Students slam CHED for support to TRAIN law

MANILA, Philippines — A militant student group yesterday slammed the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for its support to the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law.

The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) said TRAIN has been a burden to million of Filipino families affected by the increase in prices of basic commodities in the country.

“By supporting Duterte’s TRAIN Law, CHED only wants to make the overall cost of education more expensive,” the group said in a statement.

“It aims to drive more students out of schools and create more dropouts. These unfortunate youth are bound to offer cheap, semi-skilled and docile labor and compete with millions of unemployed Filipinos for low-paying jobs as contractual workers,” it added.

Earlier this week, CHED officer-in-charge J. Prospero de Vera expressed support to TRAIN law, saying it enables the government to fund the free higher education policy to be implemented starting this year.

De Vera said the initiative directly puts P16 billion in the pockets of the families of some 1.3 million students who will receive free tuition, miscellaneous and other school-related fees.

“Filipino families whose children are benefiting from free higher education can now spend their money for other household needs,” he said.