Hello controversy, we meet again. This time, it is a storm swirling through the SRB, the Unicus class, the acting speaker who is the electoral committee chairman, and the very core of our association. Justice, once again, stands on trial, and not in the courts of fairness, but in the dark corridors of power, where agendas wield the gavel and truth is bent to fit convenience.
Yesterday’s SRB meeting was a tragicomedy of errors, and a theater of chaos. A class member, perched by the window like a defiant bird; shouted to his constituency members to abandon ship; to leave the meeting. A congressional representative, with fists of words raised, dared to challenge the acting speaker as though the rule of law were a suggestion rather than a foundation. And then the climax: members stormed out, with their voices ringing like the clash of cymbals, loud and graceless. The arena descended into the brawls of political streetfighters, and It took the cold hands of security officers to rein in the heat of tempers.
What led to this? How did we arrive at a point where the institution meant to uphold justice has become the stage for its betrayal? To understand the uproar, we must rewind two years; to an event that may have seemed innocuous at the time but now festers like a neglected wound.
Flashback: Two Years Ago
Two years ago, before the infamous triple-threat presidential election, the seeds of selective justice were sown. The candidacy of Hon. X was called into question.
His eligibility rested on the yet-to-be-dissolved parliament being counted as a completed year. The constitution itself, a document meant to be a fortress of clarity, was wielded like a double-edged sword, and its provisions interpreted not for fairness but for convenience. Article 68 became both shield and dagger, depending on whose hands held it.
“At least a parliamentary year,” the constitution said, But what defines “complete”? The precedent, then as now, leaned on pragmatism: a year 90% done, with one sitting left, was enough. Hon. X, like others before him, was deemed eligible not because the constitution was shaped to his benefit but because of the precedence laid down.
What Happened Two Days ago?
Now, to two days ago, the nominations for the SRB leadership, including the position of the Speaker held. However, it was a staged farce where the constitution became a prop, and its words bent to fit the desires of those who hold power. Hon. A, barely three days into his second parliamentary year, stood at the center of this travesty because his candidacy was a glaring contradiction to the rules set in stone.
30(i) is as lucid as sunlight:
“The Speaker…must have been a member of the SRB for at least two parliamentary years.”
Yet, two members of this body, two supposed custodians of this very law, Hon. B and Hon. A, dared to nominate him. A deliberate affront to the ideals they are sworn to protect.
And what followed? Chaos. The SRB chambers, meant to echo with reasoned debate, instead resounded with the onomatopoeic clatter of chairs pushed back in frustration, and the stomp of feet walking out in protest. Hon. H argued endlessly with the Speaker WHO STOOD UP, and when the futility of debate became unbearable, he stormed outside. Members of the Unicus constituency also rose and left, while others hurled accusations like stones, leaving the room bruised and broken. Hon. K and Hon. T stormed out, their disobedience to constitutional rules a paradoxical stand against an already crumbling structure. Outside, the chaos only intensified; a fracas so wild that it demanded the strength of security officers to pull the pieces apart.
What Happened Yesterday?
The elections held yesterday. Hon. X from the Unicus constituency raised a motion to reverse the Speaker’s decision. Yet, only 11 out of 36 agreed to see the truth.
Before the votes, the stage had already been set for chaos. The Speaker, wielding his authority like a gavel directed Hon. K and Hon. T to move to the gallery. It was only the intervention of the Student Union President that saw them returned to their places.
The Unicus constituency rose as a collective and then said to the speaker “We will not let you count,” they said, their words carrying the weight of frustration.
Now, to the votes, what, then, are we to make of the 25 votes cast in favor of this anomaly yesterday? Twenty-five representatives, guardians of democracy’s fragile flame, chose, with deliberate apathy, to smother its light. They did not merely turn a blind eye; they became accomplices in the darkening of what should have been a transparent process.
And the Student Union President, the supposed embodiment of democratic ideals across the entire school? Did he not see the need to speak out against the injustice? The irony is staggering: the one entrusted with upholding fairness stood as a witness to its desecration.
How did it come to this? How did we arrive at a place where the rule of law becomes a euphemism for convenience, where the face of justice shifts with the agenda of the hour? Yesterday was not just a breach of protocol; it was a warning that this association is teetering on the edge of rot, and its foundations corroded by the acid of apathy and manipulation.
The irony is unbearable and nauseating. A body entrusted with crafting laws now wields those laws as weapons. The acting speaker’s silence was deafening; a complicity so loud it reverberates through the chambers of our collective conscience. And where were the dissenting voices? Where were the defenders of justice? Where are the members who should have risen in defiance?
The Rot That Persists
This is not new. Two years ago, justice wore the mask of convenience, and her scales tipped by hidden hands. Last tenure, she was a puppet with her strings pulled by those with an agenda to advance. Those who rallied against tenure extension on supposed moral grounds became the architects of their own hypocrisy, supporting the very anomalies they once decried. And now, here we stand again, watching the same play with different actors, the same script with slight edits, the same outcome; a betrayal of the very principles this association claims to uphold.
Justice, once blind, now peers through slits in her blindfold, choosing whom to favor. She has become an oxymoron; a guardian of fairness who practices favoritism, a protector who stands idly by as the walls of truth crumble. And worse, the SRB, the supposed custodians of this justice, have aligned themselves with the anomaly. They are not just complicit; they are architects of this farce.
The Call to Rise
IFUMSITES, do you not see what is happening? Your right to fair representation, your trust in a system meant to uphold integrity, is being traded away like a trinket in a marketplace of power. Rise up, not with chaos but with clarity. Demand answers, demand accountability, demand the restoration of a system that serves you, not the ambitions of the few. Call out your SRB representatives. Call out your executive members.
Justice cannot exist where the rules are malleable, where principles bend to the will of agendas. It is time to rise; not just in outrage but in action. It is time to hold those who would undermine your rights to the fire of scrutiny and ensure that they feel its heat.
This is not just about yesterday’s election; it is about every tomorrow that will be shaped by what we allow today. Rise, IFUMSITES, and reclaim the justice that is slipping through your fingers. The time for silence has passed. The time for action is now.
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