UNAVAILABLE. IRRELEVANT. Not transparent.

For the longest time, these criticisms have been thrown at the Sanggunian and to this day, remain to be the issues it wishes to address. For the school year 2010-2011, the Sanggunian claims it has taken great strides in becoming more transparent, available and relevant to the student body.

“We’ve set up systems and relationships to ensure that the Sanggunian is able to fulfill its mandate of representation, service and formation,” said Sanggu President Rob Roque.

Student Judicial Court (SJC) Chief Magistrate Robert Beltejar’s assessment of the Sanggunian echos Roque’s. “This [school year’s Sanggunian] is transparent. They have shown great efforts in politicizing and engaging the student body. An example would be the State of the Sanggu Address,” he said.

For Ateneo Debate Society (ADS) Vice-President for Public Relations Steffi Sales however, the Sanggunian remains rickety in terms of possessing a genuine political identity.

“Pertinent issues keep popping up and the student council is never there to speak up about it and truly engage in anything,” she said.

The question of connection

According to several students, the Sanggunian still possesses an “aura of exclusivity” and the gaping distance between the student body and their representatives persists.

“I don’t feel the presence of Sanggu. I’m not even aware of the things that they do. I only remember that there is a Sanggunian during election time,” sophomore Stephen Fajardo said.

Sales shares the same sentiment. “Nobody really likes the Sanggunian, except the people who belong in it,” she said.

“Do they [Sanggu] honestly believe that literally creating glass windows for the Sanggunian room will prove their transparency to students? I think not. They are simply making literal what they cannot prove in principle,” Sales said.

Meanwhile, sophomore Anne Sy said that she thinks both the Sanggunian and the student body have their own shortcomings. “[The Sanggunian], I believe still lacks transparency while the students have minimal awareness of what’s going on around them. There is no connection [between the Sanggunian and the student body],” she said.

For The Assembly’s Vice President (VP) of the Office of Research and Advocacy Leiron Conrad Martija, the Sanggunian could’ve done better this school year. He said, however, that everyone should also take into consideration the situation of the student council.

“Ipit din kasi ang Sanggu (The Sanggunian is caught in the middle) by the students’ expectations and by the administration. However, Sanggu should start being firm and make its stance clear on everything because campus politics should not be neutral,” he said.

In response to this, Sanggunian Secretary General Maan Delos Santos said that the student body shouldn’t be overly critical of the Sanggunian’s performance.

“We have made efforts to improve our consultation process, to gather data in order to better work with the school administration, to provide [students] with more efficient and effective services, and to provide a more personal touch in updating everyone on what the officers have been working on throughout the school year,” she said.

Irrelevant?

Roque said students look to the Sanggunian whenever a crisis arises. The council represents the students after all, according to him. Sales believes otherwise.

“The students that comprise the Sanggunian have yet to learn what it means to engage in challenges. What they’re doing now is having criticisms placed on their shoulders, yet merely brushing them off by giving students dismal responses,” she said.

Sales added that though the Sanggunian is branded as “the sole autonomous student government of the Ateneo,” that is “only true in name.”

“In spirit they have been long gone, irrelevant to the student body except for the usual need for project funding and manpower. They themselves have brought about their own irrelevance,” Sales said.

Beltejar expressed a different view however, and said that the Sanggunian is needed by the student body. “If you have no [student] government, you run the risk of anarchy. [The Sanggunian] serves as the beacon of understanding,” he said.

According to Sanggunian Vice President Jojo Dumrique, it’s difficult for Sanggunian officers to satisfy everyone.

“Criticisms arise because [the Sanggunian] gets compared to student organizations which have obviously relevant projects to the students,” said Dumrique in a mix of English and Filipino.

A working system

Roque admitted the Sanggunian’s limitations but said that there is still room for improvement, but asserts that positives can be found in the student council’s efforts this school year.

He said that the Sanggunian’s strengthened relationship with the school administration and other sectors will benefit the LS in the long run.

When several students were asked if they could live without Sanggunian, most of them didn’t hesitate to say “yes”. Roque didn’t find this worrisome and said that this is actually an indication that the Sanggunian’s system of student governance is working.

“Student perspective is very important. Hearing students say that they could live without [the Sanggunian] is a victory for us. This is an indication that there are no problems to be resolved,” Roque said.