UP Forum November-December 2011

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

FORUM VOLUME 12 NUMBER 6

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2011

'It’s Complicated'

Financing UP and other SUCs

By Celeste Ann Castillo Llaneta

I

t is the quintessential choice between “a rock and a hard place.”

Former Harvard University president Derek Curtis Bok described this choice in a series of fictitious dreams.1 These “dreams” begin with his decision, upon the suggestion of an alumnus, to borrow $2 billion to assemble “the greatest faculty, the finest facilities, and the most talented student body the world had ever seen.”

The staggering amount would improve the university to such a degree that

paying back the loan would be easy, or so the alumnus claims. Exhausted from the never-ending search for money to finance the university, Bok agrees.

In subsequent “dreams,” the university rises to extravagant heights on a tide of money. However, Bok is soon forced to come up with more controversial and more difficult schemes to earn money to repay the loan. Finally, his financier-alumnus suggests that he allow companies to

pay for the right to put their corporate logos on course programs and to place ads in classrooms. When Bok refuses, the irate alumnus makes a final offer: that Bok set aside one hundred slots in every entering freshman class and auction them off to the highest bidders.

This Faustian fable, retold by Bok in the preface to his book Universities in the Marketplace (Princeton University Press, 2003), is offered as a warning about the risks of commercialization

in higher education. This warning is being echoed among universities2 in the face of a growing worldwide demand for higher education; rising costs of running a university; diminishing government subsidy for public higher education; social and economic changes brought about by rapid shifts in technology; and the rise of a globally-connected, knowledgebased economy.3 “By trying so hard to acquire more money for their COMPLICATED, p. 2

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Above: UP College of Education Professor Michael Arthus Muega. Left: UP marches against budget cuts on September 14.

COMPLICATED, from p. 1 work, universities may compromise values that are essential to the continued confidence and loyalty of faculty, students, alumni, and even the general public,” Bok wrote.

The public side of a private affair Troubling as it is for a university in a firstworld country, this issue is arguably more difficult for higher education institutions in a developing country. The state of Philippine basic education is characterized by high dropout rates; a high number of repeaters; poor academic performances especially in science and math; poor language skills; overcrowded classrooms; a shortage of teachers and poor teacher performances, which result in a high illiteracy rate, a high number of out-of-school youth, and graduates who do not possess the skills needed for employment.4 This gives Philippine tertiary education an unpromising foundation, marked by one of the shortest pre-entry systems in the world, resulting in younger and less educated incoming students compared to other countries in Asia.5 Unlike in other countries, the Philippine higher education system is marked by a predominance of private higher education institutions (HEIs).

Out of the 2,180 HEIs across the regions, there are 1,573 private HEIs and only 110 public chartered state universities and colleges (SUCs)6 financially subsidized by the government. These state universities and colleges can be categorized according to several broad streams, such as comprehensive and research-oriented universities (under which the University of the Philippines (UP) and the Mindanao State University (MSU) fall); arts and trade schools and technology-oriented SUCs; agriculture-oriented SUCs; and teacher educationoriented SUCs.7 UP was the first state university established in the country in 1908. The next was established in 1949, with two more added in 1950 and 1959. SUCs began proliferating after 1960, hitting a peak in the 1980s wherein 40 institutions were established.8 For the past four academic years, enrollment numbers among public HEIs have ranged from around 900,000 to one million, while the total number of graduates from AY 2006-2007 to 2008-2009 ranged between 155,000 and 180,000. In contrast, enrollment in private HEIs have not gone lower than 1.6 million in the past four academic years, while the total number of graduates for the same years ranged between 275,000 to almost 300,000.9 Although the private institutions dominate, SUCs serve a considerable number of Filipinos, particularly in the regions.

Diminishing returns The Philippines has not escaped the global pandemic of declining government support for public

higher education. Under Art. XIV, Sec. 5.5 of the Constitution, the government is mandated to assign the highest budgetary priority to education. And this indeed has been the case for the past fiscal years: the budget allocation of the Department of Education (DepEd) under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) has increased, from P138 billion in 2008 to P192 billion in 2011.

However, according to the GAAs, the budget allocation for state universities and colleges, which is allocated separately from DepEd, has risen only marginally from P19 billion in 2008 to less than P23 billion in 2009, and has hovered around the P21billion to P22-billion mark in the last two years.10 An article published in Bulatlat on September 14, 2010 (http://bulatlat.com/main/2010/09/14/ aquino%E2%80%99s-budget-cut-on-education-isworse-than-arroyo%E2%80%99s-kabataan-party/) enumerated the SUCs that received the worst budget cuts, with 20 percent or more of their budgets slashed.

These included the Philippine Normal University (PNU) and UP. Numerous other SUCs had their Maintenance and Other Operating Expenditures (MOOE) slashed, some up to 50 percent. For UP, the national university, spasms of pain and upheavals caused by budget cuts have become a dubious annual tradition. Just last September, UP students, faculty and staff in all its campuses walked out in protest over the university’s 2012 budget—P5.54 billion, which is P200 million less than its 2011 budget and a far cry from its proposed budget of P17 billion.

While government administrations may profess to have prioritized education in the sense of giving the DepEd a large chunk of the budget, some educators, activist groups and concerned citizens see things differently.

“P-Noy should not identify [giving DepEd a large part of the budget] as an accomplishment, because even his predecessors did the same,” Kabataan Party List Rep. Raymond Palatino said. Quite apart from the Constitution mandating it, DepEd is given the biggest share of the budget simply because it is the biggest government bureaucracy.

“But DepEd is not the only department that has something to do with education. Secondly, even as it is the budget of DepEd is really inadequate,” Palatino added, citing the UNESCO-recommended 6 percent of the GNP appropriated for education, and our country’s own appropriation, which only amounts to 2.0 to 2.5 percent.11 That an inadequate government investment in basic education has far-reaching negative effects on citizenship and governance has long been made uncomfortably clear. “Basic education is important because as statistics show, half of our public elementary school graduates won’t be able to attend any secondary institution,” UP College of Education

Professor Michael Arthus Muega said. “In a matter of six years, they will become voters who are probably lacking in critical thinking abilities that will enable them to tell between a competent and an incompetent political candidate during elections. The same thing happens at the secondary level: nearly half of our public secondary school graduates won’t be able to proceed to the tertiary level of schooling. Again, the question is, do they acquire the thinking skills to tell if a candidate will be a good leader? It doesn’t seem so to me.”

Muega doubts if the administration is trying hard enough to generate the required resources to sustain the educational needs of Filipinos. “This [situation] is not what I see in other countries, such as New Zealand and Japan, whose geographical areas are not significantly different from ours. Their administrations run the government very well. So I think the problem here is the administration, because they are the ones with the most power to effect significant changes in our country.”

Shrinking shares of the pie As for the budget allocation for higher education and the SUCs, Palatino said that “it’s increasing if you adjust it to inflation. But what I’m looking at is the percentage of the total national budget allocation the government gives as budget for the SUCs, and this percentage is decreasing. In the overall operation of these SUCs, the share of tuition and miscellaneous fees is increasing, meaning funding is not keeping up with the needs of the SUCs. Instead, the burden is passed on to the students.”

The SUCs’ share of the budget is divided into three categories: Capital Outlay, which goes into the construction and expansion of buildings, infrastructure and facilities; the MOOE, which goes into the day-to-day operations and expenses; and Personal Services (PS), which covers the salary of faculty and staff. A comparison between the GAAs of 2010 and 2011 published by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) shows that PS grew from 74.6 percent in 2010 (of the actual budget amounting to Php21 billion) to 87.1 percent in 2011 (of the total budget of Php21.7 billion). On the other hand, MOOE shrank from 17.4 percent to 12.9 percent, while Capital Outlay, which amounted to 8 percent in 2010, disappeared altogether in 2011.12 Palatino finds it hard to stomach the zero allocation for Capital Outlay. “While we do have poor quality SUCs, what about our top performers— our Centers of Excellence and those that produce topnotchers in licensure exams? They won’t get Capital Outlay either? I can’t accept that not a single SUC deserves a Capital Outlay fund.”

Then there is the matter of the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF), which is a budget for unfilled positions in government agencies and will only be released if a particular agency needs COMPLICATED, p. 3

FORUM November-December 2011 3 COMPLICATED, from p. 2 to create a particular position with all the proper requirements. The MPBF has been praised by some as a way to curb fiscal greed and abuse.13 On the other hand, Palatino describes the MPBF as a “hidden cut” for the SUCs’ budget, as the funds to be used for the hiring of new teachers and administrative staff fall under MPBF instead.

