 Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I think this particular session is most different from previous panels because we're like inside a fish bowl. We have a panelist, a panel of experts. They will be asked to respond to certain issues and we won't go for a question and answer at the end of our session. So let me just quickly introduce what the session is about. We're taking off from what we have been discussing the past two days, no? Yesterday, the UP president has been talking about the UP think paper which we drafted for the 2016 presidential candidates. This paper embodies our view of education, the role of education and the challenges that education poses to the next administration. We are partly introducing the concept of superstructure in this paper and therefore this will be the focus of the discussion and the sharing of their minds among our invited guests. I am very fortunate to have a very illustrious panel of experts so I won't take a long time to introduce them. Let me begin by introducing each one but before I do that, let me say that we will take off from a brief overview to be presented by the UP president himself and each panelist will be given about seven minutes centered on mainly two questions or two issues. One is we wish to invite the panelists having understood that the UP paper would like to invite them to respond to first the question on what they think should the next administration do to respond to the UP paper and as challenges posed by the UP paper. And the second question is what could or what might media do to help promote the development of the so-called superstructure which is embodied in the paper. So we will freely allow the panelists to discuss basically around these two issues. Let me come now to each one will be given seven minutes as I said and if we have the extra time later on we can have a second round of three minutes each for them to do their parting messages. So let me introduce the panel now. I will begin from my left hand side of course our honorable UP president Alfredo Pascual. May I please ask you to give him a round of applause. Seated next is Dr. Bucinda Lissai our own from the UP Institute of Creative Writing as well as a writer, columnist from the Philippine Star and of course the UP artist. To his left hand side is Dr. Ernesto Pernia of the Philippine Daily Enquirer and Professor Emeritus in Economics. He writes also for occasionally I'm corrected for the Philippine Daily Enquirer and he is currently a Professor Emeritus in Economics. Then we have Randy David of the Philippine Daily Enquirer and also Professor Emeritus in the field of Sociology. Next to him is Robbie Alampai from the Business World and Interaction. I know him also from the Southeast Asia Press Alliance and the UP Mass Con. We also have Mr. Jose Lito Yabut of the Capisana ng mga broadcasters sa Pilipinas, KVP. Of course you watch him occasionally or probably often with TV5. We have Mr. Lorde's De Vera of the TV5. Last but not least we have the lone female member of the panel. We have Chato Garcelliano, the Philippine Daily Enquirer. So as you see we have a conversation here between the academe and the media people and would like to get the viewpoint of our panelists as media people, as experts and how we are able to connect and collaborate between the university and the media. So without further ado, I'd like to pass on the microphone to UP President Alfredo Pascual, sir. Thank you, Professor Edna. I just want to introduce quickly the background of this knowledge-based development and governance paper that we issued in March. The predecessor of this was a paper that we prepared to support our effort to get the government to upscale the budget of UP. So we came up early in my administration with the paper that shows that it pays for government to invest in UP as the National University. But then we've seen that just by helping UP one single university although the National University is not enough. Okay, we need to get the government to support the entire education system in the country. So in our paper, we started by again reminding government that education is indispensable for economic development. Of course, formal education for one but also the education that comes as part of the job, the only job training. We're not limiting ourselves to formal education. And of course, we recognize the initiatives that government has taken to improve education like the Enhance Education Act of 2013 which was or is the basis of the K-12 program that is now going to be implemented in our basic education system and the strategy that Chet adopted which is geared to the formation of high-level human resource and the generation, the patient, and transfer of knowledge and technology for national development and global competitiveness. We highlighted next in the paper the low government investment or expenditure on public education. And we have benchmarked the level of public spending in the Philippines with the level of public spending on education in ASEAN as a whole, particularly the original ASEAN 5. And we've pointed out that in the Philippines, although there has been an improvement in the level of public spending and education, we're now at the level of 2% to 3% of GDP. But our comparator nations are at the level of 5% to 6%. So there's still a long way to go for the country. And the moment you zero in on higher education, we'll notice that it's even less commitment on the part of the Philippine government to higher education as a percentage of GDP. And the moment you talk about R&D, R&D in universities, again, it's even much, much smaller proportionately. The ASEAN countries and the recommended level by UNESCO is 1% of GDP. The Philippines public expenditure or R&D is only at the level of 0.1%, 1%. Now, how do we reverse the trend so that we are able to produce the high level human resource that we need