After Typhoon Ondoy wreaked havoc in state universities and colleges (SUCs) in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, budget for public higher education, especially funds for the construction and rehabilitation of facilities , should be increased, Kabataan Partylist Representative Raymond “Mong” Palatino today said.

The youth solon noted that almost all of the 110 SUCs will not be receiving funds for construction and rehabilitation next year as the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) slashed capital outlay by almost 100 percent.

During the SUCs budget deliberations in Congress, university officials from Marikina Polytechnic College (MPC) and Rizal Technological University said their schools were ravaged by the typhoon. For instance, MPC has an estimated damage of over P40 M after it experienced a 10-ft flash flood, destroying computers, machines, equipment, supplies, libraries, etc. “Without funds for rehabilitation, paano pa makapagsisimulang muli ang mga SUC na sinalanta ng bagyo?,” he said.

With the decrease in SUCs budget, Palatino said that it is the students who will bear the brunt of low state subsidiy. “SUC officials might impose higher tuition rates and introduce new fees to cope with the situation. Ultimately, the students are at the losing end,” he said.

In the proposed national budget for 2010, allocation for SUCs will be slashed by 13 percent or a whopping P3.2 billion, thus forcing SUCs to generate income mostly from students. Based on the 2010 National Expenditure Program, bulk of SUCs’ projected income of P10.2 billion will be sourced from tuition fees (P4.59 Billion) and other income from students (2.23 billion).

Palatino said “SUCs are being forced to rely less on government subsidy and more on internally-generated income in the form of tuition and other fees and privatization of assets. Unfortunately, the burden of financing tertiary education is placed on Filipino students, many of whom will be unable to afford it,” Palatino said.

The youth solon also said that the DBM cannot boast that higher education budget is way higher compared to the 1980s because the value of peso today is different from that time. Moreover, he said that in 1980, only 10% of college students were studying in SUCs. By 1994, the number went up to 21%. By 2008, the share racked up to 35%.

Palatino said the systematic decrease in state subsidy among SUCs can be traced from government policies such as the Long-Term Higher Education Development Plan (LTHEDP) 2001-2010.

“Under the LTHEDP, budget cuts have become a legitimate government plan,” he said. LTHEDP, he said, has two long-term objectives: to reduce the number of SUCs by 20 percent through mergers with companie, and to engage SUCs in income-generating measures, such as selling intellectual properties and implementing fee increases by 2010.

In the LTHEDP’s eight years of implementation, the number of SUCs in the country dwindled from 264 to 110. .

“State schools are being treated no longer as national agencies entitled to sufficient government subsidy, but as income-earning and commercial entities. Students and the youth are no longer seen as future nation-builders, but as mere clientele for capitalist educators,” Palatino said. ###