Title: Leadership Statement
Date: March 29, 2020
BAYANIHAN ESKWELAHAN LEADERSHIP STATEMENT
We, presidents, rectors, and chancellors of higher education institutions in the Philippines, believe firmly in higher education’s societal responsibility of improving our communities and of contributing to our collective environmental, social and economic well-being. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has created a significant circumstance beyond our control that has disrupted our ability to pursue our mission of producing women and men with the character and the knowledge to lead, to serve, and to contribute to the betterment of our society and the development of our nation. We believe that urgent actions are needed to enable our front-line healthcare workers – our nurses and our doctors – to win the war against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As a group of higher education institutions (HEIs), we are committed to working together as one in ensuring that we are active participants in the reconstruction of our country as we collectively navigate through the coronavirus pandemic.
We, therefore, call on other HEIs to offer their intellectual resources, including psychological counseling, and physical resources, including equipment, to provide backup support to our already overloaded health care system in the fight to contain SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the Philippines. We call on other HEIs to participate in an information-sharing forum where we share non-competitive, non-proprietary information about how we could provide quality education should social distancing be extended indefinitely. We call on other HEIs, particularly those outside the National Capital Region, to consider adopting at least one hospital – public or private – in the vicinity of their campuses and commit to providing for the needs of the front-liners working therein.
Signed:
Dr. Luis María R. Calingo, Holy Angel University
Dr. Reynaldo B. Vea, Mapúa University
Fr. Jose Ramon T. Villarin, Ateneo de Manila University
Dr. Winston Conrad Padojinog, University of Asia & the Pacific
Dr. Caroline Marian S. Enriquez, President, Our Lady of Fatima University
Download the PDF version here:
https://bit.ly/2QQgSdI
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If you are in agreement with the above Leadership Statement, please take the following steps:
- Send an email to ktolentino@hau.edu.ph to indicate your decision to be a signatory of the Bayanihan Eskwelahan Leadership Statement. Include in that email your institutional logo.
- Go to the following Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BayanihanEskwelahan
- Like the group page, join the group, and share it with your university community and other academic colleagues.
Make your contributions, as appropriate and as recommended in the second paragraph of the Leadership Statement. Begin sharing information, including open-source designs and best practices, on the group page. You have to join to post. Thank you very much.
