THE SENATE has approved a measure requiring State Universities and Colleges to provide a master development plan and seeking to amend Republic Act No. 11396 or the SUC Land Use Development and Infrastructure Plan or LUDIP Act.

Senate Bill No 1470 was sponsored by Sen. Francis Escudero and authored by Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda, Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, and Senators Pia Cayetano, Alan Peter Cayetano, Ramon Bong Revilla Jr., Escudero, Sonny Angara, Manuel Lapid, and Cynthia Villar.

The LUDIP Act requires all SUCs to prepare and implement a Land Use Development and Infrastructure Plan that shall include the construction of dormitories for students and housing sites for employees.

Under the bill, SUCs shall be required to prepare and implement a LUDIP designed to improve and optimize their resources. All land use and priority infrastructure projects to be implemented by the SUCs within five years shall be included in their LUDIP.

The LUDIP shall be linked with the land use plans of the local government units where they are located to ensure the SUC’s LUDIP is in line with the land use development plan of the LGU.

Moreover, the SUCs are required to submit their LUDIP to the Commission on Higher Education within two years after the bill is enacted into law.

The LUDIP shall be reviewed and updated every five years by the governing boards of the SUCs to ensure that it remains relevant and updated with the current conditions and realities.

“The preparation and implementation of the LUDIP shall be made a requirement for the approval of infrastructure projects in SUCs. No new infrastructure project shall be approved and implemented in any SUC unless the LUDIP has been implemented and submitted to the CHED,” according to the bill.

The SUCs’ implementation of the Land use and infrastructure projects shall be monitored by an inter-agency committee to be composed of the chairperson of CHED and the secretaries of the Departments of Budget and Management, Public Works and Highways and Socioeconomic Planning, or their respective representatives.

In turn, the CHED shall include the LUDIP of each SUC in a five-year comprehensive LUDIP for all compliant SUCs and submit the comprehensive plan to Congress and other concerned government agencies to guide the allocation of funds for the land use and infrastructure projects of the SUCs on an annual basis.

Once the bill is enacted into law, the government would appropriate P25 billion for the next five years for the implementation of the land use and infrastructure projects included in the comprehensive LUDIP.

“This blueprint can be an SUC’s syllabus for progress. By identifying key result areas, priorities are set, resources are channeled to where they can be most impactful, and progress is measured,” Escudero said.