NATIONAL Youth Commission Chairman Ronald Cardema was asked ina television interview what he will do to scholars who are protesting against the government. He answered that they should be stripped of their scholarship grants.
Stripping scholarship grants of students based on political orientation will be for me, the most undemocratic move for an administration because an open democratic society needs critics in order to check the balance of whosoever in power is and students too have their right to participate in any kind of political discussion, not just confining themselves in academic studies. Scholarship grants cannot be attributed nor owned by any government of the day because scholarships are being funded by taxpayers, so any administration has no right to strip scholarship grant on somebody due to his/her political orientation. Cardema should focus on developing the critical thinking skills of the youth instead of pandering to his boss (President Rodrigo Duterte) who is ironically not supportive on stripping protesting students of their scholarship grants.--JOSEPH SOLIS ALCAYDE