To make things worse, the budget for SUCs, already described by Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Executive Director Julito Vitriolo as a “survival budget,”14 is meant to be divided among 110 SUCs (excluding UP). “The [budget] pie is limited to a certain size and more and more schools are sharing it… Enrollment is increasing, but the size of the pie remains the same so the budget is diluted,” Vitriolo was quoted as saying in an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer dated September 24. Vitriola added that the budget for SUCs was calculated based on the performancebased principle of “normative financing,” where budget priority was given to performing schools while cuts in the operating budget were made on underperforming schools.

The push toward self-sufficiency In his message regarding the 2011 budget, President Benigno Aquino III stated that his administration is “gradually reducing the subsidy for SUCs to push them toward becoming self-sufficient and financially independent, given their ability to raise their income and to utilize it for their programs and projects.”15 This effectively pushes SUCs to make the kind of proverbial “deal with the devil” that Bok warned about—to sink with the national budget for public higher education or to find other ways to swim in the limitless sea of needs and demands that is university life. For universities around the world, the options boil down to privatization and commercialization.

Privatization, according to University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education Professor Emeritus D. Bruce Johnstone, is the “process or tendency of universities taking on characteristics of, or operational norms associated with, private enterprises.”16 Commercialization, on the other hand, is defined by Bok as “the pursuit of profits by universities.” The latter term could be loosely interpreted as the university going down to the marketplace, while the former would be bringing the marketplace into the university. Both terms, historically and traditionally, leave a bad taste in the mouths of academics.

However, SUCs have been left with little choice.

“We should take this as a fact of state university life in the Philippines,” said Muega. “We seem to know what exactly we have to do in order to improve the

In search of other streams However, there are other sources of funds besides raising fees. One of these is grants and donations from alumni and benefactors—preferably alumni, as benefactors sometimes turn out to be local politicians and private corporations who give donations with strings attached. However, Palatino points out that except for UP, SUCs are generally young and have not had as much time to build a substantial alumni base, and true enough, grants and donations only accounted for 0.7 percent of the total funding of SUCs in 2010.

Another alternative source of funding comes from the Income-Generating Projects (IGP). Under Republic Act No. 8292 or the Higher Education Modernization Act of 1997, SUCs are also allowed the full use of whatever income they may generate, as well as “enter into joint ventures with business and industry for the profitable development and management of the economic assets of the college or institution.” In 2010, IGPs accounted for 4.4 percent of the SUCs’ total funding.

For SUCs, IGPs are the way to go to augment university budgets, according to the CHED. In a recent Communication and News Exchange Forum (CNEX)/Talking Points sponsored by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), Licuanan announced that CHED will be undertaking a project that will inventory the assets of SUCs and help them develop these assets to make them more economically sustainable. For the sake of equal opportunity, CHED is encouraging all SUCs, not only those who have entrepreneurial skills, to adopt this strategy.19 Some SUCs are considering converting part of their property into education economic zones in partnership with big corporations and foundations, a prominent example of which is the UP-Ayala Land TechnoHub complex. Some are looking into technology commercialization by putting up incubator projects and business process outsourcing.20 For universities like UP which has land grants,

these lands can be leased out. Others, according to UP System Vice-President for Development Elvira Zamora, can take advantage of their research work in science and technology, particularly in agriculture, biology, botany and the like, to create products that they can commercialize, which UP Los Baños has been doing. “The researchers and the school can sell the products directly, if they have some business skills. Or else, if their capability is purely for research, a spin-out company can be formed that would focus on selling the product, or else the product can be licensed out to a private company, or you can sell the patent then go on and develop new products.”

Besides commercializing practical and patentable products generated by research, universities abroad have also “gone corporate” in other ways. In the US, for instance, Bok cites the cutthroat athletics programs among universities as a way to generate funding through corporate sponsorships and alumni donations; university units conducting training workshops and seminars for corporate employees, and university faculty acting as business, management and technical consultants for private companies (which, he said, explains the sparkling condition of the Business Administration Department building compared to the relatively shabby buildings of the Social Work and Humanities departments); universities advertising course programs in print or mass media; the development of distance or online courses to target lucrative markets abroad universities; universities licensing out the use of their logos and symbols to clothing companies; alumni offices and chapters organizing travel tours, and so on. Some of these practices are being done here as well not only by SUCs but also by private HEIs. Another way to help cut costs in the university is to shift certain operations within the universities to private companies and agencies, such as the management of dormitories and cafeterias, janitorial and security services and the like. These “miniprivatizations,” as Palatino calls them, are already a widespread practice among SUCs. This practice of outsourcing aspects of university operations has certain risks, such as handing down the cost of services to the students in the form of “other fees,” further reducing access to higher education.

However, outsourcing also has advantages, such as the reduction of the time spent by university administrators in drawing up contracts and paperwork for each individual janitor or security guard. “It’s more efficient, and it allows the University to utilize its efforts in ways that properly belong to us, so we are able to focus on academic activities such as teaching, research and public COMPLICATED, p. 14 Photo from http://arnoldpadilla.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/pup-protest.jpg

Below: Kabataan Party List Representative Raymond "Mong" V. Palatino. Right: Students of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines demonstrate against tuition hikes.

quality of higher education in our country, but we do not have enough resources.”

For private higher education institutions, the usual fallback is to raise tuition and miscellaneous fees, as a result of the Education Act of 1982.

Despite reassurances to the contrary from CHED Chairperson Patricia Licuanan, students now live in fear that SUCs will follow suit.17 According to CHED data, while national government subsidy accounted for 68 percent of the grand total of funding SUCs received in FY 2010, 13 percent came from tuition—20 percent if other fees are included.

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THE UP FORUM ROUNDTABLE

on

Q

STATE SUBSIDY FOR How can you help increase state subsidy for UP and other state universities and colleges (SUCs)?

Dacanay: Economic theory suggests that state subsidy should be set equal to the value of the social benefits of an activity, above and beyond the advantages for an individual—so-called spillover benefits.

In making a case for greater state subsidy for the University of the Philippines (UP), it is instructive for UP as the national university to distinguish the subsidy requirements and use for its trifecta function of research, extension and teaching.

The social benefi ts for research, basic and applied, are likely to be very high. Royalties and other benefits accruing to the faculty and the research and extension personnel (REPS) from research activities do not generally result in signifi cant additional personal incomes, although there are outliers as in any income distribution observations.

For extension services, the university provides valuable inputs to public discussions and debates, aside from the host of community services its constituents provide across the nation and even abroad.

Again, there is a strong case for state subsidy for extension services, although it is difficult to determine their social value.

Building a case for greater subsidy for teaching is a different case. The spillovers take the form of higher tax revenues as a result of

"It is not sufficient for UP to demand greater subsidy simply on the basis of its mandate as the national university.

It needs to present concrete figures on its stewardship of the peoples’ money, and more importantly, to demonstrate that state subsidy actually accrues to society’s benefit."

— Dacanay higher productivity and salaries of better educated workforce; benefits

accruing to other members of society as a result of training by a highly educated workforce that do not accrue to UP graduates; and, citizenship as exercised through responsible voting and community spirit. But quantifying the benefits from teaching is also difficult, although there is consensus that investment in primary and secondary education results in higher social benefits than tertiary education. Hence, the ‘free’ primary and secondary education in the country.

The often incomplete picture that we see every time UP builds a case for greater state subsidy is that of students protesting tuition fee hikes and laboratory fee increases, and demanding better facilities and laboratories.

I want to present another picture: of students unanimously endorsing our proposal for a tuition increase in our Master of Management program in UP Baguio. Using the Bersales et al. (2008) report to review graduate tuition and extending the analysis to include projected revenues and uses of the tuition increment, we presented the case to our students. In particular, we discussed and presented the case to all our graduate classes.

Amazingly, they all signed up and endorsed the proposal, which would affect them the following semester.

This unanimous endorsement for a graduate tuition increase from the student sector is perhaps unprecedented and unheard of in UP. This incident underscores two points. First, students (or any sector or unit in the university) can voluntarily reduce the level of subsidy they receive without reducing access to or compromising quality education. I do not believe in pushing for a general and across-the-board increase of state subsidy for UP and the other state universities and colleges (SUCs).

I believe that subsidies should be program-specific and disciplinebased.

UP needs to show the cost effectiveness of its programs visa-vis their market demand and benefits to its graduates, which should be the basis for any subsidy.

For example, we can subsidize students from the philosophy and literature departments but not those from management, accountancy, etc. I share the observation of management guru Henry Mintzberg that graduate management education is the most commercialized, market-

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UP AND OTHER SUCS

Santos Jose O. Dacanay III, PhD Professor Institute of Management College of Social Sciences UP Baguio

Josell Ebesate, RN, MAN Staff Regent Philippine General Hospital UP Manila

Maria Kristina C. Conti Student Regent College of Law UP Diliman

determined brand of education, and hence should not be subsidized. Our students saw this and unanimously gave their consent to a tuition fee hike. Those who have the ability to pay became willing to pay.

Scholarship programs and student services were expanded to provide continued access to those who were less able to pay.

