Statement from the Office of the Chancellor
Regarding Allegations of Uncompensated Student Services
A shared social media post by a University of the Philippines Baguio student, who is also an officer of a university student organization, alleges that they were engaged by the UP Baguio administration to provide photography services for the 2025 commencement exercises to take individual photographs of graduating students. The outcome of this “most challenging” experience as he says, was that (1) they were not paid, and (2) they were not provided with food.
The quick answer to the issue of directly engaging their services is that UP Baguio through the Office of the University Registrar (OUR), has not sought the services of any individual or group to provide individual photographic services for graduating students, in keeping with a long-standing practice that private photographers are not allowed on the floor so as not to disrupt the solemnity of the proceedings.
It retains services through the procurement process for videography and photography only for purposes of documenting the proceedings.
Thus, if this was not transacted through the OUR, then the basis for the student-photographers’ participation in the commencement rites was their working relationship with the editorial board of the 2025 graduation yearbook composed entirely of students working independently from the UP Baguio administration. The editorial board thus facilitated all necessary communications with the OUR. The nature of the relationship of the board and the student organization was that all authority, instructions, and directives emanate from the board.
The communications timeline between the board and the OUR began in late June 2025 when the board endorsed a formal third-party offer to provide “same day (video) edit” for the commencement rites “free of charge” provided they be allowed to undertake photographic services for graduating students. The offer was politely declined with an explanation that documentation services were already contracted prior to the offer. Since the work did not include personal photographic services for students, the OUR allowed the board to assign photographers for this purpose.
The board then decided to forgo with the services of their third-party contact. Instead, photographers from the student organization were tasked. The board requested the deployment of four personnel. The OUR allowed two. To avoid crowding and to maintain the solemnity of the event, the movement and number of people on the floor must be at minimum. Aside from the student photographers, personnel doing tasks were the UP System Media and Public Relations Office, UPB Office of Public Affairs, the student publication, and the contracted videographers. The event had support staff, including faculty in the role of event directors. All were assigned specific stations within the venue.
The names of the student photographers were sought for the issuance of venue passes. The board did not raise matters of compensation and/or the provision of food for the photographers. Nevertheless, the OUR through the student relations office wrote the board to inquire whether they had concerns about compensation and food. To which the board replied on July 10 that they were planning to provide their photographers with tokens or food. As to payment, the photographers would need compensation only if the venue is far from the UPB campus.
These matters being settled between the communicating parties, the assigned photographers were asked to join the graduation rehearsals. Neither brought up matters of compensation or food provision.
This prompts the question of the nature of information that was relayed by the editorial board to their principal. Have the photographers been led to believe that for their coverage they would be compensated and to be provided with food by the UPB administration? This is clearly contrary to the “plans” mentioned by the editorial board in their July 10 email. However, assuming there was an agreement, then the UPB Administration would have done the following:
ON COMPENSATION – An appointment would have been issued to the photographers detailing scope of work and compensation. Or a competitive procurement process would have taken place in which the party making an offer for services would have been pitted against other similar offers.
ON FOOD PROVISIONS – The photographers would have been included in the food allocation because the procurement process again specifies purchases to abide by the exact number of personnel to be serviced.
These official processes did not happen because the concerns were never raised in the communication exchanges. On the other hand, if a unilateral grant of compensation was expected, then this clearly violates the procurement process.
We acknowledge that the workload of the student photographers was heavy that day. They put in the hours and stayed until the end. If they needed food at any time, the logical recourse would have been to let us know so that even if they were not in the headcount, we would have accommodated them.
What we could not do was pander to every individual’s needs because we, too, have been saddled with real-time difficulties. Recall that at the start of the baccalaureate services, the power went out delaying the proceedings for about thirty minutes. We needed to immediately resolve the situation. Consequently, we regret that some matters were overlooked in favor of continuity of proceedings. We were confronted with extraordinary difficulty, stressful enough for some concerns to fall through.
If this deserves criticism, then we are not exempt from it. But to excoriate us with allegations of engaging the services of students without compensation is beyond the facts. To be sure: we never engage in acts inimical to students. While their welfare is always our concern, and despite open channels of communication, there was an apparent haste in making a judgement without verification. This is the result.