Colleagues and supporters greet AIM Faculty Association Chairman Victor Limlingan and AFA President Emmanuel Leyco Wednesday with a banner, "Welcome back to AIM Prof. Noel Leyco and Prof. Vic Limlingan." The top leaders of AFA were suspended by AIM for a year for "dysfunctional behavior."

by ISAGANI DE CASTRO JR.
abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak
 
Two faculty members of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) accused the school management of not practicing what it preaches on corporate social responsibility after they won early victories on labor rights of the faculty.
 
Professors Victor Limlingan and Emmanuel Leyco, chairman and president respectively  of the AIM Faculty Association (AFA), returned to work Wednesday after the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) recently declared illegal their suspension by AIM President Francis Estrada.
 
Limlingan and Leyco were suspended for a year starting July 9, 2007 after they initiated a move asking AIM why it was not complying with national laws that say schools must allot 70% of tuition increases to pay hikes of school faculty and employees.
 
The AFA claims AIM owes school employees P984 million from the non-implementation of laws such as Presidential Decree 451, which authorizes the education secretary to regulate imposition of tuition, and Republic Act 6728 on government assistance to students and teachers in private education.  
 
“The legal court has spoken. AIM management must respect the right of faculty to organize, a universal and constitutionally protected right of citizens,” the AFA leaders  said in a statement. (Read: AIM must respect the right of faculty to self-organization)
 
The NLRC also recently ruled in favor of another faculty member, Prof. Jesus Roces,  who was illegally dismissed after he questioned the academic credentials of the dean of the AIM, Victoria Licuanan. Licuanan did not have a masters degree when she was seeking the deanship of AIM, AFA said.
 
In a separate case, NLRC also found the AIM guilty of unfair labor practice after it suspended, dismissed, pressured, or denied promotion and benefits to AFA officials who have been pushing for the rights and welfare of the faculty. (Read decision, in three parts, here: AIM Faculty Association versus AIM)
 
“This is a clear indictment of the authoritarian rule at the AIM, which ironically prides itself as a strong advocate of corporate responsibility in the region,” Limlingan and Leyco said.
 
Tenure system
 
Upon their return to the AIM Wednesday, Limlingan and Leyco held a press conference with some of their supporters in the faculty.
 
Limlingan said the AIM’s unfair labor practices were a “direct assault of the tenure system.” Quoting a UNESCO Recommendation on the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel, which the Philippines is a signatory to, he said “tenure is an essential safeguard mechanism to  protect academic freedom and against arbitrariness.”
 
Had they lost their case, Limlingan said it would have set a precedent. “It can be used to attack the tenure system in other schools,” he said. “This is not a personal issue but a sectoral issue as well.”
 
The AFA said colleagues from the University of the Philippines ,  De La Salle University, and other faculty groups supported AFA.
 
Limlingan said some taipans have been buying schools in recent years, and the AFA case will have an impact on these schools. “We don’t want to be a precedent,” he said.
 
Limlingan said AIM is losing its competitiveness vis-à-vis other business schools since it prefers to replace its tenured faculty with “young PhD graduates.” As a result, he said the AIM is “losing students” to business schools in neighboring countries like Malaysia , Indonesia , and China .
 
“How do we make AIM the premier management school in Asia ? By working with its faculty,” Limlingan said.
 
AIM to appeal
 
Meanwhile, in an interview with abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak, AIM President Francis Estrada said AIM will appeal all three cases it lost before the NLRC.
 
“Of course,” he said when asked if AIM will appeal. “And we believe so strongly about this, that this is not a matter of personalities. This is a matter of principle, so we will go all the way to the Supreme Court, if that is what it takes.”
 
In the meantime, Estrada said Limlingan and Leyco will be allowed to teach again at the AIM.
 
“Well, they will go back to work. We will follow the rules, but we will expect them to perform in the manner as faculty members,” Estrada said. “They will be given teaching load, but they will be expected to teach at the highest levels, as everybody should.”
 
Best-paid faculty
 
In response to AFA’s claim that AIM was not practicing what it preaches on corporate social responsibility, Estrada said AIM faculty is “the best paid in the country, by far, so this is not exactly an impoverished group.”
 
On the average, he said an AIM faculty member receives a salary “in the order of P1.4 million, P1.5 million a year, and that is for 70% of their time.”
 
Estrada said AFA had failed to support its claim that the school owes them nearly P1 billion in tuition increases that are supposed to be given to school employees.
 
“They have not, in over a year, submitted a shred of evidence to support that. They have  basically filed a suit for almost P1 billion, and they have not shown any evidence,” he said.
 
The AFA has asked AIM for copies of its financial statements and other documents that would support its case, but AIM has “ignored” AFA’s requests, according to the NLRC.
 
No more tenure
 
Estrada said AIM is undertaking reforms aimed at upgrading the school’s quality of education, and it has removed the tenure system so that it can hire young and better professors.
 
“We have eliminated tenure, not retroactively but prospectively. Why have we eliminated tenure? The logic is this: you are a graduate school of management, and if there is one axiom that is clear in the management business, it is this: there is nothing more constant than change,” he said.
 
Estrada disagreed with Limlingan’s view the quality of AIM’s education is being affected by the policy to replace tenured faculty.  
 
“That’s not what the evidence suggests. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have a problem. We have a number of very good faculty, but one of the observations is  they weren’t maintaining the standards,” he said. “We have aged, our faculty has aged when the rest of our competitors, all over, are bringing in young PhDs, people who are research-oriented.”
 
Estrada said the reforms they are implementing are all the more critical since AIM is competing with business schools in Asia that receive big subsidies from government.
 
“You’re competing against countries that are much more wealthy, that can subsidize their institutions. We don’t have the luxury, so we have to work smarter and bring in the smart people and the people that are young and are constantly aware of the trends. We cannot just be inward-looking. That’s the problem,” he said.
 
On the allegation that AIM Dean Victoria Licuanan does not have a PhD, Estrada said, “technically-speaking, she doesn’t have a doctorate, this is true, but she completed all her academic work for her doctoral in Harvard University .”
 
Estrada said AIM management is open to AFA’s proposal for a dialogue that would resolve these issues affecting the school, but that they will not compromise on the school’s reform policies.
 
“What is not subject to compromise is quality and ethics. That’s not on the table. That, we have to maintain. If we give that up, we might as well shut down,” he said.