SENATOR Imee Marcos filed a bill that seeks to convert the University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College into an autonomous constituent university of the UP System.

In filing Senate Bill 1748, Marcos said that the UPVTC is a regional unit of the UP Visayas, making it one of the constituent universities of the UP System.

“The grant of autonomy, and the conversion of UPTVC into a constituent university within the UP system to be known as UP Tacloban, will strengthen the school’s capability to create and apply new knowledge through teaching, research, extension and to develop minds that will not only invent new products and technologies but innovate and improve existing ones,” she said in her explanatory note.

UPVTC was established to address the urgent need for quality education in Eastern Visayas, with particular emphasis on science, humanities, and agriculture.

Through the years, Marcos said, the UPVTC community in Tacloban has contributed significantly to the social and economic development of the region but its institutional growth has been limited owing to a relationship of dependency with its mother unit, UP Visayas.

Marcos said that the college faces significant challenges because of budgetary problems.