Apparently not a few "activists" think so.
The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) backed yesterday calls for the resignation of the UP Manila officials.There's something definitely wrong with all that rhetoric. Trace the assumed causal linkage in that latter concept:
"We support the faculty's demand for the UP Manila chancellor to be held accountable. However, resignation will not resolve the issue, the Aquino administration must be held accountable for state abandonment on education," said NUSP deputy secretary-general Sheryl Alapad.
Outstanding Debt => Restriction imposed on re-enrollment => Depression => Suicide
The only coherently-defined and clearly-deterministic part of that causal chain is covered by the first two: Outstanding Debt => Restriction on re-enrolment. That is presumably written in black-and-white in the UP system's guidelines.
The last three, however, implying that the restriction imposed on re-enrollment caused depression which supposedly caused said suicide is debatable at best.
As a lot of experts emphasize, suicide is a complex thing. There are a lot of variables at work that contribute to it. So we cannot make any conclusions with much confidence as to which one or handful of factors actually "caused" the subsequent event. The notion, therefore, that depression caused said suicide is debatable. That the patient suffered from depression is debatable. That the restriction imposed caused said depression is debatable.
As you can see, the restriction on enrollment part is twice removed from the suicide and the notions that link it to said suicide are huge orders of debatability separated.
As such the UP is orders of magnitude of debatability separated from culpability for Kristel's death. You cannot prove beyond 40% confidence at best that the system's policies and the way UP officials applied them caused her suicide.
[Photo courtesy Narinig ko sa UP.]
