EDITORIAL — Investing in Filipinos’ intelligence

Amid the continuing controversy over confidential and intelligence funds, state universities and colleges are suggesting the realignment of a portion of the CIF to the improvement of higher education. With free universal education now expanded to higher education institutions, SUCs in fact need an increase in their funding

Students, faculty and staff of four SUCs issued the call in a joint statement last Thursday. They lamented that the P100.882-billion funding approved for higher education in 2024 is P6.155 billion or 5.75 percent lower than this year’s allocation. The biggest cut was in the capital outlay, which covers long-term institutional investments and development of facilities.

The four SUCs are the University of the Philippines, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Philippine Normal University and Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology or EARIST. The UP-Philippine General Hospital, where there are always long waiting lines at the emergency and consultation rooms, will also see a P2.1-billion reduction in its budget, from this year’s P7.57 billion to P5.496 billion in 2024.

Representatives of the four SUCs pointed out that their institutions cannot even attract more educators because of a serious lack of permanent teaching positions. This lack of job security aggravates the modest pay that continues to drive Philippine educators to seek greener pastures overseas.

EARIST, for example, has only 255 regular faculty members for its 21,000 student population. The current faculty-student ratio is one to 82, but some classes have over 100 students. This has forced some professors to divide such large classes into two and meet each group only every other week. Obviously, this has an adverse impact on learning.

The House of Representatives had initially approved P4.864 billion in confidential funds and P5.277 billion in intelligence funds. It later rejected the proposal of Vice President Sara Duterte for P500 million in confidential funds for her office along with another P150 million CF for the Department of Education, which she concurrently heads. Even local government units have massive amounts of secret funds. Sara Duterte had P460 million in confidential funds in 2021 when she was mayor of Davao City.

With international tests showing Filipino 10-year-old students faring badly in reading comprehension, mathematics and science, CIF critics have pointed out that basic education needs a hefty increase not in secret funds but in regular funding. The controversy over secret funds amid the deterioration in the quality of Philippine education has led to reminders about the need not for confidential and intelligence funds, but for greater investment in Filipinos’ intelligence.