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Open letter from Earthline and Supreme Student Council
of Kalinga Apayao State College

We, the members of the Earthline student publication and the Student Supreme Council of Kalinga-Apayao State College made a joint statement to be released on the Foundation Day of KASC on January 27-28, 2005. This statement contained our opinion on the following issues: the absence of Student Trustee since October last year and the constant postponement of its election, the implementation of the subject thesis writing 2 to the BSC Management graduating students which is not present in their curriculum and the increase of tuition fee for the first year students School Year 2004-2005 without the legally-required consultation.

On the night of January 26, the College president, Mrs. Venus Irving Lammawin, Mr. Placido Alsiyang, Dean Edgar Naganag, Dean Manuel Bilagot and Dean Valentina Attolba came to my house (Ms. Liberty Balnao, Earthline staff). They said that the Foundation Day is a big day for all of us and that pushing through our campaign would destroy it and create chaos. In our opinion, the statement basically contained information that the students had to know. The Foundation Day is an event where students, faculty and administration gather and was seen by us as the proper venue to express our position on the different issues in the school and to advance our basic rights as students.

The administration demanded that we stop or postpone the distribution of the statement on the KASC Foundation Day.

I told them that I do not have the power to do so because it is a collective work and not my personal move. As I insisted that the plan will be pushed through tomorrow, they insisted on asking me the same question on different forms.

Threat was their final step. The president said that they discovered that I am a transferee and under probation. So, they can kick me out if the distribution of the statement continued They even said that they have decided on the matter already. Knowing that they cannot just simply kick me out , I kept silent. At this point, my family is very harassed.

My parents are trying their best to send me to school to graduate. They don’t deserve to be visited by some influential people and be told that they can expel their child out of school if I insisted on the campaign – a campaign which aims to fight for the rights and for the benefits of the students and not to destroy any program as these people claim.

This is a clear form of harassment.

At the same time, Dean Tenay fetched the SSC Dagupan president James Fernandez and went to our house but they decided to end our talk. James Fernandez together with the respected visitors went to Bulanao and interrogated him.

It is the duty of the SSC and Earthline to fight for the students. We do not deserve to be harassed by the school administration by being responsive to our duty.

We continued with mass distribution of the statements last January 27 but the administration ordered the confiscation of the statements and threatened all students involved in its distribution.

These incidents are f human/student rights violations done by the KASC president Venus Irving Lammawin. She is not a public servant but an opportunist and abusive politician alike the rest of her followers.

Liberty Balnao, KASC Earthliner
27th January 2005

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