I Detest the 1.39 Billion Budget Cut

I wanted to go with the people on strike earlier but none of my classes were canceled. Okay I know it’s not a valid reason but it was hard to choose between to things which are both right. I am in UP to study, first and foremost. My parents and the Filipino people are working hard to pay for my education it is thus my duty to them to attend classes and learn so that someday I may offer good service to my country. I hope this justifies why I didn’t stand up for what I believed in. To somehow make up for my lack of contribution to the university-wide protest against the budget cut I wrote. Yes, I still believe in the power of words - I once dreamed to change the world with words:

Last year the UP system requested for a budget of about 13 billion; only 8 billion was granted. The several-billion-gap between the needed and the allocated funds for the past few years has forced the univesity to increase the tuition and other fees by 300%. The same has led UP to take a few, hesitant steps towards commercialization; A land area of UP along the Commonwealth avenue was leased to the Ayala Land Inc. for 25 years for P6 billion. If this was what led President Aquino to assume that UP could stand on its own he has to look more closely. If UP were to indeed stand on its own it would have to use the students as life source. There has been word going around that tuition fee might go up to P100,000.00 per sem for bracket A students, this is even higher than the tuition fee in Ateneo. I only pay 14 to 16 thousand per sem and yet my parents already have a hard time paying this amount; this sem I had to apply for a late payment permit - not everybody’s as rich as most politicians in our government. Less and less UPCAT passers go on to study in UP, less people are taking the UPCAT and if this goes on UP might lose its claim on Matatapang and Matatalino as the deserving poor give up their slots for the less deserving rich people who tend to not care so much about tuition fee increases as they could easily afford to pay. When I was a freshman I heard a phone conversation of the college student affairs secretary as I was submitting my HS certification. A co-freshman from the College of Science dropped out because they couldn’t afford the tuition fee. The state, by allocating meager funds for public university is depriving many great minds of the right and privilege to good education and by doing so it is also depriving itself of a potential skilled and highly intellectual work force.

President Roman amidst criticism from students tried to justify the tuition and other fees increase by saying that despite the 300% tuition fee increase what the students pay for do not amount to the services they receive and the quality of education they enjoy. It is true. Our teachers are foremost in their fields, my professors in Biology are world-renowned botanists, graduates from top universities. They could apply to any high-paying private school and they’d easily be accepted. Miss Kathleen Aquino who was my Kasaysayan1 professor told us she could buy a car by saving her 3-month salary from La Salle, yet she came back to teach in UP because she was challenged by the intellectual prowess of the students, because she said, here she marveled at and learned a lot from the ideas of students, because she believed in our greatness and she wanted to be among those who shaped that greatness. And if in UP, money started to matter too much too, if the government stopped being generous and the students had to pay an amount equivalent to what they received, then how many great minds would come to waste? Where would the poor but bright youth come to learn?

All great countries have good state universities - Japan, USA, Singapore - the government provides for the educational needs of its people. Shouldn’t the Philippines learn from that? If the government has decided to stop placing their hopes on us then where? Look at us. We are your surest bet