A strong opposition was expressed by the System-wide University Library Council of the University of the Philippines (UP) to the removal and banning of "subversive" books and materials from libraries not just in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) but anywhere else in the country.

This comes after the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) CAR issued Regional Memorandum No. 113 series of 2021, encouraging “all Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Cordillera Administrative Region... to join the region-wide removal of subversive materials both in library and online platforms.”

The council explained that while the Memorandum does not compel librarians and heads of universities and colleges to remove books and materials perceived to contain “subversive” ideas from their libraries, the call of a regional regulatory body for HEIs within its jurisdiction to join a region-wide movement to ban such materials has a compelling effect on the institutions it regulates.

"As such, it threatens to undermine the very foundation of the academic freedom guaranteed by the Constitution to all institutions of higher learning, whether public or private," they said in a statement.

"That freedom rests on the untrammeled flow of information and knowledge contained in, among others, books, periodicals, documents, recordings, and such other media as libraries collect and distribute" they added.

The council mentioned that as "gatekeepers of knowledge", they oversee that the UP System libraries are "ethically-bound" to resist any form of political interference that would diminish the access of students and scholars to any materials they may need in pursuit of their studies.

"Book purges are practiced by dictatorships, not democracies; and inevitably, book purges prove futile, as those who banned the Noli and the Fili for being subversive eventually realized," they said.

The library council also reiterated its importance in the age of fake news, which magnifies the responsibility of universities to seek and promote the truth, regardless of political consequences.

They called on fellow librarians and university officials to protect the libraries from any form of censorship, and to resist any actions that will compromise academic freedom.

"We need to open minds, and not to close them. Since we believe in democracy, as our critics claim to do, we must remain open to ideas not necessarily our own and respect the right of our citizens to read about them in our libraries," they said.