for the development of the country? Well, the paper has shown that, okay, education is important, but there's also emphasis that has to be placed on higher level education. The level of education that goes beyond the bachelor's degree to be able to produce the researchers that will create innovation that will in turn spur industry. It has been shown through research that it is manufacturing that's needed to have sustained inclusive growth in the country because it's manufacturing that provides sustainable jobs. And in our country, we have very low level of manufacturing and whatever manufacturing we have is low technology. And there are in sectors that are of low slow usage of of technology. So we need to produce the higher level knowledge that's needed to boost our human capital. And human capital is what we now term a suprastructure. A term adopted by a Dutch cannabis. We have specific proposals to achieve this. And some of them were proposals that we gave in our earlier paper about the needs of UP. One is to promote the large scale foreign training of our young Filipinos to build the knowledge capital that we did in the country. We need to send more people than the government should invest in the education of our young people for advanced studies. Not in the Philippines but abroad. To be able to bring back to the country the kind of technology that we don't have as yet in our needs. Next is the promotion of a massive or large scale return of foreign trained Filipinos in every discipline especially engineering and science and offer them opportunities to come back in the country. As you may know a number of my contemporaries are now in the U.S. And the generations that follow me followed me also a big portion of their graduating classes have gone to the U.S. and other foreign countries. They have achieved sufficient training and many of them have earned advanced degrees masters and PhDs. And I think we can now attract them back in the country given the developments that are happening here. Our region ASEAN is the focal point of development in the world. We are a fast growing region and it's difficult not to get pulled by the then locomotive that's pulling the region upward. It was China but China is slowing down but many ASEAN countries are still experiencing fast economic development but the only way we can sustain this is if we have the human and knowledge capital to support continuing innovation producing new products new processes and improving the ones that we now have. Another recommendation is the hiring of international experts and educators who can help us form and shape our country's knowledge capital. There has been a version to bring in international talents but you look at the countries around us. Filipinos have been in high demand in Indonesia when Indonesia was trying to develop its economy and its educational sector but now they're trained people Indonesians who have been trained abroad have come back and many of our Filipino professionals Filipino professors who are working in Indonesia are coming back to the country but they have started by using international experts and Filipinos have contributed a lot as foreign professionals in Indonesia. Well Singapore given its limited indigenous population must become a first world country with GDP much much higher than any other country in ASEAN through the use of international experts. In our case we have the human resources but our level of knowledge capital is still at a very low scale and low quality. We need to upgrade this and the fastest way we can do that is bringing the foreign experts foreign in terms of foreign origin and foreign maybe but including Filipinos who are now living in foreign countries. Now at the moment we have all these experts in the country how do we organize? We are proposing the hub and spokes model of organization where we have an expert institution or an expert individual serving as the hub around which we will bring together different sectors government industry civil society and academe to be able to focus these various sources of knowledge and expertise on specific problems specific regions or on national challenges. So these are the the key recommendations of the papers and I think we would really appreciate the reaction of our colleagues in the panel with respect to this specific and overall thrust of the papers. Thank you. We can do the reverse way now. As I said our two important questions for our panelists are first what do you think the next administration should do to respond to the UP think paper challenges? And the second one is how might media help promote the development of the human capital as specified as defined in the UP think paper? So I'd like to invite Chato Garceviano from PDI to please start the discussion. The think paper of course would be perfect in an ideal world okay but in which we are not. The next administration has has a huge task ahead of it in terms of the ideas proposed there and short of throwing money at the problem which well the administration the current administration has started doing in the sense that the education budget has been more or less increased pero ko lang pa siyempre short of throwing money at the problem we need a radical change in the mindset of people in government who think of education as mainly classrooms teachers et cetera as it is who are playing catch up we're still in the in the process of gods ensuring there are chairs the teachers are there the teachers have gone off to have gone overseas to be nannies in families et cetera there is no respect for what they are so it's a it's a radical change that we need but we've we've all wanted this radical change for so long but maybe a specific a specific person or team that will address this education problem and look at the importance of higher education apart from the importance of basic education we are setting aside idea I mean I