MAKABAYAN senatorial candidate Teddy Casiño today reiterated his call for a tuition moratorium on all public and private higher education institutions.
The three-term congressman revealed that the University of the Philippines’ 300% tuition increase in 2007, prompted him then to refile his bill (now HB 3135), first filed in 2005 during the 13th Congress, calling for a three-year tuition moratorium on tuition increases pending the review of tuition and fee rates in tertiary institutions.
“Our schools, both public and private, have been citing inflation and increasing cost of operations to justify tuition increases and charging of numerous miscellaneous fees, but government has been doing nothing to balance the situation, considering the fact that the people are also victims of price hikes. Increasing tuition, especially UP’s three-fold increase, only worsened the burdened of Filipino families,” he said.
Casiño, the senior vice chairman of the Congressional Committee on Higher and Technical Education, said in the proposed bill that government agencies responsible in protecting the public against unconscionable tuition hikes and redundant fees have miserably failed in their task.
“HB 3135 was filed to give the public economic relief while government remedied the defects of a deregulated education sector and provide proper guidelines on school fee increases, with actual consultation with students and parents,” he said.
“Last year during a Congressional hearing, tinanong ko ng direkta ang CHED kung may na-deny na ba silang school from increasing their tuition. Wala daw. Ang malungkot kasi ay walang ipin ang CHED upang protektahan ang ating mga estudyante. Kaya lang nabawasan yung inapprove nila ay dahil umatras ang iba na hindi nakapag-sumite ng requirements. Wala pa silang safeguards para sukatin kung profiteering na ang ginagawa ng private schools. Ngayon iniisip ko na rin na kailangan sigurong higpitan natin ang mga SUCs pagdating sa guidelines on tuition increases and payment schemes. But at the same time, make the national government accountable. We should be the ones caring for our students. We should be ensuring that our schools are getting inadequate funding so they can aid poor but deserving students. Iyon naman ang purpose ng SUCs natin,” the progressive solon said.
Since becoming a party-list representative, Casiño had been calling for a higher education budget.
According to the Congressional Planning and Budget Research Department, the SUC share in the GDP of the country has declined from 0.41% in 1991 to 0.29% in 2013 amid an increase from 81 to 110 SUCs.
“Our spending per student has also been halved in real terms from P32,620 in 1997 to P16,416 in 2009,” Casiño cited the study.