UPV Student Councils call for greater state subsidy

By Shelyn Mae Bajala

ON JULY 19, 2011, the different student councils of the UPV joined forces by affirming full participation, commitment and attendance in launching the State of the Youth Address (SOYA) at the UPV Iloilo City Campus.

Together with the UPV constituents, staff and faculty; the UPV University Student Council (UPV-USC),  College of Arts and Sciences Student Council (CAS-SC), College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (CFOS-SC, College of Management (CM-SC), School of Technology Student Council (SOTECH-SC) and the Katipunan ng mga Sangguniang Mag-aaral sa U.P. (KASAMA sa UP) gathered to press their call for greater state subsidy and fight for democratic access to UP education on the following grounds:

1. The STFAP new bracketing scheme has become a big burden for most students who seek financial assistance and a conspicuous apparatus for virtual tuition fee increase. Hence, STFAP is used as a mechanism for justifying tuition and other fees increase and an apparent smokescreen for such—giving face to commercialization of education;

2. State Colleges and Universities (SCU), including the University of the Philippines, suffer different forms of commercialization of education due to the current administrations’ neo-liberal austerity measures of gradually reducing the education budget for SCUs and misprioritization of education. This further manifest the state’s abandonment on its responsibility to allocate higher subsidy for its SCUs.

3. The recent budget cut also worsened the present condition of the university and further pushed UP to railroad commercialization and privatization schemes to generate more funds. This has lead to virtual increase in tuition and other fees in the university specifically in the STFAP mechanisms;

4. The recent virtual tuition fee increase and the decadent commercialization of UP education deflect the public character of UP as a people’s university that caters brilliant yet unprivileged individuals who want to pursue tertiary education;

5. Education as a basic social service is a right not only for elementary and secondary levels but also in the tertiary level, as mandated in the constitution, hence it should be held by the state,  accessible to all by allocating greater subsidy on tertiary education; and

6. The misprioritization of education just aggravates the current characteristic of the Philippine education – commercialized, colonial and fascist.

Believing that education is necessary for one’s life to flourish and a tool for nation building, the group, after having a short program at the front of Oblation in UPV Iloilo City Campus, march and meet other SOYA participants from other schools in front of the Provincial Capitol, Iloilo City,  announcing to the public their call for greater state subsidy. ■