PUP Community: Unite for Our Rights! We express our outrage over the barrage of tuition, fare and commodity price increases which have confronted the nation during the past months and impending increases set during the coming weeks. We condemn the practice of the Aquino administration for the past 3 years of constantly commercializing and privatizing basic services which has mounted a continuously increasing burden on the youth and people. President Aquino’s administration has proven to serve only the interests of the few while the marginalized are left reaping the ill effects of its policies. The systematic implementation of • tuition and other fee increases; • relentless increase in electricity, oil and water rates; • widespread unemployment • privatization of schools, hospitals and other basic services • K-12 Program will have grave effects on the already dire situation of the majority of the Filipinos facing poverty and hardships. Currently, 73% of the youth are denied of their right to education due to deepening poverty and rising education costs. Government’s stubborn refusal to regulate school fees have caused unjust tuition and other fee increases annually. This year, 354 Private Colleges and Universities implemented such increases. From the average of P885.15 per unit in A.Y. 2011-2012, the average tuition rate greatly increased to P1,029.09 for A.Y. 2013-2014 in NCR alone. Lack of budgetary allotment has placed shortages in basic and secondary public education at its historic peak. Our public school lack 152,000 classrooms, 95.5 M textbooks and 103,500 teachers. The K-12 only adds as a burden to this, acting as an added financial strain for the purpose of Aquino’s push to extract cheap labour for foreign interests and investments. State universities and colleges are facing the horror of Noynoy Aquino’s Roadmap for Public Higher Education Reform which aims to deplete the total number of SUCs all over the country through rationalization and privatization. RPHER, in essence, is the government’s systematic way to later on give SUCs even scantier subsidy. For 2013, SUCs proposed a budget of over P54 billion, but all they got was a much smaller P37.1 billion. Instead of giving realistic figures of budget to SUCs, it prioritized RPHER to slowly walk out from its responsibility to the Filipino youth. More than 12.5 million Filipinos consider them poor as incessant price hikes further impoverish the nation. At present, more than 70% of the population or 64.6 million Filipinos struggle to survive and meet all their basic needs on P104 or much less per day. While the unemployment rate remains high at 10.5%. Under the Aquino administration, the youth and people experienced many forms of deceit, profiteering and exploitation. Privatization, misallocation of the budget, commercialization among others, have unjustly burden the poor majority, while ultimately favouring profit of big foreign multinationals and corporations. It is unacceptable for government to allow overpricing of big oil cartels at the expense of the public. The rapid increases in electricity and water with anomalous contractual obligations to capitalists and foreign banks are clear injustices. In Polytechnic University of the Philippines, faces of commercialization continue to haunt us such as fees that should not be shouldered by every Iskolar ng Bayan. The towering Student Information System Fee (P225 per semester), Energy Fee (P800 per semester), and the like, are fees that should have been the government’s responsibility but is continuously being passed on the students. This is a clear result of scarce state subsidy for SUCs like PUP. The inadequate budget transpires to every corner of PUP. It reflects in the lack of classrooms, askew facilities, and lack of reference books in what is considered to be the largest library in Southeast Asia (our Ninoy Aquino Learning Center), the absence of quality athletic equipments for our great athletes, and many more. We have been struggling long enough for adequate PUP budget that could have been sufficient to provide high salary and decent benefits for our university employees and faculty. There is no question on the legitimacy of our call for a high state subsidy. But the state is deaf in responding to the calls of PUP community and the Filipino people. We are being pushed to the limit and there is no other option for us but to unite and register our calls for our basic rights in the loudest action possible. In Noynoy Aquino’s upcoming State of the Nation Address or SONA, many expect him to tout the imaginary economic growth of our country. The government has taken many measures to lie about the development brought on by policies that have actually worsened the lives of Filipinos. We must take a stand to end these lies and exploitation. Each year has presented greater problems for the people, another three will do even worse. We call on organizations, institutions, organizations and individuals from schools, communities and workplaces to lead strikes, mass actions, walkouts, operation stoppages and big marches on July 17-19, and a march on July 19. We must link arms with all the oppressed sectors in the People’s SONA on July 22. We can no longer stay silent and let the Filipino people fall into deeper poverty and desperation. We choose to take action now, for the people and the nation.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 06:59:16 +0000
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