JOSEPH NOEL M. ESTRADA
THE principle of “academic freedom” is part of the culture of Philippine education, being influenced largely by American education. But what does academic freedom mean for the institutions and professors? Our Constitution implies that the benefits of academic freedom are, to borrow the words of the US Supreme Court, “vested in the academy, not in the academicians.” But if we trace the concept of institutional academic freedom, it was derived from the individual academic freedom of professors which refers to their freedom to adopt their own teaching methods, techniques, and to pursue the truth free from external and internal control subject only to reasonable limitations.