By Jodi Bustos
Eagle News Service
QUEZON CITY, Philippines (Eagle News)– Senator Chiz Escudero on Wednesday denied that he was behind the proposal to confer a University of the Philippines honorary doctorate to President Rodrigo Duterte, but admitted that he “did not object when it was proposed.”
“I did not move but I did not object when it was proposed given that it is a UP tradition that Philippine heads of state (including the Chief Justice and Senate President) are offered honorary degrees when they are invited to be a commencement speaker (which is also a UP tradition)…,” Escudero, the Senate representative to the powerful UP Board of Regents, said.
According to Escudero, “besides, almost every honorary degree offered by UP, most of the time, has been controversial and never unanimous.”
“I guess that too is part of UP’s long history and tradition,” he added.
It was the BOR that made the offer to make the conferment, with Commission on Higher Education Chair Patricia Licuanan, the BOR co-chairperson, saying that such was a tradition offered to every Philippine president usually on their first year in office.
News of the offer, however, caused a stir among some people, who said that Duterte was not deserving of the honor, considering what they said were the extrajudicial killings under his administration.
But Paolo Duterte, the President’s son, lashed back at the critics, saying his father “does not give a heck.”
“To the so-called learned individuals who frown upon the plan of (UP) to grant an honorary doctorate degree to the President, you can have that honorary degree for all we care,” the Davao vice mayor said.
He said “all throughout the years of his public life,” the President, after all, “has always shied away from public recognitions.”
“He has always been a simple man, satisfied with what he has and (who) works hard to make a difference not just for his family but for the Dabawenyos and now the Filipino nation,” the younger Duterte added.
He also thanked the UP BOR for “even considering (their) father.”
“My father’s OK being the President of the Republic of the Philippines…Being elected as the the President of the Republic of the Philippines is already a recognition for my father,” he said.
Other former presidents granted with the degree were Manuel Quezon (1929), Sergio Osmeña (1930), Manuel Roxas (1948), Elpidio Quirino (1949), Emilio Aguinaldo (1953), Ramon Magsaysay (1955), Carlos Garcia (1959), Diosdado Macapagal (1965), Ferdinand Marcos (1966), Jose Laurel Sr. (1969), Corazon Aquino (1986), Fidel Ramos (1993), and Benigno Aquino III (2011).
Ex-Presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo, on the other hand, were also offered honorary degrees but they refused these. With a report from Meanne Corvera, Eagle News Service