UP FIGHT!

Echoes of cheers resounded in the Araneta Coliseum as students and spectators witnessed UP's
best opening for the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP) in decades.

Ending the match with a win against De La Salle University, 71-66, students and supporters
raised their fists for the redeemed basketball team, school pride coursing along with each chant,
each holler and each passing moment.

The university may have won a victory, but there are battles it has yet to face.

Among these battles include the impending P 2.2 billion budget cut in 2016, the biggest in the
university's history. While there is an increase for the budget of state universities and colleges,
UP's budget went down from P13.14 billion last year to P10.9 billion this year.

This will force the university to become self-sufficient and come up with income-generating
projects (IGP) in order to suffice the campuses needs.

Some of these IGPs include the newly-established UP Town Center whose construction
disrupted the academic calendar of the UP Integrated School (UPIS).

UPs history of being the best university and the home of the brightest students in the entire
archipelago is now a force to think about due to its commercialized and less accessible state of
education. Before, UP has bred the brightest of the brightest minds and the most competent
students. But that was several years passed. Now, it continues to breed bright minds who can
afford the expensive fees in what was supposed to be a state university.

Pushing the premier state university to be self-sufficient by using its idle assets for
commercialized purposes is a scapegoat for further state abandonment. Once it happens, UP
might lose its primary mandate to serve the people and the nation.

UP students is for the people. UP is the university of the people. UPs mandate is to always give
back to the taxpayers who funded their education. .

Hence, we hope that one day, the UP crowds that filled the stadium for a basketball game can
also fill the streets or the halls to show solidarity in our struggle for accessible education.

We hope that one day, the same voices that cheered on our athletes can also echo our call to put
an end to commercialization.

We hope that one day, the same fists raised in elation can also be raised in protest for budget cut,
lack of dormitories, and suppression of art.

After all, these battles are more than just a game, and we are the UP Fighting Maroons.
It's about time we knew what we were really fighting for.