P271.6B 2011 education budget biggest in Phl history - P-Noy

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines — President Aquino said here that the P271.67 billion education appropriation in the 2011 budget, already passed in the Senate, surpasses the education allocations of any of his predecessors.

“We have committed more resources to primary and secondary education to ensure that the children of the 4.6 million (poorest of the poor) families have schools to go and then be provided with skills for sustainable livelihood,” Aquino said in his speech after leading groundbreaking rites for a P200-million Medical City here last Monday.

“This is the reason why we have increased the education budget in 2011 by 16 percent or to P271.67 billion,” he added. Last Dec. 2, the Senate passed the proposed budget of P1.6 trillion for 2010.

He stressed that “no other administration has spent this much on education.”

This, even as the President also said that the 2010 budget as already passed in the Senate, also provides an 11 percent increase in the budget for state universities and colleges (SUCs), contrary to claims that funds for government tertiary schools have been slashed lower.

“Despite the claims of some elements that we have cut the budget for state universities and colleges, we have actually increased the total appropriations that they will receive by more than 11 percent,” the President said. Budget already approved by the Senate “can confirm this,” he added.

SUCs held recently a series of protest rallies directed at the President and Congress over alleged big cuts in state funding for the tertiary education institutions. At least 87 SUCs held various forms of protests. Even the conservative Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC) joined the protest actions.

The protesters had quoted the President himself announcing 1.7 percent slash of budget for 112 SUCs nationwide. The President was quoted as having said: “We are gradually reducing the subsidy to SUCs to push them toward becoming self-sufficient and financially independent, given their ability to raise their income and to utilize it for their programs and projects.”

In an interview with the STAR, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said “we are concerned about SUC’s but there’s just too many of them.”

“Just because they are not getting enough does not mean the government has already abandoned them. We are in a discussion with the Commission on Higher Education as we look at rationalizing SUCs so we can truly have worthy centers of tertiary excellence,” said Abad.