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By Batas Mauricio

SO, where will the Aquino government use the money that will result from the budget cuts and greatly decreased allocations for some 59 state universities and colleges in 2016?

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I loath to think President Aquino and his loyal lieutenants in Congress, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and Senate President Frank Drilon, would instead be using the money from the budget cuts for the 2016 elections to ensure the victory of their candidates, but, is there any other way to view their having greatly reduced the budget for the education of the Filipino youth?

As it is, many poor youngsters are already incapable of going even to government educational institutions, because of extreme poverty and unfavorable economic conditions. With the budget cuts for state colleges and universities ordered by Aquino and his cohorts, we could be sure there will be more out-of-school youths who will tread the path of despair, vice, and criminality, in 2016 and beyond.
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Pardon me for using my own experience when I was struggling to get an education from the University of the Philippines in the early 1970s as an example, but, I could not have completed my AB Journalism course back then if I was not allowed to obtain student loans from UP’s Student Loan Board to pay for my tuition fees.

I do remember the fact that, semester after semester, I would invariably find myself at the Student Loan Board offices at the Wenceslao Vinzon’s Hall then, applying for a student loan, backed up by the unrelenting letter of guarantee from compassionate Prof. Tito Eustaquio, a province-mate from Tarlac who happened to have been the brother of the second wife of an uncle of mine.

President Aquino should perhaps be reminded that the setting up of the Student Loan Board at the University of the Philippines System was the result of the untiring efforts of his own father, the late Sen. Benigno Ninoy Aquino Jr. Because of this student loan system, many students from the provinces, the “promdis” like me, managed to complete their education.
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What is more, the slashing by President Aquino and his men of the 2016 budgets of state colleges and universities glaringly violate the Biblical injunction that we should ensure the education of our children, found in Proverbs 22:6, which says “train the child in the way that he should go, and he will never depart from it when he grows old.”

How can we ever hope to effectively train our children in the way that they should go when the very government that is supposed to uphold their education seems to be working hard to deprive them of that education, by making it hard for them to enter higher institutions of learning?

Maybe we should start acting in unison to remind our government leaders that it is the responsibility of the State, more than the responsibility of the family, to ensure that opportunities exist in our country for the education of our young. If we do not educate the youth properly, then they would cease becoming the hope of the Fatherland. Rather, they would become, as they have become by now, the despair of our countrymen.
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There is much uproar, largely coming from officials of the Aquino government, about the Supreme Court resolution allowing Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile to post bail in the P10-billion plunder case against him. The principal argument is that, the justification for granting bail to Enrile––his frail health, old age, and lack of flight risk––are not provided for by law.

Indeed, the 1987 Constitution prescribes that all persons accused of a crime are entitled to bail while their cases are being tried. However, bail is denied when they are accused of capital crimes, or crimes where the penalty is life imprisonment, and when the evidence of their guilt is strong.

From the point of view, therefore, of the basic law of the land, bail should not have been granted to Enrile, if the grounds relied upon by the Supreme Court were his frail health, his old age, and his not being a flight risk––meaning, there is no possibility that he would run away and escape trial.

But then, there is something that must be said about the Supreme Court, when it comes to its duty of dispensing justice to everyone, whatever maybe their station in life. The Court is not only a court of law, adhering only to what the law requires, but it is also a court of equity, and a court of compassion, enabling it to go beyond the law to afford relief.

In the case of Lubaton vs. Lazaro, A.M. No. RTJ-12-2320, September 02, 2013, the Supreme Court, through Justice Lucas Bersamin (the same justice who wrote the decision granting bail to Enrile), said that “as always, the Court is not only a court of Law and Justice, but also a court of compassion. The Court would be a mindless tyrant otherwise.” The tribunal added: “The Court does not also sit on a throne of vindictiveness, for its seat is always placed under the inspiring aegis of that grand lady in a flowing robe who wears the mythical blindfold that has symbolized through the ages of man that enduring quality of objectivity and fairness and who wields the balance that has evinced the highest sense of justice for all regardless of their station in life…”

Email: batasmauricio@yahoo.com

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