Second, the amount of subsidy UP receives needs to be scrutinized and analyzed as a basis for building a case for greater subsidy. With the premise of varying levels of spillovers for the research, extension and teaching functions of the university, there is a need to revisit the allocation process and perhaps allocate more subsidy to research and shift the subsidy from marketable programs and students coming from higher income groups to struggling departments and poorer students. Unfortunately, no detailed and up-to-date study has been made public to account for the subsidy that UP receives. Through the years, the UP administration has not heeded the call for transparency and accountability. For a start, UP should upload in its website its Commission on Audit (COA) -audited financial statements—the consolidated statements of the

UP System and the constituent universities (CUs) together with the opinions and observations of COA— unqualifi ed, qualifi ed, adverse or otherwise. We have no baseline data on the level of subsidy per student in a particular income bracket, the level of subsidy per academic program and unit, and the level of subsidy for its research function. It is not sufficient for UP to demand greater subsidy simply on the basis of its mandate as the national university. It needs to present concrete figures on its stewardship of the peoples’ money, and more importantly, to demonstrate that state subsidy actually accrues to society’s benefit.

needs of public hospitals and state universities and other public health and educational institutions under the national government. The baseline allocations as proposed

by DBM are way below the

Ebesate: For more than a decade now I have been involved in various coalitions of health workers and professionals. We have lobbied at the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Congress and Malacañan Palace to increase subsidy for social services especially for health and education.

Such efforts were almost always rewarded with modest increases in national government allocation for health services and education.

Nevertheless, such increases are not enough even for the vital

ensure adequate state

"The people should rise up against these oppressive policies, and assert our constitutional right for education and health. Lobbying is no longer enough to subsidy for UP and other SUCs." — Ebesate universally accepted minimum levels, i.e., those prescribed by the United Nations Development P r o g r a m ( U N D P ) , t h e Wo r l d Health Organization (WHO) and the Constitution.

The budget process for

2012 is no different. Concerned faculty, staff (including health professionals) and students have formed various coalitions mainly to lobby for an increase in allocation for social services. An example of such coalitions is Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut (for UP and other SUCs), Coalition for Health Budget Increase and the AllGovernment Employees Caucus (in all of which I am one of the convenors).

Events that occured during the budget deliberations show a government that is no longer responsive to the needs of the people. What we have is an administration that implements the same anti-people policies - more intense than we have seen in previous administrations.

These policies include the benign sounding “public-private partnership” which, in my opinion, is just sugar-coated privatization.

Despite the failures of the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (IMF-WB), the government still remained committed to implement it. As discussed in various IMF-WB sessions and policy papers, we are ROUNDTABLE, p. 8

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nvesting in the knowledge economy is now a globally required imperative.

One way to do this is to expand higher education to increase education attainment levels in society. The expansion of higher education, however, requires two things: (1) increased investments; and (2) more efficient use of existing resources.

In developing countries like the Philippines, government is expected to fund higher education.

Any expansion of higher education therefore becomes a critical issue in terms of its financial impact on developing countries which have very limited resources.

Education is the central strategy for investing in its people, alleviating poverty and building national and global competitiveness. It is also necessary for development and social transformation. Not surprisingly, the number of HEIs in the Philippines has been increasing over the past decade. From 2007 to 2010, number of higher education institutions (HEIs) increased by 10 percent from 2,034 to 2,247.

While higher education in the country is predominantly in the hands of private institutions— 88 percent of universities and colleges are privately owned—more and more public HEIs have been established in the past decade. (Public HEIs refer to state universities and colleges [SUCs], local universities and colleges [LUCs] and other government schools.)

Due to the expansion of public HEIs, data from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) show that enrollment in private HEIs gradually declined from nearly 90 percent in 1970 to 59 percent in Academic

closer to their constituencies.

This expansion, while laudable, has created major problems for higher education. The creation of SUCs and LUCs, for one, has become highly politicized as the number increased rapidly over the past decade. Not surprisingly, every education

rationalize the creation of SUCs. This has been the case even if an uncontrolled increase in number of SUCs and LUCs results in the dissipation of scarce resources available for higher education. The untenable situation also reduces the share of each SUC in the higher education budget. In addition,

Financing higher education What options do we have?

By J. Prospero E. De Vera III Year 2010-2011. In that particular academic year, enrollment in private HEIs numbered 1.7 million; and in public HEIs, 1.1 million. The expansion of public HEIs was accompanied by an increase in its degree program offerings—the 18,495 programs in AY 2001-2002 increased to 32,083 in AY 2010-2011, or an increase of 73.5 percent.

The increase in number of public HEIs is an attempt to make education affordable and available to all students. For reasons both well-meaning and self-serving, national and local political leaders want to create SUCs and LUCs to bring higher education

commission or task force report since the late 1980s has called for a moratorium on SUC creation.

The Task Force to Study State Higher Education (1987) noted that the “creation of SUCs was obviously made without planning for an integrated system of higher education. The SUCs seem to have been established only for local or political interests.”

As early as 1993, the Education Commission reported an increase in SUCs from 19 in 1970 to 79 in 1990.

As of 2011, there are 110 SUCs. Clearly, Congress and the President are hesitant to impose or observe a moratorium or to even

UP President Alfredo Pascual (second from left) and UP Vice-President De Vera (left) speak to Senator Franklin Drilon (right) in the halls of the Senate to mobilize legislative support for UP.

SUCs and LUCs tend to crowd out private HEIs because many are located in regions where there is high density of private schools and lower tuition rates. Mindanao State University (MSU) in Marawi, for example, charges only P4.50 per unit. It is also interesting to note that almost 40 percent of SUCs have 4,000 or less students.

Budget for SUCs The total budgetary allocation for public higher education—for CHED and SUCs—is actually significant in the sense that it is sometimes bigger than the expenditures of key agencies such as the Departments of Agriculture (DA), Agrarian Reform (DAR), Science and Technology (DOST) or Social Work and Development (DSWD). The decline in the percentage share of the higher education budget in the national budget in recent years, however, cannot be denied. From a high growth rate of 10.5 percent in 2002, the nominal budget for SUCs registered negative growth rates in 2005 (-3.85 percent) and 2006 (-1.2 percent). Based on the 2011 General Appropriations Act (GAA), the SUC sector got P22 billion. Of this amount, UP got P5.75 billion (or 26 percent of the total). MSU (P1.97 billion) and Polytechnic University of the Philippines (P677M) are the only SUCs that got significant funding from the national government.

As regards the budget for the SUCs’ maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE), it has increased by almost 6 percent from P2.1 billion in 2001 to P2.2 billion in 2005 even if it has fluctuated on a year-to-year basis. Capital outlay (CO) has been the most affected as there was zero allocation in 2003 and 2004, a standard allocation (P400,000) in 2006 and 2007 and then back to zero allocation in the years that followed. There was also no release FINANCING, p. 7

FORUM November-December 2011 7 FINANCING, from p. 6 in Congressional Insertions (CI) when the Aquino administration took over in July 2010. In the case of UP, it has P6.5 billion worth of unreleased CIs over the past six years.

Given the meager allocation, most of the income and trust funds of SUCs are used to supplement the limited MOOE and CO. From 2001 to 2006, the SUCs’ spending for CO and MOOE constitutes almost 50 percent of their actual expenses. And while dependence on government subsidy has decreased, the resource generation efforts of SUCs created problems like the prospects of tuition and fee increases, heightened student opposition and criticisms on commercialization of education.

Policy makers have argued that SUCs have the mandate and responsibility to mobilize their own resources and must not rely on government subsidies for their operations. There are many resource mobilization options such as: 1. Commercialize properties.

2. Mobilize legislative support (through the Priority Development Allocation Fund or Congressional Insertion).

3. Encourage more grants/projects from executive agencies/funding agencies.

is reluctant to impose a moratorium on creation of SUCs as political pressure remains strong. In fact, more than 20 bills have been passed by the HOR on the creation of SUCs and these are awaiting Senate approval. Even the President is unwilling to impose a moratorium either through his state of the nation address (SONA) or any policy statements.

Fortunately, the current leadership of CHED has imposed an “unwritten moratorium” while pursuing what I refer to as the amalgamation initiative. Amalgamation proves to be a viable and a cost-effective strategy to rationalize the higher education system. What CHED does is to cut the number of HEIs by amalgamation into a regional university system (RUS) which will remove overlap and duplication of programs. This initiative allows more developed institutions to assist developing ones. It also enables HEIs to work together for greater impact and allows government funds to be strategically distributed.

This amalgamation initiative has been successful at the provincial level, as in the case of the Rizal University System. The RUS is being piloted in Region XI and an RUS bill has already been submitted to Congress. So far, there is no strong resistance from politicians. That the CHED has an

even when well-targeted, provide subsidies to those who may not need them.

