Aquino booed a second time by students protesting funding cuts

THOUSANDS of students and teachers demonstrated in Metro Manila Wednesday to protest the alleged cuts in the budgets of more than 100 state universities and colleges next year.

Terry Ridon, national chairman of the League of Filipino Students, said students would continue to protest until President Benigno Aquino III put his final signature on the national budget.

“There’s a chance he will listen to us,” he said. “It wasn’t right that he cut the budgets of state universities and colleges.”

In Quezon City, protesters booed and blocked the convoy of President Aquino from entering the University of the Philippines-Ayala Technohub on Commonwealth Avenue before 1 p.m., but anti-riot police forced them back.

It was the second time Mr. Aquino was heckled in public over the supposed budget cuts, the first being in Baguio City last week when he attended the opening of fast-food giant Jollibee’s 700th store in the Philippines.

Mr. Aquino used a different route to attend the inauguration of three new service delivery facilities of IBM Philippines in the UP Ayala Technohub, where he did not mention the protests.

The demonstrators then proceeded to the Senate, where Pasay police said around 5,000 people picketed outside.

Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. said the budget for state universities and colleges should be increased. The government should not force them to generate their own income.

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago asked Senate finance committee chairman Franklin Drilon to increase the University of the Philippines’ budget by P170 million, but Drilon said the budgets of the state colleges had not been cut.

Deputy presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte appealed to the protesters to keep an open mind about the changes in the Education budget.

Earlier, Budget Secretary Butch Abad said his department allocated P23.4 billion for state colleges and universities in 2011, which was P2.4 billion more than their P21 billion allocation for 2010.

The bulk of the P2.4 billion was for the higher allocation of personal services because of increased teachers’ pay mandated by the Salary Standardization Law, he said.

What was cut from the schools’ budgets were the congressional insertions worth P1 billion for maintenance and other operating expenses and P1.8 billion for capital outlay including the construction of new buildings and facilities.

Abad said the insertions were vetoed by former President Gloria Arroyo in the last Congress due to a lack of new revenue streams. –Manila Standard Today