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SLU students file raps against administration

BAGUIO CITY (Apr. 1) — The Supreme Student Council (KASAMA/SSC) of Saint Louis University (SLU) recently filed a case against the SLU administration for non-release of SSC funds. The KASAMA/SSC is seeking for the Courts to order SLU to “perpetually cease and desist from exercising discretion in the release of SSC funds.

Every semester, each student pays P20 for the KASAMA/SSC fee which is held in trust by the administration through its Accounting Office. Roughly, the KASAMA/SSC fee amounts to P400,000 every semester and P200,000 every summer. The fees collected funds SSC projects for the school’s 20,000 students. Since SLU only holds the said funds in trust, the administration’s function in the release of the same is only ministerial.

Petitioners claim that SLU inconsistently and unreasonably refused to release SSC funds for legitimate school activities conducted and participated in by students.

Among the funds that the petitioners are asking the Court to order SLU to release is the P31,500 that was duly approved by the SSC to be spent by the SLU Debate Society for the National Debate Championship held in Manila in November 2004. The SSC officers along with several members of the Debate Society had to borrow the P31,000 from other people.

In an interview, SSC President Arthur Odsey said that the National Debate Championship is one activity that SLU students have always been participating in. He said that it is at the students’ discretion through the SSC to decide on the use of the SSC fund.

Other funds that the administration refused to release include the P53,170 budget for the SSC-sponsored university-wide variety show “Breathe”, P2,000 for the operational fund of the COMELEC for the student council elections, P2,896 for the petty cash of the SSC Executive Committee, P10, 736 for the Tribute to the graduates of the Baguio Association of Government Grantees and Scholars, P11,604 for the Tribute to the Graduates of the Student Library Assistants’ Society, P20,000 for the Tribute to the Graduates of the Apothecaries Society, and P25,009 for the partial payment of lawyers’ appearance fees, litigation expenses and operational fund for Civil Case No. 5825-R regarding the “carry-over scheme”.

As an effect, the student elections have been moved to July 2.

The SSC officers and the students funded the some of the said activities though loans. The petitioners claim that whimsical refusal to release SSC funds is done to spite the petitioners considering that they were the ones who filed the controversial case questioning the “carry-over scheme” of tuition increase. The said case is entitled SLU-KASAMA/SSC vs. SLU, represented by its President Rev. Fr, Paul Van Parijs pending before Branch 3 of the Regional Trial Court of Baguio City.

Odsey said concrete answers are yet to be given by the administration as to why it refuses to release the SSC funds. In letter from Vice President for Finance and Corporate Treasurer Evangeline Trinidad, administration did not release the funds simply because the activity was disapproved.

“How could they disapprove these legitimate students activities when we have been doing these for years?” Odsey said.

Apart from the funds that are being asked to be released, the petitioners are asking the Court to order SLU to pay actual damages in the form of interest on borrowed money which petitioners used to finance the students’ activities, moral damages, exemplary damages, and attorney’s fees.

Odsey added that another fee increase is underway come June 2005. Three hundred pesos will be collected from each student per semester. Odsey added that in the past, the administration has been collecting IT and audio visual development fees.

“What would be the difference?” he said.

The case is set to be raffled in the Regional Trial Court of Baguio City on April 7. The petitioners are being represented pro bono by laywer Alexander Bangsoy. # via NORDIS

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