In the case of the Philippines, the policy is combination of loans (for private HEIs) and scholarship grants (for public HEIs). However, the government’s Study Now, Pay Later and Student Financial Assistance Program have not worked as designed. At any rate, there are merit-based scholarship grants available through government agencies like the DOST and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). The use of PDAF for scholarships has also increased the number and amount of scholarships in SUCs. Adapting the practice in the United Kingdom, it is actually possible to replace grants with loans through a Student Loan Program that has flexible repayment options. For example, there could be income-contingent loans where graduates repay their loans as a percentage of their income. This program could have a long repayment period and a write-off mechanism. The program could also be accompanied by “means-tested grants” for students coming from low-income families. Of course, the question remains if this could work in a country where there is a culture of avoiding debt, employment options are limited and students are considered legally and morally

Photo from http://ayalalveoland.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/ up-ayala-land-technohub-1.jpg

Some resource mobilization options being undertaken

by UP (clockwise from topl e f t ) : c o m m e rc i a l i z a t i o n of properties; generating support from UP alumni; seeking grants, donations and joint projects from private industries, executive and funding agencies (next two photos).

4. Reduce operating costs.

5. Generate funds from alumni.

6. Increase tuition/school fees.

But many of these options are easier said than done.

For example, commercialization of properties is not an easy task. Many SUCs are unable to commercialize their landholdings because these are not titled, are not inventoried, or are occupied by informal settlers. Some properties are covered by deeds of donation that limit commercialization of the donated property. Most SUC charters do not allow these institutions to sell their properties. For those whose land grants are located in remote areas, they obviously have little commercial value and no investor could be enticed to lease the property.

It is also clear that most SUC leaders do not have the capacity or entrepreneurial skills needed to go into full-blown commercialization activities.

Sadly, neither the DBM nor the CHED have capacity building programs for SUC leaders on land management and commercialization.

Rationalization as option Of course, the rationalization of SUCs remains an option. But how can this be done? For one, Congress

incentive system increased interest from many SUCs as regards the amalgamation initiative. At present, however, there is no clear policy with regard to amalgamation for LUCs. Increasing tuition and other fees at SUCs, on the other hand, remains a sensitive issue. The debate continues whether or not tuition should be charged, to which students and how much (if ever). Differential tuition has a long tradition in the Philippines whose experience is similar to the United States (US), Canada, Korea and Japan. While the government policy is deregulation, SUCs are reluctant to increase tuition rates due to access and equity issues, as well as political pressure. Instead of tuition, school fees are increased instead. And since tuition rates are low, SUCs actually increase inequity by providing “practically free education” even to those who can afford to pay.

Student loans have a long tradition in Australia, Canada, Austria, US and some Asian countries.

From an economic perspective, loans are considered more cost-effective than grants because these must be repaid. However, loans also include costs, considering the administration and interest subsidies and the cost of non-repayment or default. Grants, on the other hand, require continuing allocation, and,

dependent on parents.

It is also possible to increase and strengthen the Student Assistantship Program. Student or graduate assistants could receive tuition waivers or reduction while earning money to cover living costs.

Student assistantship could address human resource requirements of administrative offices or develop a teaching assistantship system. This could also develop a culture for work and reduces “dole-out” mentality regarding government subsidy to higher education. Then again, will politicians channel their PDAF to assistantship where political gains are low or invisible?

Indeed, there are options available for financing higher education. It takes, however, a high degree of political will and creativity to solve the ageold problems confronting higher education in the Philippines.

-----------Dr. J. Prospero E. De Vera III is vice-president for public affairs of UP. This article was based on his slide presentation titled “Challenges in Financing Higher Education in the Philippines: Options for Reform” presented during the Graduate Education Summit held at the Heritage Hotel, December 10, 2011. Email him at deverajp@yahoo.com.

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ROUNDTABLE, from p. 5

now on the third wave of these SAPs, which now include government entities on social services such as hospitals and universities. These SAPs are just a ploy by the IMFWB (which is controlled by the developed countries led by the United States) to open up the economies of the underdeveloped countries for further exploitation of big-businesses. In other words, the real purpose of these SAPs is not the development of the people of these countries but the stimulation of economic growth through direct foreign investments in public firms (privatization) starting from idle government assets and public “for profit” corporations (first wave) to social services (third wave) such as hospitals and educational institutions. Such economic growth, as we have experienced in the past, is only limited to big business and, to some extent, to medium industries. This kind of growth has never trickled down to ordinary workers and to majority of our people.

If “people’s development” is not the real purpose of these SAPs why then has our government continued to implement it? The answer lies in the fact that our institutions such as the electoral processes and their direct end- product such as the “elected” Congress and President, as unravelling now, are manipulated by the ruling elite and, almost always, not truly representing the true will of the people. Even our property system (where our political and economic elite have emanated) is also “extractive” (Acemoglu, 2001) in nature.

We inherited these political and economic institutions from our colonizers. As summarized

by Acemoglu et. al. in their 2001 paper: “If the costs of creating these institutions have been sunk by colonial powers, it may not pay the elite to switch to extractive institutions. In contrast, when the new elites inherit extractive institutions, they may not want to incur the costs of introducing better institutions and may instead prefer to exploit the existing extractive institutions for their own benefit.”

These “extractive institutions” being perpetuated are best exemplifi ed by the continued defi ance of the President’s family in distributing the vast Hacienda Luisita to its farmers.

Because the powers-that-be are seemingly inclined to privatize social services such as health and education, without regard for the deleterious effects on the people’s welfare, the people should rise up against these oppressive policies, and assert our constitutional right for education and health. Lobbying is no longer enough to ensure adequate state subsidy for UP and other SUCs.

References:

1. Acemuglo, Daron, et. al. “Colonial Origins of Comparative Development”, The American Economic Review, Vol 91, No 5 (Dec. 2001), 1369-1401.

2 . H a r d i n g , A p r i l & P r e k e r A l e x a n d e r, “Understanding Organizational Reforms : The Corporatization of Public Hospitals”, A Discussion Paper produced by the Human Development Network, World Bank.

September 2000.

3 . “ E d u c a t i o n - Te r t i a r y E d u c a t i o n (Higher Education)”, n.d., http://web. worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/ TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/ 0,,contentMDK:20298183~ menuPK:617592~pagePK:148956~piPK:216 618~theSitePK:282386,00.html.

4. Taguiwalo, Judy, “Strengthen State Support to Public Tertiary Education Institutions!

No to Amending the Constitution to Allow Further Foreign Control of Philippine Higher Education”, n.d., http://ibonreads.wordpress. com/2011/10/13/ strengthen-state-supportto-public-tertiary-education-institutionsno-to-amending-the-constitution-to-allowfurther-foreign-control-of-philippine-highereducation/.

Conti: The University of the Philippines has produced generation after generation of students, faculty and administrators with the clear position that public higher education is a public good, a n d d e s e r v e s s u ff i c i e n t s t a t e subsidy. It has been instrumental in analyzing the crisis in education which stems from underfunding and misunderstanding the role of education in nation-building.

How students translate their opinions into action has been distinctly noteworthy. In other schools excluded from administrative decision-making, students have been creative in campaigning for nationalist, accessible and mass-oriented education.

Students have staged many activities aimed at consolidating their ranks and calling attention to the issues. Propagandists tirelessly make murals, banners, streamers and digital media materials that are visually arresting. Artists create songs, choreography and videos that take advantage of the wide range of platforms to reach the youth.

It has been the historic task

of student leaders to ceaselessly stimulate ourselves and fight for our permanent sectoral interests.

Factoring in the size of the student and youth population, the inherent diversity, the transience of age and changes in societal attitudes, student leaders have to consistently confront contradictions that arise when one generation yields to the next.

Student efforts have been most often successful in setting the national agenda. Sometimes, we clinch administrative and policy concessions by mustering the numbers and underscoring the reasons when political decisions are made.

Ultimately, the challenge is how to channel all initiatives into a broad, purposeful movement.

Faculty and administrators, parents and family, workers and all other taxpayer-citizens have the common aim of improving the quality and accessibility of higher education. Students have been quick to point out overlapping interests and where they are nonnegotiable. Through the years, we have created alliances such as the Kilusan Laban sa Budget Cut, Ugnayan ng mga Mag-aaral Laban sa Komersiyalisasyon (Umaksyon), and its most recent reincarnation, UP Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut. The growth of these coalitions showcases maturing strategies in order to realize doable philosophies of education. The consensus achieved in these multi-sectoral fora cultivates collectivity both in vision and in action.

Thus, the most effective protests and demonstrations are those which cut through a wide swath of groups united amidst diversity. In 2000, UP, led by then President Francisco Nemenzo, trekked to Mendiola to air its opposition to education budget cuts. Ten years later, backed by a two-year swing of student

"The challenge is how to channel all initiatives into a broad, purposeful movement. Faculty and administrators, parents and family, workers and all other taxpayer-citizens have the common aim of improving the quality and accessibility of higher education."

