UP Alyansa ng mga Mag-aaral para sa Panlipunang Katwiran at Kaunlaran (UP ALYANSA) is a duly-recognized leadership and service formation in the University of the Philippines – Diliman. Composed of students and student organizations in the University, we have been vigorously pursuing progressive social change in accordance to our four pillars, namely progressive multiperspective activism, academic excellence, student empowerment, and social justice and social progress.
Education, for UP ALYANSA, is a human right and a tool in the attainment of academic excellence, social justice and social progress. Through the acquisition of knowledge and skills from the four walls of our classrooms, our citizens achieve not only their personal development – be it intellectual, physical, emotional and social – but also civic and political consciousness. Since it gives empowerment especially to the marginalized, oppressed and powerless, education thus becomes an essential service that the State must provide.
The 2012 National Expenditure Program submitted by the Department of Budget and Management to the House of Representatives on 26 July 2011 proposes an increase in the budget of the whole education sector, from P218.9-billion for 2011 to P241.1-billion for 2012. Among the items in the education pie, the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) receive a hike in their earmark compared to last year, while the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) suffer a reduction in its budget.
While the formation recognizes the marked increase in the allocation for elementary and secondary education, UP ALYANSA believes that prioritization of education should never discriminate tertiary education. This belief is grounded on our Constitution, which mandates the State to “protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education AT ALL LEVELS” (1987 Constitution: Art. XIV, Sec. 1; capitalization added).
In the case of the University of the Philippines, the budget that is allotted to the country’s national university reflects the government’s policy towards tertiary education. From the P17.07-billionproposal of the University administration, the government via the DBM only approved P5.54-billion,or a measly 34%, for 2012. Compared to this year’s allocation, UP’s budget decreases by P208.2-million, or 3.6%, for 2012. This is not the first time that the University is given an insufficient budget. For the past five years, UP received a high of P7.1-billlion (in celebration of its centennial anniversary), to a low of P4.8-billion.
We, UP students, have a litany of reasons to complain about this decline in our budget: our classrooms are in an old and decrepit condition; our laboratories are deteriorating and ill-supplied; our libraries still lack subscriptions in online journals and scholarly publications; our researches and field schools are underfunded; our instructors and staff are atrociously underpaid; our limited student housing are already creaking and fire-/earthquake-prone; our vast campus is becoming difficult to maintain and secure; and the list goes on.
You, our duly-elected leaders, do not have any reason to shrug off our dilemmas. Section 22 (d) of the 2008 UP Charter explicitly stipulates that the revenues generated from the utilization of vast tracks of idle lands in the University “shall not be meant to replace, in part or in whole, the annual appropriations provided by the national government to the national university.”
As we face again an impending decrease in our budget allocation for 2012, UP ALYANSA reiterates its call for a higher budget for the Philippines’ national university. We implore the members of the House of Representatives to assist UP in fulfilling its most important functions, namely committing itself towards national development (2008 UP Charter: Sec. 7; the Charter even made mention that the Philippine Congress “may request the national university to conduct research or provide advice on any matter involving public policy”), and serving the Filipino nation and humanity (ibid.: Sec. 8).
To realize its aim to be the leading academic, graduate, and research university in this side of the world (2008 UP Charter: Sec. 3), we call upon our legislators to retain the P1.1-billion proposal of the UP administration for Capital Outlay (CA), in order to fund the following projects:
- UP Diliman Engineering Research and Development for Technology
- UP Diliman National Science Complex Buildings
- UP Manila Centennial Building and Sports and Wellness Center (Phase 1)
- UP Los Baños Analytical Laboratory
- UP Visayas - Cebu College Library Building Extension
- UP Open University Learning Centers in the regions
The government should not content itself with the recent rise of UP in international university rankings (e.g., Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, Webometrics Ranking of World Universities). With stiff competition especially from institutions of higher learning from the Asia-Pacific region, UP still has a long way to go to catch up with the best in the region.
In searching for new sources of funding for UP and the education sector at-large, we suggest that the House of Representatives must carefully scrutinize and reduce discretionary spending, rechannel debt-servicing allocation to education, and legislate measures that will increase the tax effort of the government.
Finally, we re-echo the call of our national partner, the Youth Against Debt (YAD) Coalition, in legislating a bill that will automatically appropriate at least 6% of the Gross National Product (GNP) to the whole education sector. The proposed 2012 education budget, amid the increase, only amounts to 2.5% of our 2010 GNP – less than half and a far cry from our ideal budget. The 6%-of-GNP standard, first proposed in 1996 by the International Commission of Education in the Twenty First Century (headed by Jacques Delors), is considered as the UNESCO international benchmark for education and is already accepted by over a hundred countries. In following this international standard, the basic, higher and technical education sectors are now assured of the priority it deserves from the State without causing ill and irreparable effects to the quality and accessibility of education our people receives. In addition, this standard is in sync with a clear Constitutional provision that “assigns the highest budgetary priority to education” (1987 Constitution: Art. XIV, Sec. 5).
As UP, CHED, DepEd and other agencies prepare its respective budget presentations to the House Committee on Appropriations, UP ALYANSA will continue to engage our lawmakers (in both chambers of Congress) and the Aquino administration in the call of every Iskolar Para Sa Bayan for a higher budgetary allocation for UP and the whole education sector.
We, in UP ALYANSA, believe in the transformative benefits of education for our country. We maintain that unless the government increases the budget of its national university and invests more on the education sector, we will find it nearly impossible to attain quality, relevant and accessible education, lift ourselves from poverty, and uplift the lives of our countrymen.
INCREASE THE UP BUDGET, INVEST IN EDUCATION.
REFERENCES:
1987 Philippine Constitution
2008 University of the Philippines Charter
2010 National Account, National Statistics Office
2011 General Appropriations Act
2012 National Expenditure Program
Freedom from Debt Coalition and Youth Against Debt Coalition (2008). “The Neglected Generation”.http://fdc.ph/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=59&&Itemid=89 (Retrieved: July 31, 2011).
Office of the Hon. Ma. Kristina Conti (2011). “Updates from the Student Regent: On the budget campaign”. http://www.facebook.com/notes/krissy-conti/updates-from-the-student-regent-on-the-budget-campaign/10150247703715069 (Accessed: July 31, 2011).
