Dear Editor,
For 5 years, the Aquino administration has failed to address the fundamental problem of the Philippine educational system: the incessant commercialization of education that deprives access of many youth to education. State universities suffer from meager budget allocations, while billions are funneled by politicians to their pockets through pork barrel. This situation led to the loss of the lives of young individuals, prominently Kristel Tejada of UP Manila and now, Rossana Sanfuego of Cagayan State University. Aquino’s education policy is similar to the all-out war waged against the people of Mindanao: a systematic killing spree, one that has long turned its sights to the many young Filipinos.
Aquino has definitely taken a warring stance, allocating P144 billion for the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Department of National Defense, a huge financial share for institutions who up till now maintain a long record of human rights violations. All the while 110 State Universities and Colleges struggle to share the mere P122.7 budget this year, pushing SUC’s to be self-sufficient and resorting to tuition and other fees increases to fill the financial lack. In doing so it passes the burden of education to the students.
The policy of deregulation of education legitimizes the annual hikes in schooling cost. Around 400 universities and colleges across the country have planned to increase school fees, 35 of which are in Davao region including Ateneo de Davao University, with its annual 5% tuition fee increase. At P1,000 per unit, the University of the Philippines Mindanao ranks second in tuition costs in Davao City despite its status as a state university.
Adding to the heavy load of payments are the imposition of illegal, redundant, and dubious fees. Other payables for the university’s services should be included in the tuition payments. Yet the collection of other fees clearly intends to double the profit of capitalist educators who own schools, a proven fact that Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) persistently denies, neglecting to implement their job of providing affordable and quality education and doing injustice to the youth.
Aquino’s warmonger character is clearly reflected in its deadly policies that allow tuition and other school fees to shoot up every year, killing the youth’s access to education, thus forcing thousands to give up their potential for better lives and for a few, their very own. Two years ago, Kristel Tejada of University of the Philippines Manila committed suicide out of her incapacity to pay for her school fees. Last February 25, Rosanna Sanfuego, a Physical Therapy freshman student of Cagayan State University, encountered the same problem and met similar fate.
The death of Rosanna Sanfuego is not an isolated incident. It is related with the Mamasapano incident and the all-out war in Central Mindanao. The anti-people character of Aquino means that his administration is bent on killing the people he claims to serve, whether by armed force or by deprivation of their chances to live better lives. The experiences of the Moro people are no different from the youth, as the government wages war upon both of them to satisfy the greed of the few and the needs of its imperialist master, their struggle for reforms met with repression and deception.
We hold the Aquino administration accountable for the death of Rosanna Sanfuego and Kristel Tejada. They are the manifestations of the worst effects of the state abandonment on education and its reversal to profit-oriented machinery that turns the best of the youth into automatons while making them pay for this dehumanizing process.
We express sympathy to all the victims of Aquino’s failed leadership and warmongering against the Filipino people. In all forms, we seek justice, in seeking justice we strive for his removal from power.The youth and the people will never attain peace under the Aquino regime. The President continues to wash his hands off his accountability by creating more conflicts against the people, whom he labels as the “enemies of the state”. Peace is not just the absence of war; it is a society where basic rights and interests of the people are addressed – land, decent wage, and social services, education among others. This can only be attained by an informed and educated nation, which the US-Aquino regime will do best to kill.
We call on the youth to seek justice and denounce the Aquino regime’s warmonger attitude and fascism against the people. We demand for freezing of tuition fee hikes in all higher education institutions and for full state subsidy for education instead of allocating budget for war. We call on the youth and the Filipino people to unite against the US-Aquino regime and call for its ouster!
Malaya Genotiva – Anakbayan Southern Mindanao (anakbayan.smr@gmail.com)
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