— Conti strikes, it again went on the 13kilometer march to the foot of Malacañang.

Students also struggle to participate in policy-making.

After all, they are empowered by the university to engage in participatory governance and encouraged to conscienticize, if not revolutionize, government.

Besides, in time, students will be faculty members, administrators and government officials themselves.

Armed with grassroots petitions and output from comprehensive consultations, students can be found in all offices which will open their doors. School administrators, congressmen, senators, education and executive officials regularly receive messages alternating in tone from beseeching, humorous, intimidating to outraged.

Unsurprisingly, our letters end with a most cherished postulate: that education is a right.

UP Student Regent Conti addresses the audience during the UP Diliman Student Summit on the budget for higher education. The Student Summit was followed by the Unity March against budget cuts.

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ducation is a right.” That is a slogan often heard from progressive groups in the University of the Philippines (UP). It is a sentiment shared by almost every other student, faculty and staff from state universities and colleges (SUCs).

But while these groups step up the struggle for greater state subsidy in public higher education institutions, the appropriations for public education, particularly SUCs, has been reduced by the Aquino administration.

The Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya Para sa Sambayanan (AGHAM) Partylist said that the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC) had presented a combined budget for SUCs amounting to P45.90 billion for 2012. Congress, on the other hand, proposed only P21.89 billion, less than half of

education and provide assistance to their local communities.”5 Palatino said that education is a basic social service which must be made available by the government. To deny any eligible citizen of the service by mere financial handicap is depriving that citizen of his or her right to health care or food.

A consistent advocate for greater state subsidy in education, Palatino has been a staunch voice for more funding to government higher education institutions.

Newly-proclaimed Senator Aquilino Martin “Koko” Pimentel III cast his support for students and called for greater state subsidy to public education. In a press conference at the Padilla Room of the Senate on September 6, he said, ““Ako po ay naniniwala na education is the best equalizer. It is

In an interview with the UP Forum, Conti said that government subsidies to public higher education institutions such as the UP System should not be viewed as burdens on the national government but as an extension of the services that should be provided to the people. Strong government support for the public education sector “creates an atmosphere that social services are provided by the government” she said.

Aside from being educational institutions, Conti said that SUCs such as UP provide venues for public debate where matters of paramount concern to the national body politic are tackled by academics, students and other involved sectors. These debates allow for a better appreciation of the sociopolitical, economic, and even religious and artistic issues which confront Philippine society. “Public

The youth and the public education system

By KIM Quilinguing what public-funded educational institutions need.1 Since July 2011, students, faculty and the administrators from various SUCs have called for an increase in state subsidy for education after the budget for public higher education was reduced.

While the UP proposed a budget of P17 billion for 2012, it was only given P5.75 billion or 31 percent of what it had asked for. UP Physics Professor and AGHAM Partylist Chair Giovanni Tapang said, “The budget cut will force UP to shoulder this cost, or to reduce expenditures. Student services such as food, transportation, security and maintenance services are already being privatized in many SUCs. Auxiliary student services such as organization tambayans and their use of facilities are slowly being phased out by the lack of direct funding for these.”2 Upon assuming the presidency of the country’s national university last February, finance expert Alfredo E. Pascual was faced with the reduction of the government’s subsidy. In a statement issued on July 21 this year, Pascual said, “(UP) deserves to get sufficient funding from the national government. It must have the means to effectively play a leadership role in higher education and national development, and attain a competitive status in the regional and global arena.”3 His call was answered with a series of mobilizations and campaigns by UP administrators, faculty, staff and students.

Pascual would later reiterate the call for greater state subsidy in his investiture speech on September 15, where he said, “Government financial support for UP is not an expense, but an investment that will yield copious dividends for our country and people.”4 In his speech at the House of Representatives’ plenary budget deliberation last September 7, Kabataan Partylist Representative Raymond “Mong” Palatino said, “By giving low funding priority for our SUCs [State Universities and Colleges], the government deprives young people of the chance to access higher education. Our SUCs, which are barely surviving, are expected to produce quality

one of the keys out of poverty, if it is not the only key to solve our problem of poverty. Let us invest in our students from kindergarten all the way to doctorate degrees and science degrees kung pwede.

Let us prioritize education because that is investing in our people.”6 But while the policy-makers and administrators of the public-funded educational institutions debate on the fate of the people’s schools, universities and colleges, the students in these institutions are confronted with the possibility that they may be forced to discontinue their studies due to the reduction of state subsidy.

UP Student Regent Krissy Conti said that “Government makes so many distinctions: first between basic and tertiary education, and then among state colleges and universities. What is clear is that education is being funded disproportionately.

This results in distinct differences [in] the quality of education in each school, leading to commercialization of education.”7

universities make people more intelligent…they make people more critical,” she said.

Conti also added that public institutions are sources of innovative ideas in politics, engineering, the sciences, and the arts. Government support for public educational institutions does not only enable students to acquire education, but more importantly also allows them to develop new ideas and approaches to long-held principles and technologies.

Beyond the maintenance of social services and education, Conti said that SUCs are essential to the molding of men and women who will dedicate their lives and pursuits for the people. She said that being a product of a public educational institution, the iskolar ng bayan is beholden to the people and as such should repay the people’s funding of his or her education with service dedicated to the enhancement of human dignity and social justice. She added that this sense of duty differs much from the sense of responsibility often inculcated in schools that are THE YOUTH, p. 15

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n Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s novel Petals of Blood Blood, Munira, the teacher in a ramshackle school in the likewise downtrodden, pastoral village of Ilmorog, realized that he “would have to face the drought as a challenge” and he “would not be able to teach under these conditions where theory seems a mockery of reality.” The “drought,” whether taken figuratively or literally, is a result of the adherence of the local bureaucrat puppets to their imperialist masters, which leads to state abandonment of the people by depriving them of education and other basic social services, to give way to neoliberal interests.

The Philippines and the rest of the world, however, began facing this drought with a raised fist, as we have seen as theatre, had we attended or witnessed rallies, or as films, had we observed the massive protests through both new and old media. In nationwide strikes last September, students, teachers, administrators and employees joined hands in demonstrations against budget cuts and for greater state subsidy. These mass protests exposed “the naked contradictions of capitalism” and showed “the continuing resistance of the

Casting Call: Role of the Youth Though we may consider them independent performances in their own right, mass demonstrations are “rehearsals for revolution,” John Berger’s The Nature of Mass Demonstrations asserts. These, however, are “not strategic or even tactical ones, but rehearsals of revolutionary awareness.” Prior to a rehearsal that shall later culminate into the grand theatrical performance are open calls for auditions where roles are cast and/or tasks assigned, in accordance with the in/capacity and preferences of those who responded to the call to act.

Likewise, affected sectors that respond to the call to forge unities to foster the struggle for free education are convened into an organization.

According to Freire, concepts such as organization, unity and struggle are labelled dangerous by oppressors since “their realization is necessary to actions of liberation.” These “dangerous” concepts are employed in collective action. Mass actions demanding greater state subsidy, in Raymundo’s words, help “build organizational cohesiveness.”

She adds that protest actions create “a stronger

free education help each other within KILOS NA! The participation or roles are chosen “based on their respective strengths and weaknesses.” “The youth, as the largest sector inside any school, provide the ‘muscle’ for any rally or protest action” and “‘push the envelope’ in terms of daring and militancy,” while the teachers and employees provide a “democratic space” for dialogue with university administrations and even government officials and “a wealth of experience,” as among their ranks are many former youth activists.

Other roles the youth sector play, Palatino enumerated, are: (1) sharing budget information and other updates from the legislative department; (2) tacticizing on how to successfully mount (our) campaigns; and (3) building alliances, conducting joint activities and actions. He said the youth formed this unity with other sectors because “the neoliberal agenda as reflected in the budget is not limited to the education sector” and that Kabataan Partylist builds unities with the “Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC), the national association of state universities and colleges (SUCs) presidents,

The Fight for Education as Dress Rehearsal

By Arbeen Acuña

people against a dying system,” according to UP Sociology Professor Gerry Lanuza.

The global actions of young people tell us that “the global dominance of neoliberal thinking results in social spending cutbacks and other antipeople impacts” and that “the protests are proof of the vital and growing opposition of peoples around the world, especially the youth, to neoliberal policies,” says Kabataan Partylist Representative Raymond Palatino.

Our fight for education then, as UP Sociology Professor Sarah Raymundo puts it, is “an antiimperialist fight, a political fight that weaves into the worldwide demand for a system that will respond to human needs to replace the current one ruled by the logic of profit accumulation.”

Described by Raymundo as a system that “demands unnecessary suffering from the laboring people” and “allows looters and murderers to lead nation-states,” global capitalism provokes revolt—as is evident not just in mass actions for free education, but also in demonstrations with a broad range of demands such as the popular international Occupy protests.

sense of purpose and belongingness,” while strengthening “an organization’s capacity for systematic organizing in the sense that mass protests are venues for people to facilitate other people’s enlightenment and a sense of being organized.”

