Being silent to this issue means being an enabler to this,” they said.

Daily Guardian has reached out to WVSU President Joselito Villaruz and College of Law dean Pauline Grace Alfuente on the matter, but they have not responded as of this writing.