Some P40 billion funds from the proposed P 3.767-trillion national budget for next year, including a portion of the Commission on Human Rights budget, will be used to finance the recently signed free college education law.
Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, chairperson of the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations, made the disclosure Monday even as he clarified that the CHR budget for next year was not restored in full.
“I am happy to announce we have found P40 billion to finance the free higher education [law] for 2018,” Nograles said at a news conference Thursday.
Nograles said the P40 billion will “cover for everything” that is needed to ensure the implementation of the law to the fullest.
“That will cover the amount needed for 2018. So that’s free tuition and miscellaneous expenses for all SUCs, including UP; LUCs that are accredited by CHED, and it will cover the free technical-vocational education in tech-voc institutions under Tesda,” Nograles said.
“Plus the tertiary education subsidy which may be used for SUCs and private [universities and colleges], and also the student loan program,” he added.
President Rodrigo Duterte recently signed into law Republic Act 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act which provide free tuition and other fees for students in state universities and colleges, as well as LUCs and technical-vocational institutions (TVIs).
Covered by the law are students coming from the country’s 114 State Universities and Colleges, 16 Local Universities and Colleges accredited by Commission on Higher Education and 122 Technical-Vocational Institutions under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
He said the P40 billion funds would come from the travel and supply expenses of CHR worth P115 million, P30 billion projects of the Department of Education, P3 billion funds from the Department of Transportation, P6 billion allocation from the Commission on Higher Education, and Department of Information and Communications Technology.
“We got P30 billion from the Department of Education [DepEd] for their school building program, particularly those with problems on their [implementation], no buildable space, no vacant lot…we were able to carve out P30 billion from that budget,” said Nograles.
“The rest from the Department of Transportation,” Nograles said, adding that the P3 billion came from DOTr’s Edsa-Bus Rapid Transit and Quezon Avenue Bus Rapid Transit.
“Apart from that, we were able to raise P6 billion from various scholarship programs embedded already in the SUCs [state universities and colleges] and CHED,” Nograles added.
“We also had various reductions in the projects of the DICT for ICT systems and infrastructure. So all in all we were able to raise P40 billion,” Nograles said.
Nograles also said that the House restored the CHR budget to the total budget proper of the Commission at P508 million from the recently approved P1,000 allocation for 2018.
“For CHR, out of P623 million, P508 million was restored,” Nograles said. “There were certain cuts that we had to make in the MOOE (Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses). We reduced certain items like traveling expenses…a little, not all. There were reductions that we felt we could do…representation expenses, subscription expenses,” he added.
Originally, the CHR has P623 million budget for its entire operations. The amount excludes the P58 million allocation to finance the retirement pay of its officials and employees for next year.
Nograles revealed Wednesday that the decision of the House to restore the budget for the CHR, the Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) came after the heads of the three offices, namely CHR Chair Jose Luis Gascon, ERC Commissioner Geronimo Sta. Ana and NCIP Chair Leonor Oralde-Quintayo, appealed to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez to reconsider its P1,000 allocation each for the three agencies.
He added that the budget for the ERC and the NCIP were both restored in full at 650.9 million and P1.13 billion, respectively. Like the CHR, the two agencies were allocated a P1,000 peso budget each.