However, in a conservative country such as ours, the youth are often dissuaded by various factors from assuming a daring role—whether in thespian or mass organizations—and some of those factors are right inside our homes. In an open letter, Lanuza encouraged parents to allow their children to be part of a national performance—i.e. the September 23 strike of the KILOS NA! multisectoral alliance against budget cuts: “They (students) cannot be 'genuine' iskolar ng bayan if they will not go through this 'baptism of fire.'” In social scientific parlance, these great protestivals are opportunities for political socialization. They are being initiated into the role that they will have to actively assume later on in their life: active citizens of Philippine society.”

Vencer Crisostomo, the spokesperson of the alliance and national chairperson of youth group Anakbayan, said that the various sectors advocating

to promote an awareness and education campaign about the relevance of state investments to higher education and in particular, the contribution of SUCs in fulfilling the national development agenda” to “have more persuasive power when dealing with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and Congress.” He added that Kabataan Partylist actively intervened all throughout the budget deliberations and “proposed the realignment of state expenditures from unproductive expenses (like cash transfers, bloated foreign debts, redundant intelligence funds) to social services, especially basic and higher education.”

Just as thespian organizations coordinate with different formations to help them stage a play, sectors build unities within and among themselves to campaign for democratic rights. With regard to the integration of the youth with other concerned sectors, Crisostomo said, “Government employees, migrants, women, and the urban poor provide us students with a wider perspective on the effects of the budget cuts.” Organized multisectoral protest actions coupled with congressional lobbying alone DRESS REHEARSAL, p. 11

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Vaudeville of Protests According to Crisostomo, among the creative forms of protests he has seen are “‘flash mobs,’ or surprise synchronized dances in public places, graffiti murals on walls and roads, mass ‘planking,’ or lying down face-first on highly visible or symbolic locations such as the middle of roads, street plays, and concerts.”

Planking is one of the most utilized spectacles.

The September 23 planking at Mendiola was dubbed as the largest planking protest in the world.

Other spectacles seen in the UP system with the street as the stage are: (1) the budget CUTtoure fashion—UP Diliman community had their shirts cut (and designed by clothing technology students) before modelling; (2) the pose to oppose budget cut campaign—UPLB constituents put slogans on their profile photos in social networking sites; (3) the blackboard campaign—UP Visayas students wrote their calls on the blackboard, had their photos taken with the call and posted online; (4.) the huni ni oble—the UP Mindanao community hummed the “UP Naming Mahal;” (5) the human chain—UP Baguio constituents linked arms and shared solidarity messages; and (6) the freeze mob—where participants “suddenly froze in the

middle of a busy school lobby or corridor, arousing the curiosity of passersby,” thereby inviting the spectators to be actors themselves by joining protests.

In the virtual stage of social networking sites, the personal accounts of those involved in the struggle for free education changed their surnames to “oppose budget cuts.” Social media also serve as venues to disseminate publicity materials and information regarding upcoming activities for particular campaigns.

Despite these ‘creative’ means, “Rallies and other forms of protest actions comprise the main form of lobbying and campaigning for greater state subsidy to education,” according to Crisostomo.

Relating this to global phenomena, Lanuza said that mass protests embody the “people’s longing for a society freed from the exploitative mantle of neoliberal capitalism that consigns 2.5 billion people or 40 percent of the world population to subhuman living by earning less than 2 dollars per day while 10 percent of the richest people controls 54 percent of world capital.”

In his privilege speech The Right to Strike, Palatino said, “Domestically and globally, budget cuts, price hikes, continuous rights violations and social strife continue to inspire countless young people to rely on the collective wisdom and power of the oppressed to build a better and more humane, progressive society.”

“Youth all over the world are up in arms.

Youth and student riots in London, Chile, Spain, Madagascar, Columbia, Germany, Malaysia and elsewhere in the world are testaments to how volatile the present global economic crisis is. Young men and women 17-25 years old are jobless, students are protesting.”

If we go by Shakespeare’s “If all the world’s a stage and all men and women are merely players,” consider the fight for education being a global phenomenon, a theatrical performance of universities, colleges, and other concerned formations in the global scale—that is but an act within a larger theatrical performance that is yet to be seen.

Going by Alan Moore’s rendition in the comic book V for Vendetta, “All the world’s a stage and the rest is vaudeville.” Vaudeville, said to be derived from the expression voix de ville (voice of the city), is, in essence, a variety show—which may refer to the variety of forms of registering protest.

But still, these theatricals are mere front acts before the main performance.

Among the icons of worldwide dissent, not just against deprivation of education and basic social services, but against corporate greed, is the Guy Fawkes mask from the aforementioned comic book.

In an interview with The Guardian, Moore said that the mask—worn by thousands of demonstrators especially in Occupy protests, turning the “protests into performances”—is “very operatic; it creates a sense of romance and drama.” He added that protest marches can be “very demanding, very gruelling” and “quite dismal” but are “things that have to be done.” Moore struggled to fi nd the last V word to use as a title for the comic book’s closing chapter, according to The Guardian.

Having used “Victims, Vaudeville and Ve n g e a n c e ; t h e Vi l l a i n , the Voice, the Vanishing; even Vicissitude and Verwirrung (the German word for confusion)” he settled for Vox Populi. “Voice of the people” M o o r e said, “And I think that if the mask stands for

Photo by Izabelle Napala, UP Mindanao

DRESS REHEARSAL, from p. 10 shows that coordinated campaigns for greater state subsidy encompass the concerns and reflect the interests of various affected sectors. Such a unity is manifest as well at the international level.

anything, in the current context, that is what it stands for. This is the people. That mysterious entity that is evoked so often—this is the people.” For the sake of making more people critical observers, if not actors themselves (spect-actors was Boal’s term), rather than passive spectators, there is the need for V-effect in the Brechtian sense in every performance, which in this case, are protest actions for asserting the right to education.

“The street demonstrator’s performance,” Brecht said, referring to an eyewitness’ telling other people how a traffic accident took place, “is essentially repetitive. The event has taken place; what you are seeing now is a repeat. If the scene in the theatre follows the street scene in this respect, then the theatre will stop pretending not to be theatre, just as the street-corner demonstration admits it is a demonstration (and does not pretend to be an actual event).”

Speeches in rallies, the aforementioned creative forms of protest, and other demonstrations that we may qualify as performances, then, are also mere repetitions—recollections of the oppression communicated with other people.

Mass demonstrations are perhaps repeated as preparations for the grand performance: “Rehearsals of revolutionary awareness” indeed, as Berger postulates, where “the delay between the rehearsals and the real performance may be very long” and “their quality—the intensity of rehearsed awareness—may, on different occasions, vary considerably.” As Brecht further asserts, street demonstrators (i.e. actors and protesters as far as theatre and rallies are concerned, respectively) are not fascinated with the creation or invocation of pure emotions as his or her interests rather lie on social intervention—and a collective intervention of the oppressed 99 percent escalates as we speak.

-----------Email the author at forum@up.edu.ph

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"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

- William Butler Yeats

Keeping the UP officials meet with legislators.

UP students discuss the issue of limited state subsidy.

Constituents of the various UP campuses take a stand.

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fire burning...

UP education has endowed us with the priceless teachings and examples of the country’s finest artists, its most brilliant scientists, and its most dedicated teachers.

It has also allowed us to learn despite the limited facilities and the antiquated equipment from previous generations.

It is the combination of these teachings, this environment, and the UP student’s ingenuity, which sets the UP graduate apart from those of other institutions.

But while we have managed to achieve excellence despite these limitations, we must continue to demand for increases in state subsidy for UP, increases in the pay of our faculty and staff, and the upgrading of our facilities deserving of a national university. Government financial support for UP is not an expense, but an investment that will yield copious dividends for our country and people.

On this day, we gather to declare that we shall not waver in our efforts to restore UP to its preeminent status in the world of higher education and to ensure that the education it offers is accessible to the least of our people.

We must succeed not because we have a reputation to keep, but because we have a country to serve.

- From "Making UP a Great University: Investiture Speech of Alfredo E. Pascual, 20th President of the University of the Philippines"

The UP community takes the issue to the streets.

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Above: UP Vice-President for Development Elvira Zamora. Right: Central Luzon State University agriculture and food technology business incubator conducts a training program.

COMPLICATED, from p. 3 service,” Zamora said.

Aiming for the marketplace Complete privatization of a state university— that is, allowing private corporations and their interests to breach the inner sanctum of university life, restructuring academic programs, deciding research directions and “corporatizing” public service—is out of the question. “If you allow these institutions to run the university, you know what’s going to happen,” Muega said. “They won’t be happy to fund research that has no practical value to them. This will mean the death of abstract scientific investigations with no immediate practical value.”

