This is a good-news, feel-good column. If you do not want to rejoice at great things that sometimes happen in our country, if you only see bad in Duterte or the so-called Yellows and believe that only your political faction can save this country, stop reading as this is not for you.
I have always supported the idea of free education at all levels, certainly in public educational institutions and even for poor students in private schools. I jumped with joy when I read the news that President Duterte last Friday signed the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.
In the House of Representatives, I praise Kabataan Representative Sarah Elago (and her predecessors Terry Ridon and Raymond De Vera Palatino) and her colleagues in the Makabayan bloc for working against many odds to get this done. I have seen not just passion from Sarah but great legislative skills in getting this law from A to Z. This, of course, is the culmination of a long struggle by the youth sector. While there is still a lot to do to implement this law properly, this is sweet victory and vindication for the student movement. As a former student leader myself—I was president of the UP Law Student Government in the late 1980s—I revel in this big victory.
Majority Floor Leader Rudy Fariñas, Appropriations Committee chairman Karlo Nograles, Higher Education Committee chairman Ann Hofer, and many others can also take credit for this gift to the Filipino youth. Any one of them could have blocked this or keep them in the black hole of bills that have not seen action.
Senator Bam Aquino was of course the chairman of the Senate Education Committee when this Act went through the legislative mill. He was its main, but not only, sponsor. He shepherded this bill to approval in the Senate, displaying awesome legislative acumen for a freshman senator. Indeed, in his first three years in the Senate, Senator Bam was instrumental in passing 17 laws—including the important Philippine Competition Act as well as the Go Negosyo Act and the Lemon Law. On this law, Senator Bam was visionary, innovative, passionate, and inclusive in building the legislative coalition.
For Senator Sonny Angara, a major proponent of this law, there is something wonderful in the knowledge that his father Senator Edgardo Angara, historically one of our most productive legislators, also authored also the Free High School Law and as well as co-authored the laws creating the Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and Skill Development Authority. The senior Angara also was one of the most decisive and visionary presidents of the University of the Philippines. Senator Sonny himself is responsible for such laws as the Ladderized Education Act, the Open Learning and Distance Education Act, and the Unified Student Financial Assistance System Act. Truly, the Angaras, as legislators, can now claim together a great and lasting education legacy. They are both architects and engineers, at least in law, who have laid down the foundations of our current educational system.
Like the House, the leaders of the Senate can rightly share the credit for this law. Thus, Senate President Koko Pimentel, Finance Committee chairman Loren Legarda, current Education Committee chairman Chiz Escudero, the other co-sponsors of the Senate bill, and specially Senator Ping Lacson who can share in the credit as well.
In the executive branch, the leadership on this issue of Commissioner Prospero De Vera of the Commission on Higher Education is undisputed. He exhibited brilliant thinking, great courage, and formidable will, advocating this from the beginning and sticking with it to the end even when it seemed the President might veto it.
In the field of public opinion, political analyst Malou Tiquia patiently explained what the bill was all about. I credit her writings for turning around policy makers, especially those who ultimately prevailed in convincing the President to sign the law.
Fr. Joel Tabora SJ, president of Ateneo de Davao University and the Catholic Education Association of the Philippines, and his colleagues worked hard to make the final version of the law work for private schools (which educate many more students than public universities and colleges). In his blog, Fr. Joel points out that “this law is not just about free tuition for those privileged to be accepted into state-run tertiary level schools like U.P. or Bicol State University or Mindanao State University.”
According to Fr. Joel: “It is about promoting access to quality tertiary education for all. That is the meaning of universal access, access for all. But is also not about promoting access to just any higher education. The legislators were aware, as parents and students are, that improving access to bad education is a sham . . . The legislators and the educators whom they consulted were aware that while state-run schools ought to deliver quality education, in many state-run schools quality is a work in progress. That work in progress would be seriously impeded were the state schools suddenly overpopulated by students entitled to free higher education. They were also aware that even if all state run schools were schools of highest quality, they would not be able to accommodate all Filipinos wishing to get quality higher education.”
Through the Tertiary Education Subsidy and the Student Loan Program, this law also assists students who cannot be accepted into state universities and who opt for quality education in private higher educational institutions. As a professor of many private universities, in Manila and Mindanao, I can attest that many of our students come from the poorest in society.
Budget Secretary Ben Diokno and many of our economists are right. The numbers here are challenging but they can be made to work. Senator Legarda, who chairmans the Senate Committee on Finance, acknowledged as much. According to her, “If we are able to provide funds for universal healthcare, free irrigation, and higher budget for infrastructure, there is no reason not to provide for free college education. After all, the Constitution states that education should be the highest budgetary priority. It is not enough that it is at the top of the budget list, we must also ensure that funds are sufficient.”
Secretary Diokno, an academic and a colleague in the University of the Philippines whose whole professional career has consistently been about the country investing property for the future, was attacked for the wrong choice of words about college education benefiting only the individual. Knowing where Diokno’s heart is, that was taken out of context. Certainly, Diokno is right about targeting support for the poor. If this law does not result in much bigger percentages of poor students getting college degrees, whether from public or private institutions, it would be a big failure and would not accomplish its objective of universal access to quality higher education. CHED should adopt indicators that would track success along these lines.
Without qualification, President Duterte must be credited for prioritizing the youth and their future. He could have listened to his economic managers as President Aquino did when he vetoed the law on internally displaced persons, probably a sound short-term fiscal decision but a terrible social injustice. Duterte cannot get other things now: his military build up for example will be compromised and Build Build Build will have to more modest. But frankly, these two implications might be good for the country (the latter might be better achieved through public private partnerships).
So for everyone claiming this was the opposition that made this possible or that Duterte alone did this or a particular senator or another was the key person, I say CHILL. This was everyone working together for the whole country, united in educating our youth.
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