By APRILLE ERIKA GINNE A. MANGUBAT
www.nordis.net

“The State shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels, and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.” says article 14, section 1 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

In the last few months, stories about the tuition fee increase in the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) erupted. It was reported that from P12 per unit, its administration proposes P200 per unit, an almost 2000 percent increase. Because of this, students from PUP last March 19 burned old chairs and desks to symbolize their dislike on the proposed increase.

In addition, last May 4, it was also reported that PUP admitted 17,000 new students and that out of this number, 7,000 were the ones only offered the original courses and that the remaining 10,000 are  advised to take their newly-offered technology courses that costs P250 per unit.

PUP is one of the schools in the Philippines known for its affordable education that is why most of its students come from the “lower class”. Now, how those 10,000 students will have the chance to study if they do not have the means to pay for such high tuition fees?

What is happening in PUP is no different to the University of the Philippines’ (UP) case when its administration implemented a 300% tuition increase. Both PUP and UP are STATE UNIVERSITIES. State universities SHOULD BE subsidized by the taxes that Filipinos pay to the government.

In the past ten years of President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo’s administration, she REALLY showed how she valued education. Instead of giving education a higher budget, she CUT it and gave her priority to the country’s military (considering that the Philippines is not in a state of war).

This is the reason why the administration of these state universities are forced to find alternatives to sustain themselves and examples of these are tuition fee increases and other income generating projects. This should not be the case because it is the government’s responsibility to provide accessible education to its people and that they SHOULD give the education sector the highest budgetary priority.

An M16 bullet costs P14 to P20. Imagine how many soldiers we have… imagine how many bullets each of them possess… imagine how many corrupt officials the Philippines has… now, imagine if all that money was used for a higher subsidy for the education of the Filipinos.# nordis.net