Commercialization of idle assets, Muega argues, is a more viable option, especially for universities fortunate enough to have land grants like UP. For her part, Zamora believes that UP is safe from outright privatization or corporatization, thanks to its Charter mandate as national university. “I don’t think privatization applies [here] because there is nothing to privatize,” she said. “In the case of UP, you cannot sell the lands.

It’s really more of innovativeness in resource generation.”

As to the risk of the need for funds skewing a university’s research directions solely toward topics with immediate commercial or marketable value to the detriment of abstract or theoretical research in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, things might not be as dire here as it is in countries such as the US. In fact, more research to generate practical, patentable products that could help support universities and uplift lives is what the country needs more right now.

“For a developing country [like] the Philippines, we should be spending more time doing applied research,” Zamora said. “With basic research, you cannot easily see how it is going to be useful.

It is added knowledge. In rich countries like Japan, they have the resources to do basic or pure research. But if you are a poor country or a school with limited researches, although [doing basic research] is okay, it is better to do applied research with results that can be used immediately.”

Re-committing to public higher education As Bok warns, commercialization also poses certain risks, not least of which is the death of the perception that the university is an institution that stands for truth, knowledge, excellence and service—ideals untouched by the crass scrabbling for profit in the marketplace. A cash-strapped state university must then find a way to traverse that fine line between survival and “selling out,” a task that is made more challenging by political realities and policies in place today.

“By reducing state subsidy for education, the government is pushing for de facto privatization of universities. SUCs will be forced into it to survive,” Palatino said. “I understand that universities must find innovative ways to earn money. But the DBM’s policy last year [stated that] it will reduce funding for the SUCs because SUCs are able to raise tuition. But the reason the universities are raising tuition is precisely because they have no funding.”

For Palatino, the problem is governmental underspending, with the solution being to spend even less and force schools to look for other sources of income. “I think there’s something wrong with that policy. It contradicts the stated mission of the government, which is to place the interest of the people first above all.” The problem of under-investment in public higher education is in turn rooted in a lack of appreciation of the role of SUCs in achieving long-term national development. As former CHED Chairperson Ester Garcia wrote in Managing a Modern University in the Philippines (UP Press, 2004): “…[A] purely private education system may not provide adequate safeguards for the public interest. The private education sector is more flexible…and can respond faster and more adequately to market forces…On the other hand, the public sector is needed for the more expensive and less attractive but much needed programs which the private education sector will not offer, such as agriculture and fisheries, certain fields of engineering, natural sciences and mathematics, social sciences, and humanities…Public higher education institutions are also justified by ‘externalities,’ i.e. benefits which accrue to the society at large more than to the individual.”

“If you go to the provinces, ang laki ng value ng SUCs,” said Palatino. “For one thing, in many provinces the SUC is the only educational institution around, such as in the case of Mt. Province State College and Marinduque State College. And the role of SUCs in [promoting] social cohesion is immense.”

For Palatino, a review and reform of the entire national budgeting system is called for, as well as unified efforts of all HEIs, public and private both, to lobby for greater support and let their views be heard. And this view is that spending for public higher education and education in general is a good, long-term investment. While the returns might take some time, the benefits are immeasurable. “UP did not become a great institution after 1908 in just a few years. It took UP many years to become an excellent institution, and it did this because the government increased its funding,” Palatino said. “The same goes for the SUCs. If you expect them to grow as an institution,

there should be state support.”

To keep the administration committed to the support of education, Muega believes that we can adopt the practice of ranking world universities, and rank government administrations instead.

“We should not stop comparing the performance of the administration running our government with the performance of administrations running other governments in other countries. We should do this to see where the discrepancies lie. The administration would call it unfair, but it’s not.

We have to compare the performance of our DepEd, Department of Health and so on with other countries’ respective departments, so we can tell if we are being taken for a ride.”

As for state universities, the job is twopronged: find innovative ways to earn funds while continuing to fight for greater state subsidy.

“We should do something. [Merely demanding government funding] out of a sense of entitlement is not tenable. We have to find ways to generate resources, ways to send our children to school,” Muega said. “But at the same time, we should keep complaining and demanding more from our administration, because every Filipino has a right to education.”

“For as long as the core functions of the University—education or teaching, research and creative work, and public service—are not affected, resource generation should be seen as something that helps create an enabling environment,” Zamora said. “Although UP and SUCs are not supposed to be profit-oriented, without financial sustainability, those three core functions cannot survive.”

“UP should lead the way in telling the public about the real value and role of SUCs, why investing in SUCs is good politics, and good for the country,” Palatino said. He cited UP President Alfredo Pascual’s support for the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC). After all, when weighing difficult choices, taking state support away from public higher education might turn out to be the bigger devil, with no less than the future of the country at stake.

-----------Email the author at forum@up.edu.ph NOTES:

1 Derek Curtis Bok, Universities in the Marketplace, Princeton University Press: 2003, http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=jp33 3nuZrToC&printsec=frontcover&dq=higher+education,+commercia lization&hl=tl&ei=DULTTr7gKIKTiQf72L3NDg&sa=X&oi=book_res ult&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=hi gher%20education%2C%20commercialization&f=false. Accessed November 25, 2011.

2 Daniel M. Carchidi, “The Devil and Derek Bok”, The Business of Higher Education: Leadership and Culture, ed. John C. Knapp and David J. Siegel, Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO LLC, 2009, http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=N24Die3_1hgC&pg=PA27 1&dq=higher+education,+commercialization,+derek+bok&hl=tl&e

COMPLICATED, p. 15

FORUM November-December 2011 15 STATE SUBSIDY from p. 16 supposedly correct the inadequacies of the current 10-year curriculum. But would the additional two years overturn the current competitiveness of the country in the sciences, mathematics and engineering where we ranked 47 in 2001 and 77 in 2007 out of 117 countries which were evaluated? A sample high school class was ranked 11 out of 14 classes from other countries. (http://www.comste. gov.ph/content.asp?code=86).

This poor performance could be attributed to many reasons including the low government allocation for education, and the perennial lack of resources, both human and physical, attributed to corruption, mismanagement and poor planning.

Our basic education teachers also lack quality skills and the necessary competencies; many do not pursue post-graduate studies or pass licensure examinations.

What about tertiary education? In 1908, when the University of the Philippines (UP) was instituted, we were the only government-subsidized institution for higher education. In addition, to ensure UP’s financial stability, it was also given land grants it could utilize to augment its budget. Today, although a national university, UP is only one of 110 state-subsidized colleges and universities in

the Philippines. And many of our land grants have remained underutilized.

In 2008, Congress allocated P20.8 billion as state subsidy for SUCs, with 40 percent going to UP and the Mindanao State University (MSU).

Thus, in 2008, with the student population in SUCs at approximately 865,000, government subsidy amounted to an average of P24,000 per student per year.

By 2011, with a budget of P 21.72 billion, SUCs (http://www.transparencyreporting.net/ index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i d=181:state-universities-and-colleges-budget-cutfact-or-fiction-learning-to-read-and-understandbudgets&catid=44:stories&Itemid=94) could have had an increase in subsidy. However, the higher personnel costs, which took up more than 87 percent of this budget due to the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) III have effectively negated that increase.

Even as UP gets the bigger chunk of the SUC budget, we nonetheless compete with other SUCs who think they are just getting mere crumbs from the CHED budget for higher education biased for UP. On the other hand, the quality of programs offered by many of the other SUCs leaves much to be desired.

Should budgetary allocation therefore be based on performance, with non-performing SUCs eventually phased out if within a period, their performance in a number of quality indicators remains low? This is a policy question to which the answer will not be acceptable for political reasons.

While quality basic education is the right of all citizens, tertiary education is undertaken by students who wish to pursue higher education not only to be

challenged by a strong sense of achievement and learning from the best teachers but to get higher paying jobs and be promoted. Here again is the distortion. Subsidies will once again re-allocate resources from ordinary citizens and blue-collar workers to a sector of the population who would eventually have higher paying jobs (than the blue-collar workers) as they take on white-collar positions.

While undoubtedly, higher education institutions (HEIs), in particular, the University of the Philippines, need bigger subsidies to improve their facilities, invest on innovative capital-intensive researches, hire more personnel, and be world class, they have to make an impact as a university on those who contribute to their subsidy.

UP has contributed human power resources to both public and private institutions here and abroad, but how, as a university, it makes an impact on the lives of ordinary Filipino citizens should be the paramount goal. The demand for greater subsidy to fund our varied programs and projects would then be much easier to justify to the national government.

-----------Dr. Marilou G. Nicolas is assistant vicepresident for Academic Affairs of UP and executive director of the University Center for Integrative Development Studies. Email her at mgnicolas@post. upm.edu.ph.

COMPLICATED, from p. 14

December 12, 2011.