could I could talk about the I could talk about the miserable condition of basic education in the public schools where the where teachers are not even paid the way they should be paid but in terms of higher education okay in terms of higher education there has to be a a specific team for to address that superstructure that we need now how can the media how can the media help as opinion editor of the Philippine Daily Enquirer I like to think that we are helping already in that aspect we have certain columns and features that address or at least discuss the problem of education we have a specific education column every saturday and which Anandas discusses the always focuses on the depth ed the commission on higher education and test that as the trinity that more or less oversees the whole education system he specifically addresses the skills that are needed for students to to get employment I think that there has to be something more than that naturally we have to address humanities we have to address the arts and how to steep to bring back to bring back students into the arts culture et cetera I think there is a lack there the internet has damaged many minds in many ways Facebook while important Google while important has produced minds that need only short bursts of information so that there is no there is no sort of logical coherence to things in our in our work at the inquirer we like to talk about education not only in terms of skills generation but also mental and if you like emotional development we we focus on these things in the sense that we encourage we encourage not only a excuse me academic not only an academic presentation but also a something that would appeal to young people and not only in terms of of academics not that we are not that we are adverse to academic presentations but in we have a new column now it's called IM Gen M it addresses the millennials and we have a doctor a physician a young physician and we have a an events organizer and we have an all around person from this one Visayas Mindanao the young physician talks about her education and how she applies it to to her new work and she is anguished anguished at how she hasn't been told that this that being a young doctor and working for example at the at an institution like PGH is such a also a psychological and emotional problem for her in terms of coping with coping with the needs of of impoverished patients these things i think more or less address the problem of education and as it applies as it applies to the public and students we are we in the media are quite open to helping for example the UP gather its resources its funds needed etc and to disseminate whatever else ideas and proposals that you may have thank you I'll be speaking from the point of view of someone who works in television and when we talk about the subject first thing that comes to mind is programming a superstructure a superstructure brings to mind a solid web of talent and information that needs a solid communications component so if you talk about higher level education and you look at the reality of prime time television parang hindi nagtutug ma yung dalawa although mga kari di ka na naging italyan sa tv pa minsan-minsan pag-abit right naalala kayong ko alam y doktor davidate sa inquire umaangal sa kasi yung late night news program naging late na palet ng palet ng palet na sobrang nakaantuk na parang alas dosit naging sakit po yan ng lahat ng networks kasi prime time prime time is king essentially ang lahat ng mga broadcast networks are hostage to the market forces of ratings and audience whimsy so kung diting na mo ilang porcento lang talaga ng programming ang devoted to news and public affairs I speak someone from tv 5 yung mga news and public affairs namin is either obsimily early in the morning or criminally late in between sandwich in between yung entertainment talaga so mga ang formula is 70% programming entertainment 30% news and public affairs no the landscape is not that bleak since there are foundations specifically a b s e b in foundation uh has maintained a knowledge channel for the past many decades and but essentially this is what you call educational television educational television but this level of educational television addresses only the basic so you have social studies programs you have a program called agriculture cool agriculture parang isang occult na topic ay nilalapit nila sa mga bata para hindi siya maging abstraction so in terms of what the next administration should do if we were we were trying to visualize the the superstructure as divided into little hubs in regions which spokes i think it is time at the government invest in broadcast it is hopeless to actually expect all the major networks because they're all hostage to ratings and advertisers the next administration should probably invest more on ptv4 bring new life into although there's effort naman nalagas sa ptv4 but in terms of broadcast when you say government network it brings to mind a specific aesthetic a specific look a specific texture ang ideal sana is that you have a network that addresses higher level educational issues without being dictated upon by advertisers because ratings pa rin talaga ang laban na ratings eh so kung magawa ng goberno ang ptv4 na visual thinking parang malabi bc na matahas ang antas ng craftsmanship at content at hindi yung pagsinabi mong government network ay puro mga lumang cards in si doctor pasokalik sa bing folk dancing home tv shopping mga coverage ng ed sa celebrations mga ganyan yun so kailangan ng component kung pwede tayo magdag-dag ng spokes doon buhayin din muli ang mga regional networks kasi bawat isang riyon may kanya kanyang unique na concerns o mga problema so palagay ko mahalagang i-address yung issue na yun so ulitin natin na educational instructive broadcast independent of market forces at hindi lang sana yung budget ng UP in taasan taasan din