PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR Emerito Gonzales has won the University of Santo Tomas Faculty Union’s (USTFU) presidency seat during the online polls for new leaders held last Feb. 15 to 17.
Gonzales will serve as the USTFU president until 2026, replacing Dr. George Lim who has been president since 2011.
USTFU is an organization made for the faculty of UST where concerns of its members can be gathered and be voiced out to the higher-ups of the University.
Gonzales, Sulong USTFU’s presidential candidate, ran against the Institute of Religion’s Kabalikat party’s Asst. Prof. Revenendo Vargas, and fellow Philosophy professor Lingkod-Guro party’s Prof. Jove Jim Aguas for the position of the union’s president.
Gonzales plans to form a new collective bargaining agreement and will demand the release of the faculty’s tuition fee increase share from the administration.
He would also press for the hiring of the best labor lawyers for faculty members and promises a more proactive role for timely promotion and reclassification of educators.
Gonzales finished his Bachelor of Philosophy as Summa Cum Laude in the UST’s Central Seminary in 1989 and acquired both his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy as Cum Laude and his Licentiate in Philosophy in 1991.
He has attained his master of arts degree in Philosophy last 2015 in the Graduate School of the University and is currently studying for his doctorate Philosophy, also at the Graduate School.
Gonzales was a former treasurer, vice president, and president of the Arts and Letters Faculty Association.
Other Artlets professors who gained a position in the recent elections are newly elected Vice President for Legal Affairs Aurora Cristina Bermudez and USTFU Secretary General Elizabeth Kapulong.
Forty-five candidates from different colleges in the University contended for 18 positions in the faculty union. F
