Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr. is pushing for the enactment of a bill establishing a regular and permanent campus of the Pampanga State University in San Fernando City, Pampanga’s capital.
Gonzales, author of House Bill 9988, stressed the absence of a state university “in the heart of the province compels students to seek admission in state universities and
colleges and other schools outside their area of residence.”
“This situation, coupled with high fuel prices and worsening traffic, forces the students’ families to incur extra expenses, robs students of their productive time and may promote disinterest among the youth to pursue or complete their college, technical or professional education,” he said.
He said the establishment of the San Fernando campus and the central location of the province’s capital “shall bring education opportunities closer to underprivileged but deserving students.”
“The campus shall serve as an avenue for students to focus and learn in their field of study, thereby making them more employable,” he added.
Gonzales at the same time thanked the House leadership headed by Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez for supporting the measure that was passed on third and final reading recently.
“I and our kabalen will be eternally grateful to our good Speaker for supporting us in trying to expand the oldest school in our province so it can offer quality education,” Gonzales, representative of Pampanga’s third district, said.
“Speaker Martin is one of us Pampangueños, his mother, Madam Juliette Gomez-Romualdez, being from Mabalacat City,” he said.
Gonzales acknowledged that Romualdez also supported the renaming of Don Honorio Ventura State University (DHVSU) to Pampanga State University.
At present, the province’s oldest technical-vocational school has campuses in the towns of Bacolor, Mexico, Porac, Sto. Tomas, Candaba, and Lubao.
He stressed that the Pampanga State University, with his present six campuses and the envisioned San Fernando campus, “can provide our booming province and the equally economically vibrant region of Central Luzon, whose center is Pampanga, with the needed vocational, technical and professional human resource requirements.”
Under HB 9988, the general mandate of the Pampanga State University-San Fernando campus is to offer “short-term technical-vocational, undergraduate and graduate courses within its areas of competency and specialization…necessary to respond to the human resource development needs of the province of Pampanga and the Central Luzon region.”
“It is also mandated to undertake research and extension services, and to provide progressive leadership in these areas,” the bill states.
The San Fernando City unit shall be headed by a campus administrator, to be appointed by the university board of regents, and subject to the guidelines, qualifications and standards set by the board of regents.
It shall comply with the policies, standards and guidelines of the Commission on Higher Education, including those related to the offering of courses.
HB 9988 also provides that funds necessary to establish, operate and maintain the San Fernando campus shall be included in the annual national budget.
The proposed law shall take effect 15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.
On the renaming of DHVSU to Pampanga State University, Gonzales, considered as the modern-day father of DHVSU, said this is a welcome development for all Pampangueños.
“Finally, we have a state university bearing the name of our province. It will forever serve as a symbol of our culture, our identity,” he said.
