A youth group on Friday slammed the Commission on Higher Education for still-unliquidated funds amounting to P3.13 billion it had received under the Disbursement Acceleration Program and the P1.23 billion in uncollected funds appropriated for college scholarships in 2014.
“While students and their parents suffer from the yearly unabated tuition and other school fees increases, the CHED officials seem to enjoy raking profit out of people’s money,” Charisse Bañez, chairperson of the League of Filipino students, said.
“Clearly, Aquino and his alter-ego [Secretary Patricia Licuanan] on higher education have been exploiting their positions to turn education as a lucrative business,” she said.
On Thursday, Kabataan Partylist Rep. Terry Ridon called for a congressional inquiry to look into the manner in which the Commission on Higher Education handled its student financial assistance program, following the release of a Commission on Audit report that shows that P1.23 billion appropriated for college scholarships in 2014 were not spent due to lapses on the part of the higher education body.
In its 2014 annual audit report released this week, CoA noted that out of the P5.2 billion appropriated in 2014 for college scholarships, grants-in-aid and study-now, pay-later loans, about P1.23 billion remained unspent due to the commission’s low absorptive capacity.
“Congress needs to see whether there has been gross negligence committed by CHED officials that resulted to this deplorable situation. This is important, as the Stufap remains to be one of the highly-funded programs of the said commission,” Kabataan Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon said.