COMMISSION on Higher Education chairman Prospero De Vera III called on officials of the University of the Philippines Diliman to respect the decicision of other state universities to remove “subversive” books and other reading materials.

De Vera pointed out that the pullout of books donated by Communist-Terrorist Groups was done in the exercise of academic freedom.

In a statement, De Vera said school authorities in these HEIs are in the best position to explain why they removed those books and other reading materials.

“They are given sufficient administrative discretions under existing laws,” he said.

The Kalinga State University, Isabela State University, and Aklan State University recently pulled out reading materials donated by the National Democratic Front from their libraries and turned these over to the regional National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency.

“HEIs must respect these decisions of other HEIs in the spirit of mutual respect and  proper governance of their institutions,” De Vera said.

“I know that there are many HEIs that are critical of the policies adopted by the University of the Philippines Diliman officials and the way they run their campus but they are not issuing statements out of mutual respect for the governance of individual public universities,” he said.

“It would be best for the Chancellor of UP Diliman and other officials to be more prudent, circumspect, respectful and discerning in issuing statements especially involving the exercise of academic freedom of other higher education institutions,” De Vera added.

UP Diliman officials earlier condemned the removal of supposedly subversive books from some state university libraries, saying this is a clear example of censorship and censorship of knowledge.