THE camp of independent presidential candidate Grace Poe said Monday they will answer former Senator Francisco Tatad’s plea before the Supreme Court asking it to investigate her latest TV ad that delved on her disqualification cases.
“We will see to that. We will answer his allegations, said Valenzuela Mayor Rex Gatchalian, Poe’s spokesman.
“All ads go through the scrutiny of the respective networks’ ethics committees. A network will not allow any ad to air if it doesn’t meet the legal and ethical standards of the network.”
Gatchalian said Poe’s ads merely reflected the sentiments of her supporters.
“They simply explain that Senator Poe remains in the running in the coming elections contrary to what some quarters are spreading,” Gatchalian said.
Meanwhile, Poe said Monday she wanted the Commission on Higher Education to explain how it could possibly fail to spend P1.23 billion from its 2014 budget, which was meant for financial assistance programs, when millions of poor Filipinos were unable to afford college education.
“This is an injustice to the students who should have benefited from the amount that was not spent by CHED. They were deprived of educational aid from the State because of the failure of the commission to do its job,” Poe said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority says there are four million out-of-school youth in the country, and of those 19 percent cite insufficient family income as the main reason for forfeiting their education.
CHED itself said in a 2010 media report that two out of five high school graduates were unable to go to college because of the high cost of tertiary education, Poe said.
“It is the government’s responsibility to make education affordable and accessible especially to the poor,” Poe said.
She said CHED officials should explain how they failed to monitor and evaluate the financial transactions made by CHED’s central and regional offices.