sana yung pondo natin para sa ating government network I will be speaking from the point of view of a broadcast operator and manager the question is what must the next administration do for the country what what what it can start first and foremost in my mind and and i think this is shared by by the broadcasters our members at the KBP that the freedom of information law must finally come come to come to be realized it's something very important because it's the freedom of information law that will help do something about the structure of our country I read the paper and I'm so glad that there is no consciousness about funding and uh I think you will agree with me that naman hindi natin magawa kasi walang pera but mayan we know very well that the government has money with your value added tax with all the fees and everything we tax payers alam natin hindi naman tayo ule right in fact uh advance pa tayo mag-buy ng tax ng taxes natin to the with the with health taxes so I think it's very important for the next administration to take a look at this buoy na yung freedom of information law and everything will be that will help a lot in the structure even even in how how government is run how people can be uh can be uh can be asked to to help in their communities they will be conscious about hey it's our money let us let us uh I want the government to be accountable parang a simple corporation alam yung I mean we should be treated like stockholders that hey you're running the company let us see how you're doing it and then maybe hear from us now how how media can help again from the point of view of the association of broadcasters the kbp I would like to say that we have not been locking in in in helping in advocacies but I would like to share with everybody here that there are lots of advocacy partners that that that will be able to help in in in what we want to impart to to the people kasi lahat mantay we want to share in nation building right there's a kbp there's a advert ad foundation there's uh ad standards council and uh there's also an association of national advertisers la pana kasi sometimes people are saying dami dami naman commercials ganyong ganyan wala na mapanawad sa television wala na wala na laman ang radio but but I think everybody knows that media is still a business but its valid role is for media to be to be an ongoing concern hindi naman magagawa na media and service niya to inform, entertain, educate ko hindi naman siya viable so advertising is really needed but again uh with with with advertising with uh running media as a business I I I would like to say that all operators and and owners of broadcasting stations they shared the they know that there's a valid role of media that they can reconcile business purpose with social purpose and that is to sharing that association building so I like to say that we are very conscious that we can get funding because we know there's money they cannot tell us that wala na para I think we should we should work on that how how uh how we can make our people be conscious of this that para para I like to say at the day when when the the constituents can ano can can can really knock their legislators na hey can you help us in our community kasi it's funding that we need we don't want them to build basketball courts or barangay barangay ceramic ceramic place barangay halls we'd like them to help and really education is a must education is the one that will know that will uh help uh make good citizens lahat taman tayo na gaagri na ang ang ang kalay pag malaki natin yung ating sambayan and what makes a nation is people so we really need to to really help I like to assure the the the the group here and and and you be that media has not been remaced media will continue to help kasi citizen din naman ng media thank you ako ako albi speaking as an optimist I honestly do think that when it comes to the educational agenda from from um from grade school all the way to um graduate schools and advanced education I honestly do believe that you know or probably I'd like to think whoever becomes the next president can appreciate this think paper I mean I think I I I read it I really don't I cannot imagine anybody saying these are all bad ideas in fact I imagine everybody saying yes and in fact everybody saying we've been talking about that for the longest time so that's my way of saying kaya niyan and also my way of referencing this by saying that I'm not really qualified of course to talk about public policy and and education for that matter so I'll be also be speaking apart from an optimist as a media practitioner and I'll go straight to the second question on where might we help I don't I I would I I think where we can help is not so much in offering our platform but in giving you some insights on what we're learning as you know we are in a sinking boat also media is also in a field business model but in in in appreciating that we are seeing how information is disseminated and how advocacies are done I think we can contribute or I can contribute and giving you some idea on not so much how to lobby government to put more funds not just into education but particularly into STEM and advanced STEM but also how to bring in the public in appreciating that I think it's not so much that government is against it or any leader is against it it's just that there's no public clamor for it and there's no deep appreciation for STEM so where do I begin one is you don't need mainstream media for that that's what we're learning now in in in the field of of mass media nobody needs us anymore 70% 80% of our traffic are coming in by a social media and there is a very low loyalty to any particular brand of news so in other words the millennials and certainly the generation after them will be consuming news directly from from social media from Facebook from Twitter and platforms that we don't understand like Snapchat