Noy to protesting students: Basic education before SUCs

He is the boss, not the FIlipinos.

President Aquino no longer listens to his “bosses” as represented by the militant students who aired their disappointment and sought Aquino’s reconsideration on his decision to cut the budget allocation of state universities and colleges (SUCs) through a lightning rally that fell flat once again as the Chief Executive stood firm on his position, while his police and military employed the same tactics during the Arroyo years to keep the demonstrators away from Aquino.

Aquino, in a chance interview, insisted that there was nothing wrong in his decision to concentrate more on reinforcing the basic education sector even if it disappoints the militant student leaders.

“They are students; they should carefully study the situation…” Aquino was quoted as saying in response to the frequent demonstrations being conducted by militant student leaders who are decrying the SUC budget cuts.

Chanting “Edukasyon! Edukasyon!” furious members of Anakbayan, League of Filipino Students and National Union of Students in the Philippines (NUSP) were stalled by police authorities when they tried to go nearer the premises of the recently inaugurated 700th Jollibee food chain where Aquino served as

guest of honor to protest his fiscal policies.

Aquino branded as “untrue” their claims that the SUC budget has been slashed given the fact that it was actually the Department of Education which received the biggest allocation in the 2011 national budget at P175 billion.

NUSP member, Mark Leander, however, said while it was true that the education sector received the lion’s share of the budget, Aquino has brought them in a situation where the interests of the basic education and tertiary levels have been clashing.

“The truth of the matter is that he (Aquino) has been putting the interests of the tertiary education in collision with the basic education and secondary education. Yes, he increased the budget for basic education to push his K-12 curriculum but it was done at the expense of our budget for tertiary education,” Leander noted.

“There are so many avenues for funding besides the GAA (General Appropriations Act). I guess the case in point would be in UP. They’re talking about the P400 million. We’re inaugurating the UP-Ayala techno hub which brings in and they’re authorized to utilize that income and retain it and they’re not the only ones in that situation, all the SUCs have equal opportunities,” Aquino stressed.

He added the militant student leaders should understand that the education sector does not only cover the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) which supervises the SUCs but the basic education units including public elementary and high schools and well as the vocational training schools courtesy of the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority.

“The only point here is whatever we do, the pie that we are trying to divide for each other hasn’t grown that much. We have a P325-billion deficit this year alone — where should we put it? We believe we should start on basic education. Now, we just appeal for a little understanding. It’s not that we are denying them their needs — it’s there,” Aquino explained.

“We’ll explain to the people who are willing to listen to it,” Aquino said.

This was actually the third time in which Aquino’s affair has been marred with lightning rallies. First of which happened while he was delivering his first 100 days report last August denouncing the same SUC budget cuts and the second instance happened only last week during the launching of his Infrastructure Philippines 2010 featuring the public private partnership A (PPP) program of his administration.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, for his part, maintained that there were no actual cuts in the budget intended for the country’s 112 SUCs.

“For the record, we did not remove anything. What happened is that in the 2010 budget, embedded in that budget are congressional insertions… to the amount of over P2.8 billion,” he added.

Based on the Senate debates during the ongoing marathon deliberations of the country’s budget next year, the current budget for SUCs “was loaded with congressional insertions” which were not actually released due to the widening budget gap expected to reach P325 billion by yearend.

“There was no way by which these additional amounts could have been released because there were no additional revenues,” Drilon said.

The senator was referring to then President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo issuance of a “conditional veto” indicating that the “release of the increased items of appropriations is subject to the identification by Congress of new revenue measures…”

“The President’s budget in 2010 — this is what you call the NEP (National Expenditure Program) — is P19.592 billion for SUCs. We call this the 2010 NEP or the President’s budget. Now, when the GAA was approved by both Houses, the P19.592 billion became P22.402 billion. So there was an increase of P2.810 billion.

“The P2.810 billion was congressional insertions. Now, what happened to the congressional insertions? There was a veto message saying that these should not be released unless there are funds available. Now, what happened for 2011, the President’s budget indicated a budget of P21.717 billion for SUCs. If you compare the President’s budget for 2010 and the President’s budget in 2011, there is an increase of P2.125 billion. Under the GAB (House version), following its passage, it (SUC budget for 2011) became P21.725 billion.

“So while it appears that on the basis of GAA and the NEP or even the GAB, there appears to be a deduction, the truth is there was an increase because the P2.8 billion was a congressional insertion, which was not retained because these were congressional insertions. So that is the truth of the matter,” Drilon said, in briefing reporters on the matter.

In the 2011 budget, Aquino submitted to Congress P21.7 billion for SUC subsidies.

In fact, Drilon said, subsidies to SUCs have been increased in next year’s budget to P21.7 billion, from only P19.6 billion submitted by Arroyo for congressional approval. When the 2010 budget was approved, a total of P2.8 billion has been padded as congressional insertions by lawmakers, bringing the total budget of SUCs to P22.4 billion. -Aytch S. de la Cruz and Angie M. Rosales, Daily Tribune