Alarmed by the mounting protests against cuts in the budgets of state universities and colleges (SUCs), a pro-
administration legislator urged his allies in Malacañang to rechannel at least P20 billion of the P1.012-trillion unspent portion of the 2011 national budget to assist the 111 state schools.
“We should not be insensitive to the clamor of the students and academic community to seek a sufficient budget for the SUCs. We don’t intend to abandon our students, especially those in far-flung provinces, who depend on the SUCs for tertiary education,” Liberal Party Rep. Winston Castelo of Quezon City said.
Castelo said the proposed additional P20 billion for this year is part of the remaining P1.012-trillion authorized disbursement program for the rest of 2011. The government was reported to have spent only P698 million for the first six months out of the 2011 national budget of P1.71 trillion.
Castelo said rechanneling P20 billion for state schools is possible because the 2011 national budget provides sufficient flexibility for President Aquino to make budgetary readjustments “if the situation requires it.”
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) reported that a big part of the unspent P1.012 trillion will be used in the second half of 2011 for mandatory spending requirements, such as salaries, internal revenue allotments and interest payments reaching P613 billion.
Only P399 billion will be left for the mandatory items like infrastructure, capital outlays, and other maintenance and operating expenses, the DBM said.
Students, faculty members, and university personnel in at least three state schools had staged walkouts to protest the P200-million budget cut and threatened to stage more protests nationwide in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio of ACT Teachers sought the deletion of a provision in the national budget that allows public schools to augment their budgets through the collection of fees.
Special Provision Number 11 of the DepEd budget in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) authorizes schools to augment their maintenance and operations budget through the collection of “fees, charges, and assessments...in the exercise of their functions.”
“This provision contradicts the constitutional mandate that basic education shall be free. Commercialization of miscellaneous public school services can and does serve as a barrier to access, especially for the poorest students. This provision must be removed from the 2012 GAA to mark government’s commitment in providing education for all,” Tinio said.
The provision has been in the GAA for years, but Tinio said it is no longer in harmony with recent DepEd Order 65 that instructs all concerned parties of DepEd to remove financial obstacles to enrollment, such as collection of fees, charges, and assessments, in national elementary and secondary schools.
“This policy states that there will be absolutely no collection of fees for Grades 1 to 4. The collection of fees is allowed for the higher grade and year levels starting one month after the enrollment period, but only on a voluntary basis,” said Tinio.
The conflict between the existing law and current DepEd policy creates confusion among education stakeholders, Tinio said.
“We want to make the policy of ‘no collection of school fees’ clear and unambiguous to all parties concerned. Hopefully, this will resolve the disputes between school administrators, parents, and students that inevitably arise during the opening of the school year regarding collection of fees,” the legislator said.
Tinio has submitted his proposal to the Committee on Appropriations as one of the amendments to the 2012 general appropriations bill.
