TWO House representatives yesterday frowned over the removal in the Duterte administration’s proposed 2018 budget of funds for free higher education.
“The 2018 budget omitted provisions that will provide free tuition for all undergraduate and medical students from SUCs. In fact, there is a P6.29 billion-budget cut for the Ched,” said Rep. Antonio Tinio of ACT Teachers.
In the 2017 General Appropriations Act, P8 billion for free tuition and other school fees are included in the Ched budget as the Higher Education Support Program, covered by Special Provision 2. Ched is also allocated P3 million for cash grants to medical students, covered by Special Provision 6. Special Provision 1, common to all state universities and colleges, states that “SUCs are authorized to collect tuition fees and other necessary school charges in accordance with RA no. 8292: Provided, that starting the first semester of SY 2017-2018, no tuition fee (sic) shall be collected from undergraduate students. In lieu of the income from tuition fees (sic), the SUCs shall be provided financial assistance from the Higher Education Support Program of the Ched.”
In the 2018 National Expenditure Program the President submitted to Congress, Ched’s Special Provisions 2 and 6 were not reiterated while the proviso on free tuition and the HESP in Special Provision 1 was deleted.
“President Duterte’s economic managers consistently opposed the bill, then he himself subjected the P8.3-billion allocation in the 2017 budget to conditional implementation. And now, funds that are supposed to continue the free college program in 2018 are missing from his proposed budget,” said Tinio.
He also noted that Duterte has not yet signed the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Bill approved by Congress. If signed into law, it would turn the one year program into a regular program of the government. According to the Senate and Lower House websites, it was transmitted to him on July 5.
“Instead of removing funds for free tuition and other school fees, the administration should even increase the allocation to ensure that tertiary education remains free in 2018 and that more youth can avail of it. It should even substantially increase SUCs’ budgets to ensure that what they offer is indeed quality education,” said Rep. France Castro, also of Act Teachers. “But now we see that the President’s promise to make higher education free is just a bigay-bawi.”
Castro said this is a huge step backward for the administration, its dismissal of the people’s demand for higher budgets for education.
She added that while the National Police, Department of National Defense, and Armed Forces are given hefty increases, higher education would suffer a tremendous budget cut.
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