Infreedom’s name

Two war zones have emerged from the debate on the Reproductive Health Bill. The first battlefield is the Congress and the second is the academe. The first has been going on for years but so far the issue remains as contentious as ever. If the unfolding events are indications, the battle will drag on for more years as the Congress remains unable to resolve this proposal that has divided the nation.

The recent conflict is in the field of the academe precipitated by the statement of the professors of the Ateneo de Manila University supporting the RH bill. The Catholic Bishops of the Philippines warned that Catholic schools that are supporting the RH which contains provisions that are anti-life and anti-Catholic and coercive will be in danger of being stripped of their credentials as a Catholic school.

The professors and the school administration defended their position as an exercise of academic freedom while the school said that the professors were speaking on their own and that the university stands firm with the Church on this issue.

There appears then to be a no-confrontational situation except that the professors, while declaring their freedom or their statement as an exercise of freedom and are on their own, used the name of the university as their anchor. Why didn’t they say so in the first place?

There are sectors who decry the position of the CBCP as an intervention in the university’s academic freedom as if that freedom is without its limits. That the elements in the school are using the name of the school and sign as its faculty clearly indicates that they are dragging and implicating the school.

Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, wife of Dr. Dietrich Hildebrand, one of the great philosophers of our time spoke on television criticizing university professors of reducing everything into the simplicity of a common denominator.

Thus academic freedom becomes a mantra, the overall justification for anything that even went against the established truth. While this freedom recognizes and allows an independent search of understanding the realities of the material and the immaterial world and expanding our knowledge, it is not without limits.

Not everything can be reduced into a common denominator of freedom because there are rules that we must abide by lest we bring our society into the realm of anarchy.

Let’s apply this limit to our schools. Not everything that the professor teaches in the classroom can fall within the scope of academic freedom. Classrooms have rules, the schools have rules and society has rules. If a student or a professor violated these rules that mark our being civilized human beings, the school or society can and must impose obedience otherwise the student or the professor must leave the school.

Freedom is not a simplistic element in human existence. As Dr. Hildebrand lamented, the common sense of this world has become a common nonsense. This is due to our tendency to put things in a common denominator and measure things in that light.

The pro-RH bill people for instance talk of being pro-choice and yet they would mandate that local governments should buy contraceptives for distribution otherwise they would be removed from office. What freedom of choice are they talking about when a doctor or a nurse who would not perform an abortion or refer the woman to an abortionist can be sent to jail?

The same thing happens with this academic freedom that has been reduced into a common denominator, as if this freedom is limitless.

These professors oppose the position of the CBCP in removing the credential of Catholic schools that teach doctrines that violate the tenets of Catholic faith.

But let us take a look at the Manual of Regulation for Private Higher Education of 2009. The Manual prescribes the manner for the involuntary closure of a degree program and No. 9 the causes for the closure says, “permission, approval, or commission of practices or activities that are contrary to law, public policy, public order, or morals, or inimical to integrity of the Philippine educational system.”

The program can thus be terminated by CHED using this blanket authority. But have we heard the professors or any school cry foul against the CHED for these wide-ranging causes for the termination of a degree program?

Have we heard any them cry out, “academic freedom”?

The CBCP has every right and even the duty to remove the appellation of an institution as a “Catholic School” that pretends to be Catholic but teaches materials contrary the Magesterium of the Church. If Ateneo is not a Catholic school or those professors did not use the name of Ateneo, the CBCP has no business interfering with their private views even if they shout like Nietzsche, “God is a mental aberration.”*

back to top