The rain fell with a vengeance. Streets were flooded. Cars stalled. Entire barangays transformed into lagoons. So dire was the deluge that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself suspended government work and public school classes on 22 July, citing the safety of government workers and students. Sure, it was a rare act of foresight from Malacañang, issued a day before, even if prompted by waist-deep water and stranded commuters.

And yet, in the middle of this aquatic apocalypse, the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila decided it was the perfect time to hold a university-wide graduation ceremony at the World Trade Center in Pasay. Yes, that World Trade Center — flooded, gloomy, and reportedly adorned with floral arrangements no one would remember seeing. A space so damp and dreary on Tuesday that it might as well have been a set for a dystopian film about institutional negligence.

UP Manila’s administrators, in their infinite wisdom, refused to postpone the event. Why? Because the flowers had been paid for, the venue had been booked, and some guests had traveled from the provinces. That’s it. Those were the reasons — not science, not the safety of their graduates or their faculty members, not even sympathy for them. Just sunk costs.

This was not just poor judgment; this was direct insubordination. A public institution, funded by taxpayers, willfully disobeyed a clear and lawful order from the President of the Republic. This was not some last-minute executive whim. The President, even while in the United States, made the announcement a full day in advance. UP Manila cannot claim it was caught off guard. They had time and a warning, yet they ignored both.

The excuse that some had already traveled was as flimsy as it was lazy. In any crisis, the right thing to do isn’t always the convenient thing. Many others couldn’t make it because of the floods — stranded, soaked, or stuck in traffic. Shouldn’t their safety have mattered too?

And so, students who had toiled through years of academic rigor were forced to brave floodwaters to attend what should have been a celebration of triumph, not a testament to institutional arrogance. Parents waded through ankle- to thigh-deep waters. Others simply couldn’t make it — marooned or wisely staying home. Their absence, according to some in UP, was collateral damage.

This, from a university that proudly positions itself as a bastion of critical thinking.

A week earlier, UP president Angelo Jimenez waxed poetic during a college-level graduation. Intelligence, he said, comes naturally when talking about UP students. His contribution to the institution, he claimed, is to infuse it with “kindness and empathy.”

Well, where was the empathy when parents were drenched and the students marooned? Where was the kindness when the university insisted on going through with a ceremony despite a presidential directive and a city under water?

No, this wasn’t about academic freedom. This was about obeying lawful orders and protecting the public. When the President says “no classes,” it means everything related to education, including graduations. So what part of “no” was subject to UP’s interpretation?

This is about accountability. What the university showed was not intelligence, but hubris; not empathy, but bureaucratic callousness. UP Manila clung to a date and a down payment with the obstinacy of the obtuse, never mind that the students themselves — the very reason for the ceremony — were being placed at risk.

We deserve better from our premier state university. The public pays for its operations, trusting it to cultivate wisdom and leadership. Instead, what we saw was a kind of educated stupidity: the ability to parse postmodernist theory, perhaps, but not to discern when it’s too dangerous to cross Taft Avenue.

If this is the kind of leadership the university fosters, then God help the nation. Because the water will keep rising, and apparently, so will the indifference and lack of common sense.

UP has always prided itself on producing leaders. It better start producing some who can follow a simple presidential directive. If its officials can’t even do that, then they should step down. No more excuses. No more flowers.

Just get out of the way before people drown in your delusions.