For a student organization inside Holy Angel University (HAU), it is a known fact that organizing an event is no easy feat—especially when it comes to venue reservations.
With the university’s stringent policies on facility usage, students themselves find it hard to use the venues they, through the fees they pay, are entitled to access.
However, the opposite is true for local traditional politicians, who have found a way to use the campus grounds to propagate their own political agenda, which, in itself, is a shameful act on the part of a Catholic university, and a blatant manifestation of HAU’s poor policies that advance the needs of external elements rather than of their own students.
Last June 3, 2024, Pampanga 1st District Representative Carmelo “Jon” Lazatin II celebrated his birthday at HAU’s Immaculate Heart Gymnasium, with hundreds of government officials, media representatives, and other attendees from various sectors serving as his guests.
Yet, what was supposed to be a “birthday celebration” appeared instead to be a facade to Lazatin’s “simple man” image, all to advance his political plans.
“If we’re going to do it in a convention center, that’s not going to be him— it’s too high end, and that’s not Congressman [Lazatin]. So, by choosing Holy Angel, it’s the real world, ito tayo. It’s simple, that is who he is,” said Jenneth Sarmiento, Lazatin’s Chief of Staff.
According to Ms. Imelda Ladrillo, HAU’s Campus Services/Venues, Logistics, and Printing Head, Lazatin’s birthday was permitted as the latter paid to rent the university, given its “accessibility”, but dismissed the fact that the party takes place during a school day, despite summer class students and freshmen enrollees being on campus, stating that “no one was hassled” from the event.
However, the event, happening on a Monday, is a glaring contradiction of the “no hassle” claim by the administration, and instead demonstrates the university’s lack of welfare towards its students.
Despite ongoing in-person summer term classes and freshmen enrollment, students were redirected to different existing exits due to gate closure, and police presence was observed—all to accommodate Lazatin’s overbearing campus-wide celebration that extended from the Epiphany Garden to the stretches of HAU’s gymnasium.
While Angelites themselves face rigorous processes just to use campus facilities and, more often than not, are rejected to access such, HAU’s decision to allow politicians to celebrate their personal milestones and further their personal agenda is indeed a deviation from the university’s true purpose: to put forth the needs of its students.
For instance, The Reflection, the official student publication of School of Education, reported that they faced delays, and even discontinuance in their events due to the rigid policies in using the university’s venues.
“A particular dean already approved our letter to use their caseroom for the event, but when we submitted the request to the [Campus Services and Development Office (CSDO)], they rejected it and assigned us to the Saint Joseph Hall Building Lobby. As a result, all the [attending Education] students had to sit under the sun since the event took place in the afternoon,” narrated Rinards Pamintuan, The Reflection’s Editor-in-Chief.
“We requested additional chairs or even a tent to ensure the students wouldn’t be exposed to the heat, but our request was denied. One of the reasons given was that the sun would disappear soon, and we just had to wait,” proving further the challenges they faced as students in using the university’s venues.
Alongside all this, the decision to allow Lazatin to rent the campus for his birthday and politicking sets a precedent for any politician to also use the university for their own agenda by simply paying rental fees—posing additional challenges to the student body in securing permission to access HAU’s facilities.
HAU should recalibrate its policies to ensure that the university’s facilities are used primarily by its most important stakeholders – students, alumni, and employees, rather than by politicians who can afford to hold their own events and personal plans in more appropriate venues.
Likewise, the university should also revise and simplify its policies for students requesting access to campus venues, rather than forcing Angelites enter the rigid bureaucratic process of seeking approval to use university’s facilities where they can undertake their initiatives that actually advance the needs of the student body.
Unlike self-serving trapos who use the venues of the university to enrich their political foundation, students carry more valid, and value-adding reasons to use the facilities that are primarily intended for them. Only through such changes can HAU actually be a university that is built by the students, to their true needs, and for the Angelites.
