{"id":109350,"date":"2017-08-02T00:27:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T04:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=109350"},"modified":"2017-08-02T00:39:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-02T04:39:01","slug":"senators-will-back-move-to-adjust-budget-for-free-tuition-in-sucs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/08\/02\/senators-will-back-move-to-adjust-budget-for-free-tuition-in-sucs\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators will back move to adjust budget for free tuition in SUCs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A senator on Wednesday said that he was confident that a majority of senators would support the move to adjust the 2018 national budget to increase the allocation for free tuition in state universities and colleges (SUCs). (PNA photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Aug 2 — A senator on Wednesday said that he was confident that a majority of senators would support the move to adjust the 2018 national budget to increase the allocation for free tuition in state universities and colleges (SUCs).<\/p>\n

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian made this remark noting that that there was \u201clack of funding\u201d for the free tuition program in the proposed budget submitted by Malacanang.<\/p>\n

“\u2026A college education is one of the strongest weapons a person can wield in the fight against the inter-generational evil of poverty,\u201d Gatchalian said in a press statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge the Duterte administration to take this maxim to heart by devoting more resources to expanding access to educational opportunities at the tertiary level,” he added.<\/p>\n

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) previously said that it has allocated a budget of PHP8.3 billion for free tuition in SUCs.<\/p>\n

However, Gatchalian said that the allocation needed to fund the continuation of the free tuition in SUCs is PHP15 billion.<\/p>\n

The neophyte senator said that expanding access to higher education among poor and working-class households should be one of the central pillars of the Duterte administration\u2019s socio-economic agenda.<\/p>\n

Senator Joseph Victor Ejercito, for his part, expressed hope that the administration\u2019s economic managers would reconsider their opposition on full government subsidy of tuition fee in SUCs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge our economic managers to reconsider their position by pushing for free SUC education so we can have a college graduate in every Filipino family,\u201d Ejercito said.<\/p>\n

Ejercito stressed that the government should treat budget for free education as an \u201cinvestment for the future rather than an expense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government can spend PHP70 billion a year for Conditional Cash Transfer, which is a dole out, why can’t we spend PHP28 billion for higher education? I would rather invest for higher education since this is the best way out of poverty and not through dole outs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Both Senate and the House of Representatives have ratified the final version of the measure seeking free tuition in SUCs which now awaits President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Aug 2 — A senator on Wednesday said that he was confident that a majority of senators would support …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":109351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-n-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}