Save the UP Diliman Tennis Club

We, the undersigned members of the UP community, support the UP Diliman Tennis Club's (UPDTC) request not to demolish the tennis courts beside the College of Engineering building.

It is our understanding that the UP Administration has mandated that the current grounds of the said courts be alloted for the construction of an extension for certain academic departments of the College of Engineering, and that this will take place on or before January 2009.

We forward this petition because this will greatly affect not only the UPDTC's members and their respective beneficiaries, but also the future of the University's tennis varsity program.

In line with the University's vision of holistic human development, the tennis courts have served as an environment to foster camaraderie and sportsmanship among various members and non-members of the UP community, a conducive venue for socialization and recreation.

Students and visitors alike regularly visit the courts to play and to learn the sport, with the help of tennis instructors, ballboys and concessionaires whose source of income is mainly dependent on the UPDTC's activities. Furthermore, the Club has become the base and training grounds of the UP Diliman's tennis varsity team, one of the most competitive among the current sports programs of the University.

Demolishing the courts would seriously put the futures of the aforementioned beneficiaries of the UPDTC at great risk, the former on their profession of sorts and the latter on their match performances, undermining not only the tennis program but possibly the whole athletic program of the University.

We feel that it is a very distressing situation to remove unaccounted for an established social group which it time has become a fine subculture within the confines of a largely diverse UP culture. We understand that the mandate is primarily for academic purposes, we being members of the academic community itself. Thus we urge the UP Administration to pursue other alternatives, such as re-evaluating other grounds on which to build the said infrastructures.

We want the tennis courts to stay, on behalf of the UPDTC, and we want to see the UP Administration uphold the tradition of total human development and excellence - not only academically, but in everything else.