An Open Letter to Teddy Te

What follows is a letter addressed to Prof. Teddy Te in response to his post entitled "Ingratitude. In Gratitude."  I would have left this matter alone but he did name me personally and I feel the need to respond. I think this is not the best way to debate this issue but Teddy chose the venue and made the initial volley.  There is a need to clear the air.

Although I do not adopt all of the statements below (I didn't sign the letter), I believe that Teddy has been misrepresenting (or maybe he misunderstands) the facts.  For context, read his post first, then the letter below.

There's another document and some background to this (not to mention an earlier post by Teddy, too).  Maybe I'll get into that later.  But for now, read on. 

 — ◊ ◊ ◊ —

                                               27 November 2007

Dear Teddy,

OUR STATEMENT STOOD ON THE PRINCIPLE that the Search Process must not be
subverted. Instead of answering us on the level of principle, you attacked us as
persons, labeled us as ingrates, and viewed it all as the politics of patronage.
You have committed two basic mistakes.

FIRST, YOU GOT THE FACTS WRONG. You say that we “demand[ed] that Dean
Carlota not be allowed any extension of his term beyond his birthday.”

THAT IS FALSE. We attach a copy of the Statement. About the agreement
among the faculty members and the UP Diliman Chancellor on the Search
Process for the new Dean, we expressly stated:

“The agreement reached last November 2 allows Dean Carlota to join the search as a nominee seeking extension of his term, provided he submit (just like any other nominee) to an open, transparent, and deliberative process.”

“We are not requesting the Board to reject outright Dean Carlota’s request for extension; we are simply appealing that the Board respect the universitysanctioned, agreed-upon selection process and make its decision after deliberative mechanisms within the community directly affected be first implemented to ensure that the selection process is participatory and meaningful for the stakeholders.”

All we asked was for Dean Carlota to let the official Search Process take its
course. Instead, you preferred to subvert the official Search Process and to
sneak into the Board of Regents a petition to extend him, by-passing the
already on-going Search Process. Your attempt to take the moral high ground
with dirty hands reeks of duplicity.

YOU GOT THE FACTS WRONG A SECOND TIME. Dean Carlota already got an
extension of his teaching (i.e. his faculty appointment). The Academic
Personnel Committee, with the vote of some of the signatories to our
Statement, gave him the maximum extension. We are grateful to those who
have long served the law school, which is why it has been the consistent policy
to extend retiring faculty.

It was Dean Carlota who required senior faculty members to write him a letter
requesting an extension. Yet when the Committee asked him to do likewise, he
did not “request.” He merely “declared” his intention to teach beyond the
mandatory retirement age. Despite the imperiousness, the Committee obliged
him.

But that Committee doesn’t have the power to recommend the extension of his
term as Law Dean (i.e. his administrative assignment), which is now the
subject of the Search Process.

SECOND, DEAN CARLOTA FACES MANDATORY RETIREMENT BY OPERATION OF
LAW. Teddy, if you wish to carve out exceptions to the law, it is YOUR burden
to explain why, NOT OURS.

He became Dean in October 2005, aware that he would turn 65 in December
2007 and could not complete the usual 3-year term (in October 2008). He has
categorically declared before several faculty members that he was not
interested in being extended beyond December 2007. Why blame us that we
acted upon his own declaration of disinterest? “Public office is not the private
reserve of public officers.”

We are amazed that you will shame our senior colleagues, one “who practically
begged for an extension so that he could hold on to his administrative post” and
another who received an extension of his faculty appointment. We are sorry,
Ted, but their votes were not for sale, sorrier still that you thought they were.

SADLY, YOU SEE COLLEGE GOVERNANCE AS NOTHING BUT A MATTER OF
PATRONAGE POLITICS, of “utang na loob”, viewing everything in terms of
“betrayal” or “gratitude”, and excluding the possibility of a principled stand on
issues that go beyond personal loyalty. This is why you cast in moralizing
terms the decision of your colleagues to allow for an open debate as to who
should lead the law school. What is so morally abhorrent, Teddy, about inviting
others to a conversation on policy options for the leadership of a law school?
Having blinded yourself to the tyranny of your own point of view, you label as
ungrateful those who you think support other leaders and then demonize those
who disagree with you.

YOU ASK: "WHY THE RUSH?". There was no rush; it was merely the
straightforward application of the law. The Chancellor himself, during the
meeting with the law faculty, stated that the search process is already late
because it should have begun 3 months before the end of the incumbent’s term.

INDEED WE ASK YOU: “WHY THE RUSH, TEDDY?” Why agree to a Search
Process when we were face to face at a faculty meeting – a Process that will
start with the College constituents, then the Chancellor, then the UP President,
and then the BOR – and then betray that process and go directly to the BOR?
You applaud when the law is applied “chapter and verse.” Now the law has
caught up with you and Dean Carlota, and you wish to skip entire chapters and
verses.

YOU USED THE WORDS “ONE BIG, CRUEL FARCE.” THE BIGGEST, CRUELEST
FARCE is that you raise the issue of absenteeism when – as many of your
students would attest – you are perennially absent from your classes in
Criminal Law and Criminal Law Review, and you miss even your own makeup
classes. Your present and past students, some of them now members of the
faculty, say that they considered your course as one of “self-study.” Awkward
as it is, but can you can assure us that you have not skipped classes to attend to
your private practice of law?

You say: “One cannot become a great lawyer unless one is a good person first.”
Teddy, please spare us the holier-than-thou platitudes. Guess what they call
those who fail the injunction: “First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and
then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”

                                                        Sincerely yours,

                                                        Harry Roque

                                                        Florin Hilbay

                                                        Barry Gutierrez

                                                        Elizabeth Pangalangan

                                                        Raul Pangalangan

                                                        Merlin Magallona

                                                        Bartolome Carale

                                                        Danilo Concepcion

                                                        Carmelo V. Sison

                                                        Edgardo A. Labitag
                                                        (sgd.)