NORTHERN Samar Rep. Paul Daza has accused the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) of misusing its scholarship budget for tertiary students, disclosing that a significant number of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) beneficiaries who are also entitled to Tertiary Education Subsidies (TES) are not being given their benefits.
Daza’s revelation prompted Baguio City Rep. Mark Go, chair of the House committee on higher and technical education, to call for another hearing to discuss the matter.
The issue was discussed the other day as part of Daza’s House Resolution No. 767 which calls for the government to improve access to tertiary education and reduce attrition rates among deserving and financially challenged students by increasing budget allocation for scholarships.
Had CHED did its job, worked with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and continued the 2012 grant-in-aid scholarship, Daza said a few hundred thousand more students would have received the assistance.
The lawmaker said CHED used part of the budget, which was worth P10 billion as of 2021, for other “pet projects,” prompting him to suspect that the money is being misused.
According to statistics presented by the DSWD, out of over one million beneficiaries endorsed by the department in 2019, only 7,400 4Ps beneficiaries were granted TES by CHED.
DSWD believes that this was due to discrepancies in categorization between those under Listahanan 2.0, another poverty alleviation program, and those under 4Ps.
“The CHED is not doing their job,” Daza complained.
The congressman acknowledged that even the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (RA 10931) recognizes that those under TES, especially those who are under the 4Ps program, need more than just free tuition; they also need support for living allowance.
Presenting data on how the CHED supposedly has underutilized its budget over the past few years, he said that disbursement rates for the HEDF have fallen below 50 percent from 2015 to 2019.
For 2023, the DSWD said that over 700,000 graduating students nationwide will need TES.
Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) Executive Director Ryan Estevez also revealed that the agency has a TES budget of P17.9 billion for 2023, but it can only accommodate almost 300,000 beneficiaries.
