Negros Sangguniang Panlalawigan hails House move on tuition fees

Members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan could not have heard a better news than the announcement by Speaker Prospero Nograles that the lower chamber is poised to support the bill seeking a three-year freeze on tuition fee hikes.

Vice Gov. Emiliano Yulo steered SP measure that calls for a voluntary desistance by private schools in the province from hiking tuition fees this school year.

While that was an appeal for temporary freeze, the impending move in the chamber to support the drill by Rep. Teddy Casiño (Bayan Muna) for the three-year freeze on tuition fee hikes immediately brought a chorus of endorsement from the SP members.

Negros Occidental Gov. Isidro Zayco hailed Nograles’ promised support for the Casiño bill as realistic and responsive to the clamor by parents of college students that the economic crisis is not the proper time to further aggravate their financial difficulties.

The Yulo measure appealed to private colleges and universities against burdening further the students and their parents with added problems such as looking for funds to raise their tuition.

He also pointed out that when students can no longer enroll in private schools, they will strain the resources of government educational institutions.

That’s the inescapable reality of life in the provinces as well as in the cities when private schools raise their tuition fees to levels no longer affordable by poorer families.

Questions about the new Bacolod Revenue Code

More than a week ago, Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia asked the Sangguniang Panlunsod to suspend the implementation of the new Revenue Code. And, according to Vice Mayor Jude Thadeus Sayson, the SP acted on it. But he used a term other than suspended implementation.

“Actually, it’s more like a hold not just a suspension which means that it could be revived anytime,” was how Sayson stressed during an interview.

What caught my attention was the fact that apparently, the SP measure may not have even been transmitted to the City Treasurer’s Office since Leonardia kept explaining over the weekend that “all excess payments by the taxpayers will be credited to them in advance.”

Which simply confirms that some tax payers, not only businessmen but also realty owners must have gotten their notices from the Treasurer’s Office and must have already made a beeline to pay their new levels under the new Revenue Code.

But that is beside the point. What caught my attention was the explanation by Sayson that the SP members started studying the old tax structure in October last year when the government kept downgrading the impact of the global financial meltdown.

“But it took effect at a time when the financial crisis reached the proportions of an economic crisis,” accented Sayson.

Thus, we have to accept our mistake and retreat from it, was how he explained the SP mea culpa.

In short, the Revenue Code is temporarily stopped from being enforced. Until the situation eases somewhat, was how Sayson put it.

But MBCCT member George Sanchez pointed out that the organization, which represents the bulk of the city’s business community, had not wanted to put a crimp on the city government. “We only wanted the city dads to listen to the thinking of the businessmen and their point that they were in no position to cope with the increases,” pointed out Sanchez. He did admit, however, that anyone could just ask the court to issue a temporary restraining order against the city.

But Sayson lauded Sanchez for his enlightening and stateman like representation of the gripes of the business community. Likewise Sanchez congratulated the SP for “listening and acting favorably on the perception of the businessmen.”

But the question boils down – that exactly did the Leonardia administration do insofar as the SP measure was concerned?

That awaits the mayor’s return. He was reportedly in Manila and later, General Santos City.