11 “Invest in the future! Six percent of GNP to Education!”, statement of Six Will Fix, 18 September 2011, https://www.facebook. com/notes/six-will-fix-6-of-gnp-to-education/invest-in-the-futuresix-percent-of-gnp-to-education/248816905154378. Accessed December 12, 2011.

12 Sierra Mae Paraan, “State Universities and Colleges’ Budget Cut: Fact or Fiction? Learning to Read and Understand Budgets”, Pera Natin To! Philippine Public Transparency Reporting, 07 February 2011, http://www.transparencyreporting.net/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:state-universitiesand-colleges-budget-cut-fact-or-fiction-learning-to-read-andunderstand-budgets&catid=44:stories&Itemid=94. Accessed November 28, 2011.

13 “It’s ‘Personnel’ not ‘Personal’ Benefit," entry from the blog “Ang Bag-ong Balatukan: Exponent of Good Governance and Honesty in Public Service in the Misamis, Agusan and Surigao regions, Mindanao, 26 September 2011, http://balatucan.wordpress. com/2011/09/26/its-personnel-not-personal-benefit/. Accessed December 12, 2011.

14 “Squeeze”, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 29 September 2011, http:// opinion.inquirer.net/13083/squeeze. Accessed December 12, 2011.

15 President Aquino’s 2011 Budget Message, Official Gazette, 24 August 2010, http://www.gov.ph/2010/08/24/president-aquinos2011-budget-message/. Accessed November 28, 2011.

16 D. Bruce Johnstone, “Privatization in and of Higher Education in the US,”http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/Johnston/privatization.html. Accessed December 12, 2011.

17 “No tuition hike for state universities, colleges,” The Philippine Star, 31 May 2011, http://www.philstar.com/nation/article.aspx?publica tionsubcategoryid=200&articleid=691664. Accessed December 12, 2011.

18 “Statement of Receipts – State Universities and Colleges, FY 2010”, Commission on Higher Education.

19 “CHED to encourage state schools to engage in income-generating projects,” IslandSentinel.com, 9 June 2011, http://islandsentinel. com/2011/06/09/ched-to-encourage-state-schools-to-engage-inincome-generating-projects/. Accessed November 30, 2011.

20 Anselmo Roque, “Ecozones in state campuses loom as fund wells," Philippine Daily Inquirer, 9 September 2011, http://newsinfo. inquirer.net/56067/ecozones-in-state-campuses-loom-as-fundwells. Accessed November 28, 2011.

UP AVP for Academic Affairs Marilou Nicolas

THE YOUTH, from p. 9 privately-financed, where the emphasis is on the self and not on society.

With the reduction of state subsidy to public educational institutions, Conti sees the further reduction of access by Filipinos of limited means to schools like UP. This reduction will also mean reduced or lack of funding for research, the purchase of necessary equipment and the maintenance of facilities. Inevitably, the quality of education, as well as research and public thought, will be affected by the reduction of government support for public education.

-----------Email the author at forum@up.edu.ph NOTES:

1 "State U," http://www.agham.org/cms/content/state-u.

Accessed November 17, 2011.

2 Ibid.

3 "UP deserves increased budget appropriation," http://up.edu. ph/features.php?i=344. Accessed November 17, 2011.

4 "Making UP a Great University: Investiture Speech of Alfredo E. Pascual, 20th President of the University of the Philippines," http://up.edu.ph/features.php?i=396, last accessed November 17, 2011.

5 Support Our State Universities and Colleges, http:// mongpalatino.com/2011/09/support-our-state-universitiesand-colleges/. Accessed November 17, 2011.

6 Transcript of Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III press conference, September 6, 2011 http://www.senate.gov. ph/press_release/2011/0906_pimentel1.asp. Accessed November 17, 2011 7 "It’s not about the money money money," http://upissues. wordpress.com/2011/09/26/money-money/, last accessed November 21, 2011.

i=qofdTvq0AsijmQXStJiaBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&re snum=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=higher%20educ ation%2C%20commercialization%2C%20derek%20bok&f=false.

Accessed November 25, 2011.

3 See “Top ten global trends that force us to rethink education,” June 18, 2007, Education Futures, http://www.educationfutures. com/2007/06/18/top-ten-global-trends-that-force-us-to-rethinkeducation/; Colin N. Power, “Global Trends in Education," International Education Journal vol. 1, no. 3, 2000, http://ehlt. flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v1n3/power/power.pdf; Philip G. Altbach, Liz Reisberg and Laura E. Rumbley, “Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an Academic Revolution,” UNESCO 2009 World Conference on Higher Education, http://unesdoc. unesco.org/images/0018/001832/183219e.pdf.

4 “Philippine Education for All 2015: Implementation and Challenges”, Education for All National Plan of the Philippines, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization-International Institute for Educational Planning, Manila, 2008, http://planipolis.iiep. unesco.org/basic_search.php. Accessed November 30, 2011.

5 Kishore M. Joshi, “An Exploration of Higher Education in the Philippines and Its Policy Implications for India,” The Asian Scholar, annual e-journal of the Asian Scholarship Foundation, issue no. 3, http://www.asianscholarship.org/asf/ejourn/articles/ Kishore%20Joshi2.pdf. Accessed November 28, 2011.

6 "Information on Higher Education System," Commission on Higher Education, http://202.57.63.198/chedwww/index.php/eng/ Information. Accessed December 12, 2011.

7 Adriano A. Arcelo, “In pursuit of continuing quality in higher education through accreditation: the Philippine experience”, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, 2003, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001336/133645e.pdf.

Accessed November 30, 2011.

8 Ester Albano Garcia, “Rationalization of the Public Higher Education System,” Managing a Modern University in the Philippines, Quezon City: UP Press, 2004, pp. 4-5.

9 “Higher Education Enrollment and Graduates by Sector, Discipline Group, Sex and Academic Year”, Commission on Higher Education Statistics, http://202.57.63.198/chedwww/index.php/eng/ Information/Statistics. Accessed December 12, 2011.

10 "Budget Appropriations," Department of Budget and Management, http://www.dbm.gov.ph/index.php?id=28&pid=8. Accessed

16

FORUM November-December 2011

S

ubsidy for education is motivated by State awareness of the benefits of an educated workforce and of a citizenry informed on governance issues. An educated population is easier to govern, thus, a population that can read and write is important politically.

In 1988, by virtue of Republic Act No. 6655 through which basic education was fully subsidized, the number of students enrolled in basic education in public schools was approximately 11,678,257.

By 2003, or 15 years after, that figure had ballooned to 17,093,533 and in 2008 the number of students enrolled in public schools for basic education was 18,205,828 (Source: Department of Education [DepEd]). This figure is expected to rise, surpassing 20M as the total number of students in 2011-2012 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage. html?res=9807E6D71031F936A1575BC0A96F9 C8B63).

In 2003 the budget for basic education was 106.709 B. After five years this went up to 155.706 B and in 2010, the Department of Budget and

Banners are laid ready on the AS steps of UP Diliman for the march in September 2011.

State Subsidy and Education

By Marilou G. Nicolas

Management (DBM) allocated 170.843 B for basic education (http://www.nscb.gov.ph/secstat/d_educ. asp).

Today, the estimated subsidy per student is P5,915 for basic education and steadily increasing, considering the estimated inflation rate of 3.3-4.5 percent from 2009-2011 and a student population increase of 5-6 percent. In the Philippines subsidy for basic education is full while for tertiary education, subsidy is partial and limited only to the students of state universities and colleges (SUCs).

Data from both DepEd and DBM show a steady rise in student population, thus the need for increasing the subsidy to education. What the figures also show is the steady decrease in the percentage of enrollment from 1988 to 2008 with a 31-percent

increase in student enrollment in the public schools over a 10-year period from 1988 to 1998.

From 1998 to 2003, the increase in public school enrollment for basic education was 11.5 percent and from 2003 to 2008, only 6.5 percent. While the actual number of students enrolling in basic education is increasing relative to previous years, the percentage of new students appeared to decline while population continued to increase from 84.6 million in 2003 to 99.9 million in 2010 (http://www.indexmundi. com/g/g.aspx?c=rp&v=21).

While there is a need to increase subsidy to basic education, there is a greater need to increase budget allocation for social services and address the burgeoning population’s basic needs. We do not know if part of the reason for the decline in

the percentage of enrollment is the fact that poor families no longer feel a need to educate their children, prioritizing instead their basic needs and utilizing their children as labor support for their families.

Nonetheless, public subsidy to basic education, without addressing the population growth rate, can also create a distortion in the sense that the subsidy disproportionately favors families with large numbers of children; every child imposing added cost to the taxpayers.

The problem of basic education is multifactorial. The DepEd has long dilly-dallied on the implementation of the 12-year basic curriculum similar to that of other countries and that should STATE SUBSIDY, p. 15 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

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