INTRODUCTION

PEOPLE
Yano
Romeo Lee
Manny Villar
Nur Misuari
Benjie Paras
Dino Ignacio
Eraserheads
Jerry Barican
Obet Verzola
Jessica Zafra
Zider Lubiano
Myla Algarme
Gary Granada
Raymond Red
Mike Defensor
Jerome Bailen
Eric Altamirano
Amante Jimenez
Miriam Defensor
Malou Mangahas

ISSUES
ID
UAAP
STFAP
US Bases
Collegian
Frat Violence
SAMASA split
SR controversy
Sexual Harassment

Sex has always been the spice of many conversations in UP. But in the first half of the decade, a flood of rumors and speculation revolving around the subject forced UP to be introspective, and to re-examine the relationship between the sexes within its walls. This was courtesy of associate professor Salvador Carlos, a philosophy teacher once dreaded by many female students for his rumored "kwarto o kwatro" policy. By generating publicity through his arrest and imprisonment, he may have helped hasten the passage of UP's Sexual Harassment Policy.

Recipe for Scandal
News of the raid on Carlos' house, his arrest and imprisonment, titillated the campus and the public in the closing days of the first semester, AY 94-95. Prior to his arrest on October 4, 1994, the policemen who raided his house have discovered a .38 caliber revolver, several rounds of ammunition, and photos of nude young girls, dildos, and a suction pump. As Remedios de Pano pointed out in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine (4 November 1994): "Although possession…. is not illegal….finding them in the hands of a UP professor is a sure recipe for scandal."

The police raided Carlos' house because of three rape charges filed against him. However, in the sworn statements they signed a few days later, Carlos' victims described themselves as "palaboy" (vagrants) in the Quezon Circle and not former students of the professor, as was erroneously reported by the media. And because the complainants said there were four of them and the other one was possibly missing, policemen had to dig in the professor's backyard, looking for a cadaver. They found no body.

Just a few days before Carlos' case hit the news, a UP Los Baños political science assistant professor was already facing a similar predicament. Juan Tapales was meted a 90-day preventive suspension after a female student charged that, during consultation at Tapales' residence, he mashed her breasts and asked her to touch his genitals. Although the UP administration tried to keep the case under wraps, news of the incident still found its way into the media.

These and other celebrated harassment cases prompted the Senate to revive the bill on sexual harassment previously filed by Joey Lina. In 1995, the Senate finally passed Republic Act No. 7878 (Anti-Sexual Harassment Act), requiring all academic institutions, businesses, and training institutions to have their own sexual harassment policy.

On-Campus Attacks
The cases of Carlos and Tapales put UP on the spot. For how can a university claim to be free if many of its members, females in particular, have to worry about defending their dignity from the prurient advances of teachers, colleagues, or superiors? A survey by the UP Center for Women's Studies (CWS) conducted around the time Carlos was making news revealed that 82.35% of the respondents had been sexually harassed on and off campus. The team conducting the survey defined harassment as "any conduct unwelcome to the individual to whom the action is intended."

That a large majority of the respondents felt they had been sexually harassed was grim enough. But grimmer still was the CWS' belief that the majority of sexual harassment incidents remained unreported. This was the result of the victims' fear or embarrassment and, in teacher-student cases, the power relation existing between the two.

On July 30, 1998, the Board of Regents approved the implementing guidelines on RA 7878, making UP the first institution to have its own sexual harassment policy. Sadly, other schools did not follow this lead and, today, UP remains the only school with such a policy.

But the man at the center of the controversy died before UP's Policy on Sexual Harassment was issued.On January 11, 1998, Carlos suffered chest pains while still in the Quezon City Jail. He died of cardiac arrest at the East Avenue Medical Center the next day. He was 57.

The university prides itself on being progressive and politically correct. It is thus an irony that UP learned about sexual harassment, not primarily through intellectual discourse, but through the hard way -gossip, scandal, and speculation.

References:
De Pano, Remedios. "Sex and the Student Body," Sunday Inquirer Magazine, November 4, 1994.
Azurin, Arnold Molina. "The Harassers," Philippine Free Press, October 22, 1994.
Roaring, Vichael Angelo. "Salvador Carlos, 57," Philippine Collegian, January 23, 1998.
Carlos, Christine H., "My Father was a Brilliant Man," Philippine Collegian, February 6, 1998.