students of Mapua Institute of Technology

On Thursday, February 17, 2005 , the brewing
academic unrest inside the Mapua Institute of
Technology will erupt. A corporate and academic
policy doesn't really go together. Getting maximum
profit is often at the expense of quality education.
The fight that we, the students of Mapua Institute
of Technology, have started is spreading. On that
very same day, the Faculty Association of MIT will
stage a simultaneous strike in support of our
cause.



For a straight 80 years, Mapua students silently
studied and pondered equations that essentially
built our nation's infrastructures. Since 1925,
Mapua Institute of Technology silently kept
churning out graduates that made our nation
proud, from Eduardo San Juan to Diosdado
Banatao, and eventually became the country's
largest engineering community. And now, for the
first time, those 80 years of silence will be broken,
as we set out in the street to fight for what was
taken from us - our Alma Mater and her name.



MIT was bought by the Yuchengco Group of
Companies and silently transformed into a milking
cow by instituting changes against the spirit of
high quality engineering education originally
envisioned and implemented by Don Tomas
Mapua. The last strand, and the most significant of
all, was the upcoming change of name of Mapua
Institute of Technology to Malayan University ,
marking the death of our beloved Alma Mater, and
with it, more than half a century of hard work and
sacrifice by countless engineers to create a world
class engineering institution.



Monday, February 14, 2005 , marked the
historic "Black Valentines" as witnessed by the
Intramuros community where thousands of Mapua
students and alumni, all wearing black, marched
throughout the walled city and staged a prayer vigil
in the Mapua Intramuros campus. None of us
brought any placards or shouted anything against
the administration. Our hopes for a peaceful
resolution thru prayer and show of support were
very high. But then, our school president released
his statement to continue with the destructive
changes to MIT, despite all our efforts. We were all
in tears as we sang our school hymn once more,
realizing that it might be our last, uttered our
prayer, and pledged that our fight will not end
there.



On Thursday, February 17, 2005, 9:00AM, we, the
students of Mapua Institute of Technology, united
in spirit in preventing the death of MIT at all cost,
will go back in even greater number (more than ten
thousand with combined forces from Mapua Makati
campus) in Intramuros Manila to make our stand.
In this endeavor, we fully understand that we might
lose our jobs and scholarships, or sustain physical
injury. But those are sacrifices we are willing to
make, for MIT, and for the rest of the academic
community, to prevent the trend of academic
institutions turning into corporate preys from
spreading. The socio-economic implications of
such a trend are enormous.



We urge all our brothers and sisters - Filipino
students from every school and Filipino
professionals from every company to support our
cause and wear black dress or tie black ribbons
this coming Thursday. This is not only a fight by
us students of MIT, but by us all, to put a stop in
the destruction of our academic institutions and
prevent the same from happening to your own
Alma Mater. Please forward this message to your
friends and colleagues.



Sincerely,



Students of Mapua Institute of Technology