Student’s death exposes loopholes in system

Pilar Pangalinan, 75, shows the pictures of her late granddaughter Kristel Tejada in Manila.

By Jhoanna Ballaran/Manila Times

Sila muna bago ako (Others before me).”

These are the words written on a piece of paper of University of the Philippines—Manila (UP-M) student Kristel Pilar Mariz Tejada in a photo shared on Facebook.

In the photo, she is sitting beside a shrub with flowers under the bright lights of the sun. She is smiling.

Kristel, 16, ended her life two days after she was put on leave of absence (LOA) under the new policy of the UP-Manila administration. She was a first year behavioral science major and the eldest of four siblings.

She died before dawn on March 15 after drinking a bottle of silver cleaner and was declared dead on arrival at the Metropolitan Medical Centre in Tondo, Manila at around 3am.

Her family is still shocked and devastated by what happened because they never expected her to do such a thing. She was described by her mother, Blesilda, as a tough young woman who, like her, can surpass any and all trials. But she was wrong.

“I thought I already knew my daughter but I did not. There’s a part of her that I barely knew, like her capacity to do this,” Blesilda told the Manila Times.

Blesilda said Kristel was a born winner. As early as grade one, she would be seen reading newspapers. She was a consistent honours student in elementary until the high school, as proven by the medals and certificates she won over the years.

“She was really a born winner. You know that she was confident, that she could do anything. That’s why I never thought she could do this,” she said. Her mother narrated how her daughter religiously attended her classes despite not being officially enrolled. She complied with the requirements and still performed well in class. In fact, her average in one of her classes was 1.75. “Actually all through, it’s just a matter of documentation,” said Prof Andrea Martinez, one of her professors and close confidante.

In UP, there are two kinds of lists: those who are enlisted under the programme and those who are officially enrolled. Those who are enlisted in the programme are allowed to “sit-in” and participate in classes and even take examinations. But some students abuse it especially when they know they would fail, so they would not just enrol.

“Many students take advantage of the system versus the students who really cannot pay?” the professor asked.

On November 12 last year, UP-Manila implemented a policy that any student who failed to pay his or her tuition fees on time would be forcibly put on LOA. Her mother did not expect that they would be affected by the policy.

“I didn’t expect that the policy would be that way, that one would be put on LOA if you were not able to pay,” her mother said.

“They don’t want to call it forced LOA but what do you call it when a student wants to attend classes, wants her subject to be credited but is not allowed to do that because they cannot pay according to the timeframe they’ve given?” she added.

Kristel’s family was not able to settle her outstanding balance for the first semester until December. In January, when they decided to apply for a loan, it was denied because it was way past the deadline.

There were only two students in the College of Arts and Sciences who were put on LOA: Kristel and a graduating student.

Putting her on LOA embarrassed Kristel, a promising young student who had her whole life ahead of her. She impressed a lot in the university especially when she became Ms Behavioral Science as early as her first year.

According to American psychological expert Dr Alex Lickerman, suicide is “far more understandable than people think.” It is an incident brought about by complex issues in one’s life, often triggered by depression, anxiety and severe pain.

“The pain of existence often becomes too much for severely depressed people to bear,” Dr Lickerman wrote in Psychology Today’s website. “The state of depression warps their thinking, allowing ideas like ‘everyone would all be better off without me’ to make rational sense.”

Dr Lickerman noted that one should not be blamed for committing suicide because it is simply the nature of depression as an illness. It is usually dealt by the victim silently just like Kristel, who was obviously depressed by what happened in her school but did not show any sign of readiness to commit suicide.

As someone who highly valued education, Kristel was not able to carry the burden of not going to school coupled with the fact that she is the eldest of four and branded as a “iskolar ng bayan (officially funded scholar).” She saw how it greatly affected her family, her parents fighting over her tuition, a fact she could not bear to see.

“She told me that if she’s the only one involved, then she can take it,” Martinez told The Manila Times.

“But the fact that she’s seeing her parents having a hard time, blaming each other and getting sad, that’s what made her more vulnerable.”

Education for Kristel was not just a means to get ahead, it was also an escape: every time she had problems at home, she would read her lessons or do her schoolwork. But when her escape was taken away from her, her life dilemmas sank in, thus prompting her to commit suicide.

“Studying was her anchor, her lifesaver. When that opportunity was taken away from her, it had a huge impact on her,” Martinez said.

Kristel’s suicide shed light on the sad truth about the current situation  in  the commercialised Philippine educational system. There are many students like Kristel, intelligent but who come from poor families and cannot afford the increasing tuition fee at the country’s premier state university amid the rising cost of living and lack of decent jobs.

In fact, according to a radio interview given by Martinez, only 40% of the UP College admission test passers enrol because of UP’s high cost of education. Each unit costs P1,500 in Manila, Diliman and Los Baños campuses, while it is P1,000 in the other UP campuses.

However, under the Socialised Tuition and Financial Assistance Programme (STFAP) implemented in 1989, students are assessed under five brackets, depending on their capacity to pay. Under the highest bracket A, students are required to pay full tuition, which is P1,500 per unit; bracket B is P1,000; bracket C is P600; bracket D is P300; and bracket E is free.

Kristel was under bracket D, which means her tuition was P8,000 per semester including miscellaneous fees. This amount was hard to raise for her parents, since her father is only a part-time taxi driver while her mother is a housewife, who sells T-shirts from time to time.

Martinez noted that STFAP legalises tuition increases in UP. With every restructuring of the brackets, comes the increase of per unit cost. It also causes division and discrimination among students.

“The students are being pitted against each other which is wrong,” she said.

The no-late-payment policy added insult to the injury. It is completely irrational, according to critics, since UP-M has a hold of records. For example, if a student is not able to pay, the registrar can simply withhold his or her grades or transcript.

Scholarships are also scarce given Kristel’s course. Most scholarships available from government agencies like the Committee on Higher Education are engineering, information technology and technical courses while at the Department of Science and Technology, scholarships are only available for science courses.

Liberal arts courses like behavioral science are not a priority. And if there are scholarships available, requirements are hard to attain for a freshman.

Budget cuts have worsened the country’s dismal educational system, especially in UP. In his first budget message in 2010, President Benigno Aquino said the government was in the process of making state colleges and universities (SCUs) autonomous and independent institutions, thus allocating lesser funds for them.

“We allocated P23.4bn to 112 State Universities and Colleges in 2011. This is 1.7% lower than the P23.8bn budget for 2010,” the President said in his speech. “We are gradually reducing the subsidy to SUCs to push them toward becoming self-sufficient and financially independent, given their ability to raise their income and to utilise it for their programmes and projects.”

This scheme leaves SCUs no option but to increase fees to fund their operational expenses as an immediate source of income.

Ironically, the UP-Manila administration gave financial assistance to the Tejada family last week, the same assistance they were asking for when Kristel was still alive.

“They donated but I said, ‘Maam, this is what we were pleading with you before, this is what we would like to raise’,” her mother said as her voice cracked.

“Where is help when you needed it most? Why does a tragedy need to happen for help to come along? The most painful thing is, the help costs my daughter’s life,” her mother said.