Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 2, Number 41 November 17 - 23, 2002 Quezon City, Philippines |
Big
Rallies vs School Budget Cuts Set Thousands
of students, educators and non-academic personnel are gearing for big rallies
all over the country next week to protest huge slashes in the education budget
which organizers said would result in the mass disenfranchisement of enrollees,
among others. Organizers accused administration officials of hyping on the
terror scare in order to justify monumental budget increases for defense at the
expense of education, health and social service. By
Gerry Albert-Corpuz Thousands
of students, teachers, health personnel and other stakeholders of education will
join a nationwide protest action on Nov. 26 to oppose the government plan to cut
education budget by a mile in favor of defense and military appropriation and
the state war against local and international terrorism. The
Save SCU (state colleges and universities) Coalition, a broad alliance of
student groups, teacher associations, government workers and academic personnel
will lead the national fight against the budget cut and for higher budget for
education. This was revealed by Raymond Palatino, chair of the militant student
group National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) and one of the
leaders of the broad coalition. "On
Nov. 26, we will lodge our strongest protest and condemnation of President
Arroyo's perverse priorities like bigger budget for defense and intelligence
expenditures over youth and people's rights and welfare", Palatino said. The
NUSP president said throwing away the country's limited revenues to foreign
credit agencies and military needs will lead to bigger slash in the capital
outlay, maintenance and operating expenditures of state colleges and
universities. "It
would further lead to poorer state of facilities and lower quality education in
the public sector", he said. "The cut may even force our public
universities to raise tuition or commercialize assets to augment their decreased
resources.” The
proposed budget now pending in Congress seeks to cut off P143.9 million in the
allocation of state universities and colleges, P502.2 million in health
expenditure and a big P307.5 million for housing and community development. In
a statement, the NUSP said that government is hyping on the terror scare in
order to bloat the defense, military and police budget at the expense of
education, health and social service allocations. Palatino said the military's
obsession to big budget is being satisfied through huge budget cuts in these
sectors. High
school students too Students
in secondary schools will also join the national day of action against wrong
budgetary priorities of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration,
NUSP's coordinator for high school Theresa Nacabuan said. In
a separate press statement, Nacabuan said even public high schools will suffer
significant budget cuts under the proposed 2003 national budget. The Philippine
Science High School (PSHS) – the country’s premier science institution –
alone will have its budged slashed by P18.79, she said. Similar budget cuts in
the UP Integrated School (UPIS) and PUP Laboratory High School which may
eventually lead to downsizing of school's population and phasing-out of schools
like what happen to PUP laboratory high school in Lopez, Quezon last year, she
added. Affirming
NUSP’s and the coalition’s allegations, the UP-based Congress for
Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (Contend), revealed the results
of its in-depth study on the state of tertiary education in the country. Sarah
Raymundo, an official of Contend and sociology professor in UP-Diliman, said the
dismal state of tertiary education in the Philippines can be seen from a
startling fact that only one fourth of the high school age population of 16-21
years manage to enroll and of these only 42 percent reach college. As
of academic year 1999-2000, there are only 164 state universities and colleges
throughout the country compared to 1,189 private higher education institutions,
she also said. As a result, there are roughly 1.9 million students in private
tertiary schools as opposed to 663,399 enrollees in public tertiary schools, she
said. Raymundo
said the partnership between transnational corporation and Department of
Education (DepEd) underscores the overall thrust of the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration to produce graduates in the name of globalization that seeks to
promote commercialization and corporatization of tertiary public school system. "
The Medium Term Higher Education Development and Investment Plan 2001-2004 seeks
to gradually reduce the budget for state universities and colleges to increase
private sector's participation in tertiary education," she said. Misappropriation
"Instead
of budget cuts, the government should increase capital outlay to education by at
least P64 billion next year," Benjie Valbuena, president of the Manila
Public School Teachers' Association (MPSTA), said. According
to Valbuena, the budget for education next year only represents 12 percent of
the entire national budget for 2003 as compared to automatic appropriations for
debt servicing which eats up 40 percent. "The
problem of classroom shortage increased threefold, while teachers shortage
doubled under the present Arroyo administration," the MPSTA chair said.
"To fill up the shortages projected by the DepEd next school year, the
government should allocate an additional P 64 billion, nothing more, nothing
less." Black
Monday On
the eve of the National Day of Action, students, teachers and other members of
the UP academic community will launch a system wide protest against the P 13.9
million budget cut in the budget of UP-Diliman campus in Quezon City.
Thousands of students, professors and non-academic personnel will march to Mendiola to protest the budgetary slash which according to rally organizers would lead to full-blown commercialization of education in UP. "We will declare it a Black Monday in protest of the Arroyo government plan to cut the university budget by almost 14 million pesos," said a student representative. Bulatlat.com We want to know what you think of this article.
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