NORTHERN Samar 1st District Representative Paul Daza urged the Department of Budget and Management and the economic managers to immediately settle the Tertiary Education Subsidy payables to the private colleges to prevent their possible closure.

The lawmaker made the call after the Commission on Higher Education said in recent congressional hearings that TES payables have reached P6 billion.

CHED also said that the Higher Education Development Fund currently has unspent P10.1 billion in funds.

Daza said that he learned that the attrition rate for Academic Years 2017-2021 increased to a staggering 47.61 percent across all Higher Education Institution categories showing a 9.78 percent increase from the 37.83 percent attrition rate for AY 2016-2021.

“Nakakapanghinayang at nakakalungkot. We have the funds to change this. The question now is, does CHED and DBM have the will to do what must be done? They have the power to utilize the HEDF. We have one of the best if not the best law on free education but we’re wasting it due to poor implementation,” Daza said.

He lamented that it took a very strong political will to enact the law and likened its poor implementation to wasting a golden opportunity.

“Do we really have to wait for these schools to close down before deciding to pay them?” the lawmaker asked.

Daza cited the report of the World Economic Forum that students risk losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value, or about 14 percent of today’s global gross domestic product or GDP, because of Covid19-related school closures and economic shocks.

“This gives us all the more reason to prioritize education. The perennial habit or culture of taking education off the list of priorities has to be stopped. We need reforms and we can begin in CHED,” Daza stressed.