Budget Cuts

Spending on SUCs and education is an investment to develop our country’s human resources. Congress and the Aquino government should rethink its misguided priorities and realign funds from foreign debt, CCTs, and military spending in favor of education and social services.” – JC Alejandro, League of Filipino Students

By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO

Bulatlat.com

MANILA — Thousands of students, together with members of the faculty, non-teaching personnel and administrators of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines marched hand-in-hand in a show of unity to call for sufficient government subsidy to higher education.

“This is a clear political statement against (President) Aquino’s budget cuts. Today, the students definitely shook the government,” Rommel Aguilar, PUP student regent, told Bulatlat.com.

PUP’s unity march is part of the week-long nationwide strike of students, which was prompted by Aquino’s budget cuts on state universities and colleges. In the 2012 budget, about $13.15 million was deducted from the already too meager allocations that government provides to higher education institutions.

In a Manifesto of Unity, signed by PUP administrators, faculty and student organizations, they said that for the past five years, their budget is “always at the edge of the cliff because of budget cuts.” Last year, PUP’s allocation for its Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses, was slashed by $544,000. PUP is considered as the country’s largest state university with 20 campuses nationwide and a student population of about 65,000.

In the proposed 2012 budget, the Manifesto of Unity read, there appears to be an increase of $1.32 million in its budget. However, they said, $1.07 million from this amount would be allocated to Personal Services, which is in accordance with the salary adjustment provided for by Salary Standardization Law 3. Only the remaining $243,877 would be allocated to its MOOE.

“It is quite deceiving if we were pacified with this dubious...