and so on and so forth we also see that they are interested in a lot of a lot of they are interested in science and technology the problem is all of the science and technology that they consume is from abroad and that's where I think UP can learn and this whole movement for STEM can learn one thing that groups like NASA realized is NASA does not need Nat J.O. or Discovery Channel anymore in other words NASA thinks of itself not as a science and technology agency it thinks of itself as a content generator and with social media there they distribute their videos direct to social media nobody needs it anymore nobody needs mainstream media to bridge them to the audience that they want in our particular case the Philippine public how do we make the Philippine public appreciate science and technology we just have to position science and technology as part and parcel of the fabric of Philippine life the problem is we don't brand the Philippines as a high tech nation I think if we're trying to attract people from abroad with advanced knowledge to come back to the Philippines the messaging should not be come back here so that you can raise the level of science and technology in the Philippines I think the message should be come back here because we're doing a lot of science and technology stuff and I think for scientists that's what's exciting for them and I think UP in particular has a role to play in that one is because you're sitting on all the data and you're all the knowledge the gap is you don't know how to tell a story but the pegs are all there you look at NASA you look at Harvard Business Review you look at universities all over the world who have created not just channels but their own communities around their brand and people following them specifically for stories that they can tell and knowledge that can share specifically on that I'll have an anecdote there was a top Philippine executive who was in a closed door round table something like this with his alma mater in the Philippines not UP and they were brainstorming on what do we do how do we and then one question posed to this executive was tell us the truth how do you perceive our school how do you perceive our university and he says well it's like this I see you more for the soft courses liberal arts sociology for the no offense to anyone this is his words he's saying mass communication human resource management and so on but and then he said but I'm sorry when it comes to engineering sciences I think of UP then lasal then mapuwa and and that was his insight and I think UP can bring that I mean because we're talking specifically about STEM I think UP should be able to embrace that and bring that to the ano not just for UP but for the Philippines in general so those are the two things that I would like to on a one is that UP should UP and this movement for STEM should realize that the crucial thing right now is not convincing is not convincing government I think our leaders do appreciate STEM and the fact that we need to be more high-tech and we need I think for that to have momentum what you need to bring in is the public and for the public to have an image of the Philippines not as an agriculture-based economy not just as a about the socioeconomic ills and corruption and so on we also need to I think build the the imagery around a Philippines that is in fact high-tech that can compete that can produce a lot of information and a lot of data and tell it in a compelling way and that UP and this movement for STEM is a community that's worth following on social media and once you envision it once you see it in fact as proof that we're doing wonderful things in biotechnology that MIPS is producing you know these high-tech gadgets that makes hard metals that has direct applications to commerce and so on I think that goes a long way in the advocacy and in sustaining what we can do thank you thank you thank you for asking me to participate in this UP Knowledge Festival I like the word festival that means the celebration of knowledge I'm glad you didn't call it a knowledge market the way we talk about jobs we're supposed to celebrate knowledge here and I know that universities as institutions for the last 150 to 200 years have waged a sustained struggle to declare their independence from the other forces in society that try to dominate their agenda in the beginning that was the church which was concerned with producing souls that would glorify God then it was followed by universities that were adjuncts to to the nation state and today in the present period universities are confronted with the challenge of the capitalist market I would like to think that universities have a role other than just producing human capital they're supposed to produce leaders of society as well as builders of nations and creators of knowledge and not just employees or workers and that is the reason we have other things that are not easily marketable in universities like the arts and the humanities although those branches of knowledge are getting less and less appreciation in a world system that is dominated by corporate driven globalization the fact that we participate every year in the rankings of universities that see nothing actually but conformance with the criteria of economic globalization attest to the fact that we have allowed the goals of the university to be subordinated to the global market that has always been a struggle it is not unique to the university of the Philippines although the UP carries a unique burden being both a state and self described national university if you look at the history of the university of the Philippines I'm certain that we all know it was created by the American colonial government first of all to produce Filipino highly skilled professionals and bureaucrats who are skilled in modern state administration as well as doctors agricultures that's the reason for