PROPHARM   HISTORY                                                                                                                              

          Concerned senior students (Meynard Bernardez, Alexis Cayoca, Larry Lopez, and co.) saw how the student council in the college was slowly reduced to a council concerned only with traditional cultural events. Slowly, the council lost its visibility to students and was only known as UPPHA, a group from whom they could buy lab gowns and nameplates. Many were not even aware that UPPHA was actually the college student council. The constituents were wrapped in a veil, not knowing the issues that their fellow students experienced whether inside the college or in the whole university.

            The existing condition of the student council and the realization that led them to such conclusion lead this group to field an alternative slate in the February 1996 UP Pharmaceutical Association-Student Council Election, with a vision of pharmacy student council that would promote a nationalist, democratic, scientific and mass-oriented health education system that would be responsible to the needs of the students and to the Filipino masses as a whole.

            For the first time, there emerged two slates for the student council election. Reyna Envarga was fielded to run for chairperson. Alexis Cayoca, Meynard Bernarde and Larry Lopez were the overall campaign managers.

            The election campaign was marked by character assassinations being thrown against PROPharm’s slate, and was met by the group with an amount of retaliation as well. There was even a rumor being spread that some of its members were using the said election to escape the issue that exploded regarding the “Ang Sipi,” the UPPHA publication. In spite of such events, the slate labored to campaign not just for the elections but to raise the consciousness of the students on their basic rights and welfare, and to raise their awareness on pertinent national and university issues of the times.

            PROPharm was able to clinch three year-representative positions. Analyzing the results of the elections, it was seen that the traditional ruling party won by a very narrow margin. This served as an indicator that indeed, the students were not satisfied with the last performance of the different batches of the student council and that they were looking and ready or an alternative—they were asking for a change. With this analysis, the supporters, campaign managers and slate members decided to convert PROPharm into a college-based socio-civic political organization with Reyna Envarga as founding chairperson. They realized that the election alone, even if it was won, would not be enough to bring about the change that the student clamored as shown by the result of the election. There was a greater need to ensure that succeeding student councils will be supplied with leaders that would fulfill and maximize the genuine essence of a student council: a genuine student council immersed with its constituents so that it could truly represent them, vanguard their rights and welfare, serve as their lawyer and spokesperson when lobbying or student welfare, and raise their consciousness and concern not just for their fellow students but concern for the masses to whom UP students owe their education. Moreover, students without an organization and students who share the same sentiments on a genuine student council and raising social consciousness would be given a venue to participate in meaningful undertakings. In August 24, 1996, the Progressive and Responsive Organization of Pharmacy or PROPharm was accredited as a college-based organization.

            Just like any beginning organization, PROPharm experienced a lot of birthing pains from being questioned by some faculty members, taunts of another college-based organization and several students and of course, breaking into new grounds. The first two years were marked with problems in recruitment due to seemingly “hardline” stance of the organization in political and social issues and basically the fact that it was new. Perceptions on the organization were not positive for they saw its members as mere happy-go-lucky students. Come 1998, with the reorientation of its members, and through the careful planning, implementation and efforts given by its new central committee lead Marie Berioso (PROPharm chairperson), the organization finally made its presence felt in the college.