In the morning of September 14, lawyer Angelo Azura Jimenez was formally installed as the 22nd President of the University of the Philippines system, which covers eight constituent universities (UP Diliman, UP Manila, UP Baguio, UP Cebu, UP Los Baños, UP Visayas, UP Mindanao and UP Open University) and one autonomous college (UP Tacloban).

UP President Angelo “Jijil” Jimenez’s investiture was also a milestone aside being the first UP President investiture ceremony held at the UP Mindanao campus in Davao City. He is also the first UP President coming from Mindanao.

With Manobo roots, Jimenez was born and raised in Butuan City and finished his elementary and secondary studies in Urios College (Father Saturnino Urios University). He went to UP Diliman where he completed his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and then proceeded to finish a  Bachelor of Laws degree. He passed the bar examinations in 1994.

Jimenez became a student regent in 1992. He is also the first UP student regent who was elected as UP President. In 1987-1988 as the associate editor of UP's The Collegian, he became the national president of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP).

Jimenez was a Lee Kuan Yew Fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He also completed his Masters in Public Management from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

He also had stints as a labor attache assigned to different countries including Iraq, where in 2005, he successfully rescued Dabawenyo OFW Robert Tarongoy after being kidnapped by Iraqi militants.

Among the strategic initiatives of UP under his helm is the engagement with the different sectors in the region particularly the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) government, where Jimenez vowed to explore the open blue sea of collaboration with BARMM with the aim of improving socio-economic conditions of the Bangsamoro and Mindanao.

“The University of the Philippines your national university as the nation’s premiere institution of higher education has always been committed to advancing the cause of education, research and social progress,” Jimenez said during his speech at the UP-Bangsamoro Development Summit held a day before his investiture.

Plans for Mindanao

Jimenez said he is committed to expanding the student population of UP Mindanao to absorb the enrollees in the UP system.

“The main center in Diliman is quite already top heavy, the carrying capacity has probably exceeded already. We are looking at our campuses in Visayas, in Tacloban our autonomous college and in Mindanao as areas of expansion because there is so much room,” he said.

The new UP President revealed that he has asked for an expansion of the teaching load to effectively carry out the three mandates; teaching, research and public service.

He said the ultimate goal of UP is to transform UP into a full research university and the initiatives include the dispersal of the undergraduate population to other schools which can absorb in their expansion and the collaboration with other State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in curriculum and faculty development with the aim of leveling undergraduate education.

“But I have to tell you first in many areas the SUCs are very advanced as well and UP can learn from them. Except that what we want is to increase the base of excellent higher education teaching throughout the other SUCs and not just UP. The idea is that you can have UP education with necessarily being in UP,” Jimenez said.

He said this is part of the strategy in achieving the goal of UP being a research university and focus on graduate and post-graduate studies.

“We have big plans for Mindanao and these plans include expansion and greater collaboration with other SUCs in particular the Mindanao State University,” Jimenez said.

He said his first marching order to UP Mindanao is to expand its undergraduate and the UP will match with an effort to make sure that the facilities and infrastructure could match it.

“This is not a one-year thing. It could even be a multi-term thing for a President but we need to have a vision and that is to make UP Mindanao a full comprehensive UP constituent university,” Jimenez said.

For this year their priority is to provide funding for many unfinished infrastructure buildings like the School of Management

He said “But the plan here is to really have a college of medicine hopefully in cooperation with the City Government of Davao.”

He stressed that the plans of the city putting up a city hospital inside the campus the university can match it with a college of medicine to serve as a training hospital for Mindanao.

And the other priority is democratized access where UP is looking at multiple pathways to enter UP.

“Right now, we estimate that 60% of UP students come from private high schools and only 40% from public, it is understandable all the studies show that there is really a huge gap in private, elementary and secondary schools in terms of quality compared to their counterparts in government,” Jimenez said.

According to the new university president, they are utilizing data science to spot several kinds of students, particularly talented students from poor families where they will have a child going to college for the first time in their family history.

“We call this the First-Generation UP Admissions Program and this is being studied right now and there would be no UPCAT (UP College Admission Tests). What we will do is to identify them based on need, not based on merit but of course we cannot lower the standards of UP. We cannot do that. What we will do is to conduct bridging programs so that we can make interventions. The goal is to democratize education in UP not to lower its standards,” Jimenez said. (RGA/PIA Davao)