17/08/2026
AFP-PNP OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES! DEFEND ACADEMIC FREEDOM!
Unity Statement of the National Democratic Mass Organizations of UP Cebu
The Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante, Kabataan Partylist UP Cebu, Bahaghari UP Cebu, and Anakbayan UP Cebu strongly condemn the ongoing militarization of academic spaces, as manifested in the Philippine National Police's attempted use of the University of the Philippines Cebu and its surrounding areas for the Enhanced Managing Police Operations (EMPO) simulation. This is not merely an isolated police exercise but part of a broader attempt to normalize the presence of armed state forces in spaces meant for education, critical thought, free expression, and democratic organizing. Schools and universities must remain zones of peace where students, faculty, and workers can exercise their rights without intimidation, surveillance, or harassment.
The attempted militarization of UP Cebu cannot be separated from the long history of state surveillance, harassment, and repression experienced by its students and organizations. The arrest of the Cebu 8, the abduction and enforced disappearance of Dyan Gumanao and Armand Dayoha, and the surveillance activities of military personnel within campus grounds are not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern in which state forces threaten studentsβ right to organize and academic freedom.
Last May 8, during the peopleβs alternative forum for the ASEAN Summit, police presence intensified around UP Cebu, with uniformed personnel and SWAT units deployed. Student leaders also experienced surveillance and intimidation from state forces in academic spaces and communities.
The normalization of police and military operations in civilian spaces is likewise reflected in the country's expanding military exercises. The Balikatan exercises and other military activities increasingly incorporate civilian infrastructure and communities into military operations, reinforcing the dangerous notion that spaces intended for civilian use can simply become training grounds for armed state forces. The EMPO Challenge follows this trajectory by bringing tactical police operations and surveillance technologies closer to an academic community. Such exercises must be understood not merely through their stated objectives of security and preparedness, but through their material impact on communities and democratic spaces.
This militarization has long been experienced most violently by communities outside the university. Community military operations and counterinsurgency campaigns have disrupted the activities of mass organizations, peasant communities, Indigenous Peoples, workers, and other sectors while subjecting organizers to surveillance, red-tagging, harassment, and threats. The killings of the Toboso 19 in Negros Occidental, including UP Diliman student leader Alyssa Alano, demonstrate the deadly consequences of a state that treats organized people as enemies. These attacks are not isolated abuses but manifestations of a fascist machinery that suppresses those who challenge exploitation and defend the interests of the people.
The PNP and AFP cannot claim to uphold public safety while communities continue to suffer from poverty, landlessness, unemployment, displacement, and inadequate social services. If the government is genuinely committed to addressing crime, it must confront its root causes rather than rely on increasingly militarized policing and surveillance. Crime cannot be solved through tactical exercises while people remain deprived of decent livelihoods, accessible healthcare, quality education, housing, and other basic necessities. Public funds must instead be directed toward social services that address the conditions producing insecurity, rather than further strengthening the state's machinery of repression.
This is rooted in the country's colonial, commercialized, and fascist system. Imperialism keeps the Philippine economy dependent on foreign capital and interests, feudal relations perpetuate landlessness and rural poverty, while bureaucrat capitalism allows state institutions to serve the interests of the ruling elite. Within this system, the AFP and PNP function not simply as institutions for public security but as instruments used to protect an unjust social order and suppress resistance to it. The militarization of communities and academic spaces must therefore be understood as part of the broader machinery of state repression that accompanies imperialist and anti-people policies.
Within UP Cebu, this machinery manifests through the surveillance, red-tagging, and harassment of student organizations and activists who assert their democratic rights. Organizations that campaign for increased education funding, national sovereignty, social services, and the rights of marginalized sectors are treated with suspicion precisely because they challenge prevailing state policies. The red-tagging of organizations such as Kabataan Partylist, including in the course of student consultations and political engagement, demonstrates how repression extends beyond the physical presence of police and military personnel. It seeks to discourage students from organizing, engaging with communities, and developing critical consciousness about the conditions of the Filipino people.
The unilateral abrogation of the 1989 UP-DND Accord in 2021 further weakened the institutional protections for academic spaces against military and police intrusion. Its abrogation has been followed by continued attempts to normalize the presence of state forces within and around UP campuses, further eroding university autonomy and academic freedom. We therefore demand the reinstatement of the UP-DND Accord and the strengthening of mechanisms that protect universities as zones of peace. We likewise support the passage of House Bill No. 9622, or the Safe Schools and Universities Bill, as a measure that can strengthen protections for students and academic communities against militarization, harassment, and other forms of state intrusion.
As the University of the People, UP has a responsibility to develop professionals who serve the Filipino people rather than become instruments of a system that perpetuates exploitation and inequality. This requires an academic environment where students are encouraged to critically understand society, organize collectively, and participate in struggles for genuine national development. Education cannot be separated from the social conditions of the people who sustain it. The defense of academic freedom must therefore include the defense of the student's right to organize, dissent, and link arms with the basic sectors of society.
Ultimately, Kabataan Partylist UP Cebu, Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante, Bahaghari UP Cebu, and Anakbayan UP Cebu stand firmly against the persistent police and military presence in our academic spaces and communities. We demand the protection of schools as zones of peace, an end to surveillance, red-tagging, and harassment of students and organizations, the reinstatement of the 1989 UP-DND Accord, and the passage of the Safe Schools and Universities Bill. More importantly, we demand that public resources be redirected toward education, healthcare, livelihood, housing, and other basic social services instead of militarization and counterinsurgency. The struggle against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism is a struggle to dismantle the fascist system that perpetuates the oppression and exploitation of the Filipino people
NO TO CAMPUS MILITARIZATION!
AFP-PNP OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES!
REINSTATE THE 1989 UP-DND ACCORD!
PASS THE SAFE SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES BILL!
DEFEND ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE!
