THE COMMISSION on Higher Education and the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education promised to prioritize the poorest students receiving the Tertiary Education Subsidy for the School Year 2024-2025.

In a motu propio hearing on the implementation of RA 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education, CHEd acknowledged that the move was in response to the Second Congressional Commission’s recommendation to prioritize the “poorest of the poor,” published in its Year One Report.

“Between 2018 and 2022, the share of the poorest of the poor, Listahanan 2.0 and Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps beneficiaries in the subsidy declined drastically, from 74% to 31%,” the report read.

“Dumadami po ng dumadami ang proportion ng grantees that were under private HEIs in cities/municipalities with no existing State and Local Universities and Colleges…ito ‘yung mga hindi necessarily poorest of the poor pero dahil nasa isang HEI na no SUC or LUC, automatically deemed as TES beneficiaries. Meanwhile we are inquiring with UNIFAST how many qualified 4Ps and Listahanan students were turned away because of this interpretation of the law,” EDCOM 2 Executive Director Dr.Karol Mark Yee said.

Yee was referring to the PNSL category – students residing and studying in private HEIs in locales with no existing state and local universities and colleges.

The EDCOM 2 Year One report also found that the proportion of students under this category had grown from 26% in 2018 to 69% in 2022.

“My position always has been – that the PNSL comes after the poor have been exhausted. We couldn’t find consensus…Now moving forward, if it is the sense of Congress and EDCOM to instruct the UNIFAST board to correct or revise the Implementing Rules and Regulations consistent with the interpretation, the prioritization should be the poor first vs everyone else. I would be very happy to bring it up to the UNIFAST board to amend the IRR”, CHEd Chairman Dr. Prospero de Vera III said.

Dr. Yee pointed out that in line with EDCOM 2 recommendations, there is a special provision in the General Appropriations Act for 2024 that reemphasized the prioritization of students from Listahanan 2.0 and 4Ps.

“We would like to thank Chair Popoy and UniFAST for the swift action following the conversations last year on the findings of EDCOM when it comes to the TES beneficiaries”, he said.