Press Release
June 8, 2010
Gain Victories through Protest and Dialogue with CHED
Militant students from several universities and colleges in Iloilo today greeted the opening of classes with an indignation protest in front of the Commission on higher Education (CHED) Region 6 Office.
“The students are indignant about the worsening education situation in the country. The people’s right to quality yet accessible education suffered the worst attacks under the Arroyo regime,” said KABATAAN Partytlist Panay Regional Coordinator Lean Redino Porquia.
More than 50 students massed up in Jaro Plaza by 4PM and from there marched to the CHED Region 6 Office with their streamers, placards, and a huge school card bearing outgoing president Arroyo’s failing grade for her educational policies and programs.
Student leaders dialogued with new CHED Region 6 Director Virginia Resurreccion as the protesters continued the picket and held a die-in on the CHED Region 6 Office parking lot.
“Arroyo’s policies directly encouraged less education spending, budget cuts and austerity measures in state universities, and tuition and other feesincreases in both public and private schools. This ye ar alone, 399 tertiary colleges and universities nationwide are raising their tuition. 24 higher educational institutions are having tuition increases in Region 6,” Porquia
added.
Concrete Victories through Collective Action
The indignation rally and dialogue with Director Resurreccion yielded concrete victories for the student sector in the province of Iloilo and the whole of Region 6 with CHED agreeing to the following student demands:
- CHED committed to issue a memorandum making the payment of Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) fees non-mandatory for students.
- CHED committed to create a monitoring body that will investigate the implementation of the tuition hikes in the 24 tertiary educational institutions in Region 6 that raised tuition in the present school year.
- CHED committed to include progressive student groups in this monitoring body.
“Through our protest we proved once more the potency of collective action,” said Leo Carlo Andrew Balidiong, West Visayas State University (WVSU) - University Student Council (USC) Vice Chairperson and National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) Iloilo member.
“We were able to expose that the government agency supposedly tasked with protecting the students’ right to education as nothing more than a rubberstamp that only takes note of fee increases by universities,” added Balidiong.
“CHED should exercise its regulating powers. CHED should not leave it to school owners to indiscriminately hike tuition and other fees. Repressive policies like the CHED Memo 13 that allows unregulated tuition increases should be junked. Education is a right and not a privilege for the financially capable few.”
KABATAAN Partylist Panay and the Iloilo chapters of the Anakbayan, the League of Filipino Students (LFS), the National Union of Students (NUSP), and the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) led today’s protest.
