Butyag Student Council Publication Date: [June 5, 2006]
Warmest greetings to all Iskolars ng Bayan, old and new, as we welcome another academic year with renewed commitment and greater vigor in the continuing quest for a genuinely patriotic and mass-oriented education.
The new academic year offers us an opportunity to raise our level of unity against the Arroyo administration’s prioritization of militarization and foreign debt servicing; it’s continued neglect of the social services; the yearly education and UP budget cuts; tuition and other fees increases; deteriorating services and facilities in State Universities and Colleges (SUCs).
Let us call attention to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s privatization and commercialization schemes that will most likely continue implementation until her term ends in 2010 unless she is removed from power by a people’s uprising.
Already, the UP Board of Regents, the highest decision-making body in the University, approved an increase of tuition for incoming students of the UP College of Medicine in Manila.
In an alarming turn of events, only the UP Faculty Regent Roland Simbulan and Student Regent Raffy Jones Sanchez voted against the doubling of UPM-CM tuition from the current P11,000 per semester to P20,000 per semester.
This is as the the UP Manila University Student Council and the College of Medicine Student Council decried, in spite of a Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) resolution freezing tuition and other fees in State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) for AY 2006-2007 because of the economic crisis.
The approval would certainly open the floodgate against undergraduate tuition increase in all UP colleges and campuses. There is really the danger especially now that UP President Roman’s 2005-2011 Plan include the call for a “review of the existing tuition policy and structure in undergraduate programs.”
This is in line with International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) dictates and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), that our country entered to in 1998.
Let us not also forget that the Long-Term Higher Education Development Plan (LTHEDP), which systematically reduced the number of state-subsidized colleges and universities from 271 in 1996 to 109 by 2005, is also nearing its full-bloom implementation.
This would of course mean the Arroyo government’s removal of subsidy for UP’s Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) thus forcing UP to look to other means to fully subsidize its operations.
Hence, the presence of proposals to add two or three more brackets in the Socialized Tuition Fee Assistance Fee Program (STFAP), with tuition ranging from P40,000 to P60,000 per semester.
Indeed, we are not new to the effects of the above-mentioned policies. Even the 7am to 7pm 4-day school week austerity measure is a direct order issued from Malacañang.
It is thus with such in mind that we must persist in educating, organizing and mobilizing our own and the Filipino people’s ranks in order to help improve our welfare and advance our democratic rights and interests.
Let us continue to press for a higher budget for education. It is also of great importance that we push for a tuition moratorium, not only for UP but all the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) throughout the country.
Along this line, we must also direct our efforts towards putting to an end to all repressive measures found within school.
Finally, we should also never forget that it is in attaining a higher level of unity with the basic masses - workers, peasants, and urban poor - that we can pursue the fight for our rights and welfare.
Let us therefore expose ourselves to the standard issues of the day. (political assassinations of activists and community leaders, curtailment of civil liberties, US military intervention thru the Visiting Force Agreement (VFA), the Anti-Terrorism Bill (ATB), the long-delayed P125 across-the-board wage increase, the Palace-Initiated Cha-cha train, etc.
If we unite firmly and collectively act on the basis of our concrete situation and from the practical experience of the Filipino people, we can stand firm against the mounting of anti-student impositions and overcome the many challenges that face us.
By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya
Chairperson, Student Council
UP Visayas – Cebu College
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