UPLB that could develop the economy in subsequent years and for many decades as we all know the university of the Philippines was the leader in the region in the 1960s when I was an undergrad together with President Pasqual I think Fred was one year behind me in the 60s nearly one third of our classmates in school were foreigners from Vietnam from Singapore from Malaysia from the Oceania Oceania countries from Africa and so on and so forth why? UPLB was a leader in the higher educational field thanks to the Americans who brought in the legacy of public and higher education to our country thereby making the university of the Philippines the spearhead not only of liberal thought but also of secular thinking for that very reason the first graduates of the UP were nation builders but the graduates of my generation 60s 70s and 80s I would say more than one half of them fled the country subsequently in other words all that investment in higher education was weaped and harvested by other countries particularly Europe which was already advanced and North America which was already advanced therefore if you ask me how the next administration should respond to the UP paper I'm a little skeptical about asking the government for more money to send Filipino scientists to go abroad and study abroad without any guarantee that they would come back because the previous generation whether they're doctors or scientists or social scientists were sent abroad they signed contracts but they asked the corporations and the universities that hired them subsequently abroad to pay for their contract they think it's all money the problem with us Filipinos we talk about nation building to a point of nocia actually but we don't really mean it there is not enough patriotism and love of country even among UP graduates it's so easy for them to say I'm still attached to the country the country is still in the heart but when it comes to really giving back to the country that nurtured you and raised you to what you are today it's almost nil are we going to be able to bring back the specialists the scientists who had migrated to other shores maybe as they did in 1986 and 87 but we went back subsequently abroad and when you asked them they said they were not enough laboratories they were not enough people to work with in the Philippines so enough of patriotism in the hearts of such individuals if we had more money for education as even UP experienced an increase of three times in the last six years I think if the government had more money I would say poured it into basic education make UP secondary priority if you like let's go back to developing graduates with enough character which is the original meaning of the university wise individuals not just technically equipped well rounded people who see their role in the history of their country as vital to the development of their society and the people how should media react which is the second question of it now I worked in media where I've been writing a column for 20 years I'm almost about to give up it's almost senseless actually I worked for 14 years on television started at nine o'clock in the evening pushed up to one o'clock in the morning having to compete with brother Eddie Villanueva and Mike Velarde wala ka nabans really heon so in channel four Lourd was I would say the most progressive most intellectual station during Manchello the best programs culturally we're on channel four but hardly anybody watch these programs they prefer the programs the trashy programs put out by commercial television why? because of the quality of your origins that's why basic education is so important you've got to infuse science as we understand it into the common sense world view of our people you've got to elevate what you call culture among our people in their everyday lives so that they need not go for escapist television and trashy printed work no? thank you thank you to the organizers yeah thank you to the previous speakers for giving me some more ideas to to spew out yeah I'll be less philosophical than Randy although my first major was philosophy I'll go more into economics now of education you know all the candidates vice presidential candidates as well as presidential candidates talk about the need for a country to have more infrastructure but they just really talk about physical infrastructure there are two types of infrastructure actually the hard infrastructure that's physical infrastructure and the soft infrastructure that which is human infrastructure again this is an economic term Randy so human infrastructure is where we have under invested as well well to the extent that we have under invested in physical infrastructure we have also gravely under invested in soft infrastructure and that is that explains the reason why we have been lagging behind our neighbors that's a cliche now and the other issue is that both hard and soft infrastructure are concentrated in NCR and surrounding regions like Calabar zone and probably central zone so and all the other regions are getting pithans in terms of infrastructure spending both hard and soft infrastructure I think the next administration should address or be able to distinguish between hard and soft infrastructure first that's one and secondly they should also try to disperse some of the investment to the regions so that you know there's so much animosity against imperial manila and one way to you know to attenuate that animosity would be to invest in both hard and soft infrastructure in the regions in the in the sense of they have a spokes model I think the thing to do is to focus a massive investments in hard and soft infrastructure in certain critical strategic regions centered around ilu ilu for example ilu ilu city which is which has a lot of things going on already and so it's just a matter of some more push and perhaps sebu sebu is also deserving of more infrastructure