Majority bloc senators urged on Tuesday the Department of Defense (DND) to reconsider its unilateral decision to scrap its three-decades old pact with the University of the Philippines (UP) ensuring its academic freedom.

"We appeal to our good Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana to reconsider his decision and sit down with the officials of UP to come up with solutions to ensuring peace and security in our nation, which I am sure is an aspiration shared by both sides,” Senator Juan Edgardo Angara said in a statement.

Lorenzana terminated the 1989 UP-DND accord amid the government's crackdown on suspected members of communist rebel groups.

He said the agreement, which bars state forces within UP's campuses, was a "hindrance" to their operations. 

But Angara said that the agreement had been effective in helping authorities and has "never been an obstruction" in their crime-fighting efforts.

The senator, a UP College of Law graduate, added that the academic freedom that the state university has long enjoyed significantly contributed to the success of its students and graduates.

"UP has produced some of the best and brightest minds in our country’s history and there is no doubt that the academic freedom enjoyed by the State University played no small part in this," he said.

"It is this dynamism that contributed to UP being ranked among the top universities in the region and I am confident it will continue to rise further with the continuous support provided by our government," he pointed out.

The lawyer-senator also noted that: "Just like any other legal agreement, prior consultation is required before any decision to amend or in this case, terminate is implemented."

He said any problems that the DND find in the agreement could be resolved "in a calm and constructive way."

UP Board of Regents member Senator Joel Villanueva also said the DND should not break its accord with the UP.

"The university is a bastion of freedom. Let’s nurture our youth’s passion for political and social cause," said the Senate higher education committee chairman.

Villanueva said the government, instead, should prioritize "very important issues where the resources of the military and the police will be more efficiently utilized."

"We have the West Philippine Sea issue, increasing criminality due to POGOs, extrajudicial killings of doctors, lawyers, among other individuals," he said.

Senator Nancy Binay, also a UP alumna, likewise raised alarm over the sudden abrogation of the UP-DND pact, which she said "clearly shows the DND's disrespect for democratic rights by constricting academic freedom."

Despite this, she said: "Red-tagging UP students and constricting UP’s democratic space do not silence critical opinions."

"Limiting and suppressing the democratic rights of students, faculty, non-academic staff, and the entire UP community do not diminish their sense of patriotism — nor will keep the community silent," she added.

She, too, told the government to look into the bigger problems causing communist insurgency in the country.

"Nagbago na ang konteksto kung sino ang dapat nating kalaban (Our context of enemy has changed). Hindi ang UP o ang mga estudyante ang kailangang pagtuunan ng pansin (The government should not be picking on UP and its students). We have an invisible enemy that has radically upended our lives and our country. Abrogating the agreement is not the solution we are trying to find," Binay said.

"Instead of fostering unity as a people, the unnecessary abrogation of the agreement will only breed more mistrust and bring us far apart," she said.

Military and intelligence officials have insisted that the UP is being used a recruitment ground of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New Peoples' Army (CPP-NPA), claiming the some progressive groups are associated with them.