BBC Presidents' Workshop on
Ethics in Higher Education

Extemporaneous Remarks of President Edgardo J. Angara
during the BBC Presidents' Workshop on Ethics in Higher Education,
November 29, 1985
Villa San Miguel, Mandaluyong

Good morning to everyone:

I think the Cardinal has challenged us with a vital list of issues. That list is good and very instructive. And the advantage of being the last reactor, you have the benefit of the insights of Father Bonoan and Pat Licuanan.

Let me briefly comment on what Cardinal Sin said in his keynote and on what Father Bonoan and Pat discussed.

Cardinal Sin is right that the role of higher education is leadership. Higher education is supposed to train the future leaders of the country in the arts, the sciences and the professions. SO in discharging that role our task is great. I also agree with the Cardinal when he said there is now a leadership crisis in the country. However, in a way I disagree with Cardinal Sin when he said that the higher education system is but one of the contributors to this leadership crisis. I would like to state that perhaps the principal contributor to the leadership crisis is the system of higher education. I would like to elaborate on that statement in the course of my remarks.

Father Raul also touched on the leadership crisis. He mentioned Confucius. I think it is valuable to us to remember that Confucius told us that the public virtues admired in any nation are usually set by the leader, the leader being the best teacher of his countrymen. And if I may recall the example of Washington - Washington as the first U.S. president who set the example of public service in America. One doesn't cling to the office when one has completed his assignment.

And talking about Gandhi, Gandhi reminds us too of the full development of the human personality. However he also said one must be humble in the process, as humble as a dust because people arrive at the truth in different ways.

About college presidents having to be prophets. That's an impossible task imposed on us. I will explain why under present circumstances in the Philippines as everywhere else, it's impossible for a president to be a prophet. I will cite later some findings.

Dr. Licuanan touched on the "hidden curriculum" and she is quite right. The formal curriculum I think has no relation to the actual world of work, community and life.Let me cite one example to illustrate and perhaps support what Pat is saying. I think there is nothing in the formal curriculum, be it business, law or engineering or any of the sciences that teaches the student when he goes to the outside world that he must work with other people.

I think the traditional emphasis on individual excellence in our curriculum in fact re-imposes the belief of the student that he can excel in isolation without relating to people. But you and I know that outside one doesn't simply work by himself in a little corner. You and I know that when one works or lives outside, we are dealing with a set of relationships that calls essentially for cooperation with other people.

No one in this room can tell us that there is a course or even a training program that teaches our students to cooperate. In fact, the systems seems to encourage individuality. The grading system is based on individual achievement. The ability to cooperate with others is recognized only in extracurricular activities but that is not graded. So in that sense, I agree with Pat that the educational system is so designed that id doesn't encourage, rather it discourages those qualities that are needed in work, in life and in the community.

Let me touch on what higher education can do in terms of the leadership crisis. The first point I make is to make up our minds on what the purpose of higher education is. Having decided that, then we would know what the capabilities and what resources we have to employ to carry out that purpose.

Certainly higher education must have a purpose. We can quarrel over the definition of purpose, but it must have a purpose. I believe that that purpose has an ethical and moral content. Again we may quarrel over what those qualities should be incorporated into the "visible curriculum". But we all must agree that the university must serve a purpose, and that purpose must have a moral dimension and orientation. How do we structure our curriculum? How do we structure our organization? How do we structure the departmental disciplines in order to project that moral purpose? I think we have sufficient collective experiences to help us.

Let me go to another consideration. This will somehow explain my earlier comment regarding "presidents becoming prophets" in relation to Father Raul's point.

I have here a pamphlet which was recently released in the United States entitled "Presidents Make A Difference". One significant finding of this study is that presidents at this time are severely constrained. The study commission concluded that college and university presidents have been so weakened that they cannot even provide perhaps the moral leadership being required of them - the role of "prophet" Father Raul is asking us to assume.

So let me go directly to this report. This study was commissioned by academic institutions in the United States and the study was chaired by Clark Kerr of the University of California. The conclusion is stated at the beginning. It's chief conclusion: One thing is clear - colleges must have presidents, and it makes a great difference who they are. Let me read to you some of the specific findings and recommendations of the commission. In particular these constraints are: (See Annex).

As you can see, you will find out that our situation, especially in public institutions, is similar. Anyway, I shall leave this copy of the report to the secretariat for dissemination.

As I said, one can simply change a word here or there in that report and one will discover that these findings are also applicable to the Philippine situation. And I find that this is probably more applicable to the in the University of the Philippines than to others. Given so many constraints, how is a president expected to move or convince very large diverse groups to a certain direction? We know for a fact that various groups have different backgrounds, different expectations, different perspectives, different priorities.

The faculty may have a different et of priorities and perspectives; students always have different priorities compared to the faculty and administration. The alumni again have different perspectives, priorities, and expectations. Now if the president doesn't have real authority to influence such diverse groups into a single action and to move after a single vision, that may well be the end of the university as a valuable social institution.

That's why I say at the beginning that our society as well as the educational community must begin to appreciate the fact that we are imposing exceptional burden on presidents and yet we don't accord them the commensurate authority. It's very easy to say, "you are the president and must exercise moral authority". That, you and I know is nice to hear, but very difficult to do.

Having said that, I am not implying that you and I must now give up the responsibilities of moral leadership - that one must not be silent and mute when moral issues are involved. We must carry on the role modeling of self sacrifice rather than materialism, etc. I think that these are qualities we find among many presidents, many college deans. But the society too must appreciate and must reward those qualities.

Now, why do i say that the primary culprit in the leadership crisis is the educational system especially the higher education system? Because I think we have failed to impart and inculcate those civic and social values our country needs most: national unity. I came from the United States recently, and what did i find? Our alumni are grouped not into a U.P. alumni association but U.P. alumni from Cebu, U.P. alumni fro Ilocos, U.P. alumni from the Visayas.

One can say that the educational system has not fostered national unity and national identity. I think if there is a priority that we must now address, that is the one. The other way of saying it is national reconciliation as Cardinal Sin puts it. But the basis of national reconciliation is to me is pride in oneness, pride in being a Filipino. The only minority I think is the Filipino, the majority being the Cebuanos, the Tagalogs, the Ilocanos. We must now begin to think and act as Filipinos.

The other value that I would like the educational system to impart is the appreciation of technology, the appreciation of science. Modern technology will help us push the progress of our country from where it is now - largely agrarian and semi-developed. I note the prejudice and accusation against technocracy. That's understandable. I too share the concern that technocrats sometimes decide neglecting the social dimension of the decision. But when I say we must cultivate respect and appreciation for modern technology among our student I am only saying that our present curriculum does not place sufficient emphasis in it. In fact, in our campus in Diliman, I sense, especially in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, an anti-science attitude.

I think technology and humanities are one and the same. They are probably two faces of the same coin. You need the humanities to appreciate what technology means in terms of human and moral choices. You need the discipline of the humanities to make the choice of desirable technology. That's why it is important to me that one must view the arts and the sciences as one whole that should not be kept separate from the other.

And having called for the need for inculcating that value of national unity and the need for a better appreciation of technology in national development, I leave the individual virtues of honesty, self-discipline and reliability, to our families and to our church. I am not saying that schools are secondary in the formation of those individual qualities, but I am saying that qualities of honesty, dependability, reliability and self-discipline must start in the home.

And finally, to go back to what I have said earlier, I do not know what should be done to remedy the chief failure of higher education. Perhaps that should be the topic of the next workshop. I can only say that the failure to produce good leaders is the principal failure of our educational system.

Thank you very much.