NEEDED BUT REJECTED. The questioned SLU covered walk path should be funded by university fund not from the student fund, student leaers asserted. NORDIS Photo
Joined by other officers of the Executive committee and the Congress of Louisians, the student leader also demanded transparency even from the SLU administration.
In an interview, Elton Jun Veloria, secretary for public relations of the SLU-SSC said he was expelled by SSC Pres. Michael Carl Flores after he and two other officers questioned the proposal to allocate some P400,000 from the student fund for the school’s shaded walk path.
Veloria said the construction of the project should be shouldered by the SLU administration and not funded by the student central fund.
“Tuition and other fee increases are justified by the administration that 20% of the increases would be spent on infrastructure projects,” Veloria cited a Commission on Higher Education (Ched) guidelines on tuition hikes.
As this developed, the Student Affairs Office directed the SSC complaint to the student court because it was heavily premised on violations of the SSC Constitution and By-laws. The student court is inexistent and has yet to be installed, according to the student leaders.
Illegal and anomalous
Veloria also questioned Flores and the SLU administration for pushing through with the construction in December despite prior disapproval by the Congress of Louisians and the absence of an approved budget, citing provisions of the SSC constitution and by-laws and other rules on fund releases.
The student body scrapped the item for the walk path installation from the General Appropriations Act on December 11.
On December 22, three officers of the Execom retracted their earlier approval for the allocation of funds for the walk path project on three grounds, which included the absence of a canvass form attached in the resolution; the failure to indicate an amount and the absence of a Congress concurrence.
In the same letter Veloria, Cortez and Valerie Marcius Aquino, secretary for audit, said it is not the SSC’s responsibility to construct the project, iterating the 20% ToFI for improvement of facilities.
Two subsequent retraction letters were sent on January 4 and 7.
The written account he signed with Rolirey H. Flores, speaker of the Congress of Louisians and Paul Christian Cortez, secretary for Finance stated that the project was done in December when no student was in school.
The officers also questioned the release of funds from SSC funds, despite irregularities, which Veloria claims, is known to the administration.
“The haste by which the project was implemented and the timing cast a darker show of doubt on the Shaded Walk,” the written statement said.
Student responsibility
Veloria’s group reminded Flores that their responsibility as student council officers is to protect the rights and welfare of students.
They also clarified that they are not against the construction of the walk path because it would benefit students, especially during inclement weather. They made it clear that their responsibility is to ask the university to shoulder the construction and not draw the funds from the SSC.
The Anakbayan-SLU chapter supported Veloria and his group demand that funds used to construct the walk path be reverted to the student fund. It said the funds were mysteriously drawn without the knowledge of the secretary for finance.
“The SSC is a training ground for the youth to become worthy people’s servants and not a training ground for graft and corruption,” Anakbayan said in a support statement.
Arbitrary
Veloria maintains that he was arbitrarily expelled by Flores, who cited as ground four absences in the Execom meetings, which he contested in another letter.
Anakbayan believed the expulsion did not go through due process.
It supported Veloria’s analysis that he was expelled due to Flores’es disregard for democratic processes as embodied in the SSC by-laws.
Flores alleged that he could not find proof that Veloria was never absent in meetings because no documents could be found in the SSC office.
The appointment of John Balignasay as a replacement for Veloria was not approved by the Congress of Louisians. Instead the Congress ruled that Veloria be reinstated for lack of basis for expulsion.
Aquino and Cortez are reportedly threatened of expulsion for supporting Veloria. Like Veloria, they were voted into office by the student population, according to Anakbayan.
Flores, 29, a barangay captain in a downtown barangay, here, is a nursing student.
Nordis tried, but failed to get an interview with Flores.