HOUSE Deputy Minority Leader and Mamamayang Liberal (ML) party-list Rep. Leila de Lima on Wednesday pushed for the passage of a bill seeking to amend Republic Act (RA) 10931 or the “Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Law” to address gaps and ensure that the most impoverished students are prioritized in the implementation of the statute.
De Lima cited the need for Congress to enact the measure, saying “the enactment of RA 10931 is a bold and positive step toward ensuring that quality higher education is inclusive and made accessible to all Filipinos.”
“However, eight years after the law’s enactment, several issues in the law’s implementation have emerged, thus necessitating the amendments proposed by this bill,” De Lima explained said.
Under RA 10931, the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) and the Student Loan Program for Tertiary Education were established for Filipino students in all state universities and colleges (SUCs), local universities and colleges (LUCs), private higher education institutions (HEIs), and all technical-vocational institutions (TVIs).
Among the issues that emerged is that while the TES was established to assist underprivileged students with education-related expenses, not all TES beneficiaries actually come from poor households.
According to the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2), there was a sharp decline in TES grants for the poorest households, dropping from 74.24 percent in academic year 2018-2019 to 30.74 percent in 2022-2023.
De Lima also cited that TES has also become increasingly inaccessible to the youth under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), with the intake of new 4Ps TES grantees dropping to 23 new grantees in AY 2019-2020 from forming a significant bulk of the intake at 7,433 new grantees in AY 2018-2019. Maricel V. Cruz
To address these issues, HB 6825 mandates that the poorest of the students will be prioritized by guaranteeing that all eligible 4Ps beneficiaries who complete Senior High School and are accepted into a CHED-recognized HEIs or TESDA-recognized TVI receive tertiary education subsidy.
One of the key amendments of this measure is the inclusion of internship and related learning experience (RLE) fees in the coverage of expenses for which the TES may be used. This is to further ensure that these additional financial burdens shall not be a hindrance to receiving truly inclusive higher education.
Under the bill, De Lima also proposed additional provisions to strengthen accountability and transparency in the implementation of the law and other student financial assistance programs by mandating a monitoring and evaluation system, and establishing a grievance mechanism to improve the measure.
Amending the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act was among the priority measures identified by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) in the 20th Congress.
In the past Congresses, several amendatory bills to RA 10931 have been filed both in the Senate and the House of Representatives. De Lima’s bill adopts provisions from Senator Paolo Benigno Aquino’s Senate Bill (SB) 130 and Senator Risa Hontiveros’ SB No. 1245 in the 20th Congress.
