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The Emperor's Honorary Degree
 
By Elson T. Elizaga
 

In June 2008, the Mindanao Polytechnic State College (now Mindanao University of Science and Technology) gave an honorary degree in humanities to Cagayan de Oro vice-mayor Vicente Y. Emano. This is irregular because of several legal prohibitions:

Republic Act 8292, also known as the “Higher Education Modernization Act of 1997”, states that colleges and universities can “award honorary degrees upon persons … within the academic competence of the university or college ….”

The Mindanao Polytechnic State College has no competence in the field of humanities. It does not give degrees in humanities.

Wikipedia defines humanities as “academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are largely analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences.

"Examples of the disciplines related to humanities are ancient and modern languages, literature, history, philosophy, religion, visual and performing arts (including music). Additional subjects sometimes included in the humanities are anthropology, area studies, communications and cultural studies, although these are often regarded as social sciences.”

The Encyclopedia Britannica has a similar definition: “…The humanities include the study of all languages and literatures, the arts, history, and philosophy ….”

The list of academic programs of Mindanao Polytechnic State College excludes all the aforementioned subjects. The school does not teach the humanities, and it has no department of humanities, because the laws that create this institution restrict it to the teaching of science and technology:

Presidential Decree 1431 shows the history of Mindanao Polytechnic State College. Section 1 of this document says: “The present Mindanao School of Arts and Trades located in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, is hereby converted into Don Mariano Marcos Memorial Polytechnic State College to take care of human resource development for industry, agriculture and forestry, and fishery and maritime studies through a network of satellite institutions throughout the region.”

The same decree, Section 2, states: “The purpose of the college shall be to provide higher vocational, professional, and technological instruction and training in trade, agriculture, fishery and maritime studies and to promote research, needed to support the industrialization program in Northern Mindanao.”

Moreover, and this is probably the most crucial, Section 4 paragraph b states that Don Mariano Marcos Memorial Polytechnic State College has the power and duty “To confer titles, bachelor's and master's degrees to successful candidates for graduation;”

PD 1431 does not give the school the right to confer doctorate degrees, including honorary degrees. Strangely, however, Mindanao Polytechnic State College offers three doctorate degrees in Technology Education, Educational Planning and Management, and in Mathematical Sciences.

Republic Act 7102 renamed Don Mariano Marcos Memorial Polytechnic State College into the Mindanao Polytechnic State College, but this act has no new set of laws that describes the purpose of the institution. So, its purpose as stated in PD 1431 remains the same.

Even if the Mindanao Polytechnic State College had legal rights to confer honorary degrees in humanities, the award it gave to Emano would still be dubious. In 2003, Emano destroyed a huge portion of the Huluga archaeological site to give way to a P500-million road project that had no Archaeological Impact Assessment.

As a result of protests by the Heritage Conservation Advocates (HCA) and other groups, the Environmental Management Bureau of Cagayan de Oro ordered Emano to pay P50,000 for the damage of this invaluable cultural and ancestral site. Emano defended his action by saying that "The bridge is more important than heritage." As of this writing, Emano has not paid the penalty.

How am I able to come up with this information when I’m not a lawyer and I don’t have a Ph.D. degree?

Simple. I'm using a wireless product of science and technology.

Messages
Names, email addresses, and other personal information are deleted from messages to protect the identity of the authors, unless the authors allow otherwise.

Comment: I regret to tell you that you wrote a wrong article against MUST. The said statements written in the R.A. 8292 were legitimately parallel to what does the school had done.

You said that it does not studies about humanities. Are you blind? Or you'r just an uneducated barbaric animal writing without thinking. I think you must eat tons of rice to be a good writer.

"NO COMPETENCE IN THE FIELD OF HUMANITIES" - Are you insane? It was clearly stated in your article the HUMANITIES means "Study of language, literature etc..." Pls look over to the subjects of all courses. I challenge you, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .! -- Name withheld. “Are you really a WRITER?.” Private email to Elson T. Elizaga, May 22, 2009. 

Elizaga's reply: By "subjects of all courses", you are probably referring to subjects like English composition and the like. English is taught in MUST as subject, as in other schools because it is required by law. You don't get degrees in English literature or history or religion or anthropology there, unlike in universities like De La Salle or UP or Xavier. You might think MUST has expertise in philosophy because of degrees like Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Mathematics, but this is more mathematics than philosophy because it is not the study of the human condition, which is at the heart of the humanities. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_condition.

Comment: I agree 100% with Elson Elizaga regarding the issues on awarding an Honorary degree to the Emperor. I'm a product of MPSC. I was once a dept chairman of the College of [deleted]. We have excellent graduates in Science & Tech. But awarding a degree to the Emperor is the beginning of the MPSC corruption. And this is sad, IMHO. -- Name withheld by writer. Email sent to http://kagay-com, August 18, 2008.

 
 
This article was published in Mindanao Goldstar Daily, July 10, 2008 and Mindanews. Expanded with note on Huluga and messages on May 25, 2009. | This article should not be copied in websites or print documents unless with permission from the author. Send comments to e.elizaga@gmail.com. | Mindanao Polytechnic State College became the Mindanao University of Science and Technology (MUST) on January 7, 2009. See also academic programs of Mindanao Polytechnic State College as of January 31, 2009 Copyright © Elson T. Elizaga.