and it is ready to receive such infrastructure both hard and soft perhaps northern in northern Mindanao Kagayan Dioro and Sambuanga in the south or Davao on the other side on on the eastern side of Mindanao so in and then in the hubs and spokes model of the think paper can then be attuned to that kind of investment as well in the sense that I think education higher educational institutions in the sebu in in ilu ilu in Kagayan Dioro and in Davao they're already of such stature that some more investment would bring it bring them up to par with with those in Metro Manila and the other thing is that you know the public universities seem to be averse about partners partnering with private universities that should be facilitated because certain universities in the regions are the strong ones are private universities and this should be where you be my partner rather than with with you another public university that may not be as strong as the private university okay on the on the question of what media should do I think medias to in general rebalance its attention from show bees and trashy shows as Randy was talking about to the importance of education the importance of nation nationhood the importance of love of country so that the youth and we should start early not not later in life but early in basic education about giving more attention to the importance of education and and and nationhood so that when they grow up they are they're going they're not going to go abroad and you know just get stuck over there and so rebalancing rebalancing of media attention from from the usual stuff you spend a lot of time on on these other things rather than on important things like education and knowledge building and knowledge capital and all that and the other thing is to start early start early in trying to change the mindsets of the youth on what is important for the country and for for its for the people and not just entertainment thank you I'll be talking about this from the point of view of course of an artist and a member of the arts community like I said yesterday it's horrifying to think that the last administration that paid any real attention to the arts and however skewed of fashion was the marcos administration it took in fact it took the present administration several years to just formally confer the national artist awards to the latest batch last week that's the kind of indifference to the arts that we get from from our politicians clearly we need increased and sustained support both material and attitudinal for the arts and arts education this is beginning to happen within within UP which often anticipates what the government should do for example we have received quite a bit of funding through the cultural infrastructure development program which we asked to be supported that we had to of course we had to ask for it very strenuously from the current administration but even with within UP we need to do more like establish and consolidate the arts cluster within deliman and maybe initiate similar initiatives in other campuses from the national government on the long wish list of things I would I would bat for just one thing the consideration finally of the creation of a department of culture for both its symbolic and substantive value now of course when I say that I know that there's a lot of resistance to this idea even and primarily within the artistic community itself which has been so used to accepting crumbs that it cannot imagine itself the equal of our business community or our science community and will not even assert itself but a deal but a department of culture doesn't have to be messy and expensive you don't have to build this up from the ground you can co-opt and integrate the NCCA the CCP and the other government offices already doing cultural work and organize them into key bureaus in a paper that again that I work with with now national artists Wilhilia Almario and Ramon Santos we advocated for the establishment of at least four or five bureaus such as arts and arts artists development heritage development cultural education and information and finally creative industries now speaking as an arts columnist what can the media do I think we can help by fostering for one thing real art criticism and push the arts beyond lifestyle entertainment and fashion so we can have a real appreciation of what it takes to produce world-class art following through on what lord here said we need we need public media our version for example of the BBC that will promote intelligent programs we need shows devoted to books paintings music of a more challenging level of thought and imagination than popular standards will allow and probably again only government can do this because we understand that the broadcast industry in the print media being as commercial as they are they will not be much room for this and of course I very much appreciate what what Randy said about sharing a basic education as among others a means of audience development and what I've said about arts reporting also applies to science reporting and education reporting are we ever going to see the products of this knowledge festival out in the media next week for example just to begin with that is this interesting enough can we make the sexy enough that that some young kid there will see about posibili pala ito pwede pala mangyari sa sa aking ito I myself was amazed yesterday when I was listening to to Al Sirafika talk about his invention and how how it not only of course made him rich which is always a good thing to happen to people but how it can't you know transform a humble substance like Nata de Coco into into like a cutting edge thing and these inspiring stories need to be put out there by those of us who can and for myself I've already scheduled like three columns worth and I always love festivals like this because I I'm thinking that takes care of my next month