No reimbursement for non-compliant SUCs, LUCs --- CHED
State and local universities and colleges that fail to comply with requirements of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) cannot receive their reimbursement of tuition and miscellaneous fees under the free higher education program.
CHED Chairman J. Prospero De Vera III said more than 40 SUCs and LUCs did not receive their reimbursement of fees for the second semester of Academic Year 2019-2020 even after the end of the school year in July this year due to late submission of documents or noncompliance with billing requirements.
"The Commission has already identified the noncompliant SUCs because our records show that only those with compliance issues have not been paid with whatever funds that have been downloaded by DBM (Department of Budget and Management) to the Commission," explained De Vera, who is also the chairman of the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) board.
The higher education chief made the statement in response to the questions raised by several members of the House of Representatives during the recent budget deliberation on the proposed 2021 budget of the Commission at the House of Representatives.
Legislators led by Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT-Teachers) Representative France Castro claimed that some SUCs waited for six to eight months before they got the funding for the Free Higher Education (FHE) program, which led to layoffs of some school personnel.
"I have also received reports that some SUCs have been telling their faculty that CHED is not processing the papers. Some SUC presidents have also raised the issue publicly whereupon investigation, their SUCs have not complied with requirements,” De Vera added.
According to him, the CHED-UniFAST has fully paid the claims of 112 SUCs and 103 LUCs for the first semester of the previous academic year and has paid 80 percent of the total 215 public HEIs for the second semester this year including 88 SUCs and 84 LUCs.
12 public HEIs still non-compliant
Of the 40 schools that did not receive their reimbursement, De Vera said that 12 public HEIs still have non-compliance issues until now and cannot be reimbursed even if funds are downloaded by the DBM.
These SUCs and LUCs include Mindanao State University, Nueva Vizcaya State
University, University of Southern Mindanao, San Pascual Polytechnic College, Taguig City University, Maasin City College, and Makilala Institute of Science and Technology. According to the CHED, these institutions have compliance issues varying from "no submission of tuition and other school fees breakdown, awaiting for hard copy submission, no submission of master list of applicants and certification of masterlist for 1st/2nd semesters, and for resubmission of FHE Form-1."
Public HEIs whose reimbursement requess are still being processed by the UniFAST Billing Unit due to late submissions of compliance documents are Sulu State College, Eulogio "Amang" Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology, Technological University of the Philippines, Gov. Alfonso D. Tan College, and San Jose Community College.
"CHED has the responsibility to protect the utilization of public funds. If some public universities do not comply with government requirements, or worse, claim reimbursement of fees not allowed under RA10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, then CHED will not download the funds to them," De Vera emphasized.
Meanwhile, he said that the billings of the remaining 18 SUCs and 13 LUCs were already processed and ready for payment upon the issuance of the Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA) from DBM.
Once DBM releases the NCA of P7 billion, all claims of compliant public HEIs will be immediately paid except for those non-compliant that will not get reimbursed until they submit all requirements and comply with the government’s auditing and accounting rules.
"It is unfair to criticize the hardworking men and women of CHED and UniFAST who are doing their best to disburse the money using a skeletal workforce during the pandemic, especially if these claims are being made by SUC/LUC administrators who are remiss in their duty to comply with government rules," De Vera added.