1st year city scholars in ACT to pay tuition

CEBU, Philippines - First year students who are scholars of the Cebu City Government and are enrolled in the delisted Asian College of Technology (ACT) will have to pay for their own tuition according to Scholarship Commission chairperson Dr. Ester Concha.

She explained that scholars from the previous batches may continue to enroll in ACT since only the 2013 batch is affected by the removal.

“Until ma-resolve ang ilang kaso, wala gyud sila maapil sa list of schools covered by the scholarship program. But existing scholars can continue kay wala man silay labot,” Concha said.

The city’s scholarship committee earlier did not accredit the ACT for schoolyear 2013-2014 due to a number of issues and controversies including the taxes paid to the City Government, which did not correspond to the payments made by the City Government for the scholarship program.

ACT is owned by former councilor and now Cebu City South congressman Rodrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa. He ran under the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan of former congressman Tomas Osmeña against Team Rama’s Aristotle Batuhan.

Batuhan filed cases against Abellanosa in relation to the involvement of his school in the city’s scholarship program.

The number of scholars enrolled in ACT has been questioned but Abellanosa explained that this is because he also gives a counterpart of P10,000 aside from the P10,000 grant given by the City Government.

Excluding ACT, the city government scholarship program has 20 partner colleges and universities.

Concha added that the city has yet to decide on the application of the University of San Carlos and University of San Jose Recoletos to be partner schools.

The program’s first batch will graduate at the end of this school year.

Cebu City mayor Michael Rama said the case of ACT would have to be settled in a discussion with the members of the commission.  (FREEMAN)