Runaway Train and price shock

Letters

WITH the implementation of the tax reform package this year, majority of our poor people  will suffer more and would be mired further into poverty with the expected spike in the prices of major basic commodities and services beginning this month.

This “price shock” would definitely hit the poor the hardest considering that they do not have higher take home pay due to “Train” but have to shell out more money due to it.

The Train would kick oil prices of gasoline = P2.97/liter, diesel = P2.80/liter and kerosene = P3.36/liter.

These would have a severe domino effect on the prices of other products and services which is further aggravated by the VAT increases on these said products themselves. The effect of this “price shock” can be crippling to the 15.2 million poor families and even to the whole economy.

Ibon Foundation, an independent think tank, said that while Filipino families “certainly deserve income tax cuts” to cope with rising costs of living, it is misleading to claim that 6.8 million  Filipinos will benefit from Train as this figure already includes millions of minimum wage earners already exempted by law.

We will challenge the legality of this runaway Train as it was railroaded in the House without the required quorum and distribution of approved copies to the members. –Carlos Isagani Zarate, representative, Bayan Muna

Misleading the Youth

THE implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the free college education law reveal that the Duterte administration does not intend to expand access to free education in public schools so as to preserve the profits of private school owners. Instead of genuinely making education free by abolishing tuition and other school fees altogether, the Duterte government thinks it can mislead the youth with its “free education” law by laboriously devising a complex mechanism to allocate scholarship funds to “deserving” students while allowing schools to collect fees from those deemed unqualified for those funds.

The law and its IRR have become devices for private school owners to tap into public funds for profits. Based on government releases, out of the P51.4- billion funding for the program, P21.6 billion and P54 million will serve as tertiary education subsidy and student loan fund, respectively, primarily to facilitate the entry of students to private schools.

NUSP considers this as the government’s way of using people’s taxes to subsidize private schools and ensure that they continue earning millions of pesos from their business ventures in education.

The union also denounces the use of the law as justification to stop collecting student council and publication fees. The IRR does not explicitly exempt student council and publication fees from those fees that will no longer be charged, thereby constraining those institutions as to their means of sustaining their operations.

Reports from councils and publications show that after the first wave of Free Tuition Policy for 2017, their operations were severely affected, if not completely paralyzed. Publications were not able to release their newsletters and student councils were incapacitated to launch their activities and campaigns due to inadequate funds.

The law in its full implementation shall be the government’s tactic to gag the students from voicing out their dissent, especially on the issues of neoliberal policies on education and Duterte’s all-out war against the people.

NUSP also criticizes the IRR for granting to the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education Board the power to impose additional restrictions in admitting students to public tertiary education institutions in the future. The IRR has created these mechanisms that will not significantly increase enrollment in public schools and not drive students out of private schools.

The Unifast Board is a group mandated to oversee all financial assistance programs offered by the government.

Lastly, NUSP is against the procedure of endorsing funds for state and local universities and colleges will be based on their compliance with the quality standards set by the Commission on Higher Education. For the union, international practices based on the Asean Quality Assurance Framework among others will accelerate the implementation of colonial policies in Philippine education and enhance the role of the country as the source of graduates who serve as a vast pool of cheap, semi-skilled and docile labor needed by more developed countries.

This free education law cannot cover up the insincerity of Duterte to heed the demands of the Filipino people for a genuinely free education within a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented educational system. The implementing rules and regulations prove the real intention of the government in passing the law: to pacify the students and youth in their struggle against profiteering in education and its colonial, commercialized and fascist orientation. –Mark Vincent D. Lim, spokesperson National Union of Students of the Philippines