of columns but I wish that there were more people in in my privileged position who can do that and I'll do that of course because I'm UP pero kailaram mas marami pa tayong gumagwan ito para naman you know this is good news we need to spread it out there silamat po thanks for your ideas and suggestions well firstly I'd like to just highlight an important point in what we're trying to communicate you know yes basic education is critical that's why we fully support K-12 but of course to work only if you have well-trained teachers and we're also doing our part in UP to help train teachers for senior high school but quite a part of that I think what this country needs is an engine that will pull the rest of the country and having seen UP close range I think UP has a lot of promise to being that engine to the Philippine economy but we need to you know populate it with more experts than what we have now you know only 30% of our faculty are PhDs that's way behind you know what the leading universities in our region have the requirement in Malaysia is before you recognize as a research university you have to have at least 70% of your faculty as PhD the two leading universities in Thailand have 100% PhDs the leading universities in Singapore have 100% PhD that's why you know the proposition that perhaps there has to be a massive investment in producing PhDs now how do we bring them back I agree with Randy and I have questioned our own return service agreement you know that's not the way the way is what we have heard earlier to show that this country is ready to receive the foreign trained experts because we are now in that league you know of a high high technology research that we're trying to do okay that's an important message I don't know the kind of message will have to be made to change the attitude because we have the general attitude that whatever resources there are these resources have to be spread out evenly across the population yes it's a it's a nice concept but the moment we do that we'll all be hugging each other at the bottom we need to create engines you know I don't want to use the term an elite university but somebody else has used that you know in chat not elitist but an elite university that will produce the innovations you know that will fire up our industries and that's why the proposition their proposals that we need to increase the quality of our human and knowledge capital it's not so much to produce workers you know who will work in multinational companies all in global organizations it's to produce the products and services that will be the basis for creating jobs in our country within our territory okay because if we don't have job here of course we'll have people going as OFWs even teachers leaving their profession to serve as nannies in more advanced countries okay so that's the main the main thing you know that I have not emphasized earlier you know the need for high level education that will create engines in the country a national engine like UP being the national university of regional engines in the regional base hub and spokes organizations okay now talking directly I mean responding directly to what I've heard about the need to have a way to communicate to the general public I'd like to inform even my colleagues in UP and as well as our guests here you know that we're organizing a UPTV okay of course it will not be broadcast TV it will be internet based TV but it will be our platform for communicating to other universities public and private and to the rest of the country the products and the outputs that UPI has been producing over the years okay and the and the not just in the science and technology field but more so also and also in the arts and humanities fields thank you there was a richness and the diversity of the ideas that came in the ways by which we could push and let the knowledge centers such as the UPI contribute some more and you know play its role as really a national university considering and given all the realities and the situations that we are faced with the competition the market orientation and yet the great challenge and struggle for the university to become in the league of elite university in a sense of being really you know first class university but also elite in the sense that it will show leadership and it will pave the way and show the way for this nation once more so that it can really claim that indeed UPI is a national university and the maker of leaders and the leader of the disciplines that we are experts on so I think I will leave it at that but we do not exactly close the UPI paper as a think paper and as a paper that poses challenges to the next administration whoever the next administration may be UPI will be continuing its to post its challenge and to be always vigilant that it plays itself as the premium and the prime university of the country because that is what we are we want to lead the way we want to post challenges we want to be innovative we want to be creative we want to be different because we are a first class university so the conversation continues as we embark on the new administration probably and as we face a new set of people in government and I think if I may add with governance as my background I think in the discussion in the round table the challenge really for UPI as well is to deal with its own governance and to always post challenge to the succeeding administration about continuing and being able to have a sound and good governance so that UPI can as well be made efficient and effective and world class so with that I thank our panelists all of you I hope that we can invite you again come back and have another reflection around table and I'd like to thank everyone for being patient and for holding not to post any questions but just to look at us as experts within the fish bowl so thank you very much and have a good day whatever is left of it