On July 28, UP students, as well as other members of the University, are obliged to storm the venue of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address (SONA). The reason for such, however, is not merely to behold the president's litany of justifications for a country in face of crises in all facets. Neither are we compelled to troop to Batasan to listen while the president blurts out half-truths and motherhood statements.

After all, the coming SONA is no longer a period for evaluation and explanation.

Enough has been said, yet less has been done to relieve the country of its woes. This SONA, which is hopefully the last by Pres. Arroyo, is the moment to exhume the blow that her administration deserves for the blatant disloyalty to the dispossessed people, who, in the first place, brought her to Malacaņang.

There is, in fact, no need to look far to experience how the President betrays the people, as the University itself is witness to the government's abandonment. A closer scrutiny of the government's policy on education in tertiary level points to the realization that, indeed, the President cares less for the students and the academe than she does for her capitalist masters.

The series of slash in the budgetary allocation for UP and other state colleges and universities (SCU), as well as the budget freeze in line with the president's austerity program, clearly exposes the government's flawed priorities. That while UP and other SCUs have to settle with a diminutive budget, the military receives large portion of the national budget. At the same time, the government allocates the largest appropriation for debt servicing.

Given such meager budget, the University is driven to resort to income-generating schemes. If not for the government's misappropriation of funds, then portions of land, which should be sites for academic facilities and buildings, would not have to be leased or sold. The University would not have to resort to industry-academe linkages if only the state provides enough subsidy for students and faculty to conduct research. Ultimately, the UP administration would not have to increase tuition and pass the burden of financing education to students.

Moreover, the UP administration would not have to push for the passage of a Charter that institutionalizes the commercialization and eventual privatization of an ironically phrased "national university." That the Board of regents would have sole power to increase tuition and lease lands could be perceived as the UP administration's response to the blows it receives from the inconsiderate state. Concretely, the ensuing approval of the amendments to the UP Charter is a direct negation to the right to education, a clear demonstration of state abandonment. Indeed, the UP administration is not the sole culprit in the crime against the University and the students as Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself is perpetrator of such grave offense.

As iskolars ng bayan who helped oust then president Joseph Estrada, the coming SONA again proves to be a fertile ground for us to condemn a government that forms policies that deprive not only UP students but every Filipino the right to education.

And on June 28, classes will not be suspended. They will be held in the parliamentary of the streets, attended by every UP student who believes in the fight for the right to education, as well as in the struggle of different yet equally oppressed sectors.