Senator Pia Cayetano on Thursday, Oct. 21 slammed the reductions in the over-all budget of state universities and colleges (SUCs) and on the capital outlay of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) under their proposed 2022 national budget.

At the Senate finance subcommittee’s hearing on the budget of the SUCs, CHED and the University of the Philippines (UP), Cayetano said that while CHED’s budget increased from P50.51-billion to P51.54-billion with its budget for personal services (PS) and maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) marked with increases, its budget for capital outlay (CO) decreased.

She also pointed out the overall budget of SUCs decreased to P71.199-billion as opposed to the 2021 bduget of P85.956-billion. She said this amounts to a P14.7-billion decrease in the overall budget of the 114 SUCs.

Cayetano also questioned why four SUCs in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) are not funded under the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

She also noted that 40 SUCs, including the four in the BARMM, have zero capital outlay, including two medical SUCs—the University of Northern Philippines and University of Southern Philippines.

Upon reviewing their budgets, Cayetano also noted that 75 SUCs have significant decreases in capital outlay, including some medical SUCs, like UP Manila and UP School of Health Sciences, Mariano Marcos State University, Cagayan State University, Cebu Normal University, Bicol University, West Visayas State University, and Western Mindanao State University.

She said Congress specifically augmented the budget of these institutions “because of the dire need for doctors and pursuant to the Doktor Para sa Bayan law.”

For the University of the Philippines, Cayetano noted there is a decrease of P1.326-billion, which includes a reduction of P737-million for MOOE and a decrease of P 1.372-million for capital outlay.

In particular, UP-PGH’s budget decreased from P6.872-billion in 2021 to P5.666-billion. She also said the MOOE for UP-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) decreased by P130-million from P3.156-billion to P3.026-billion.

“Alarming is the fact that there is no provision for capital outlay or equipment outlay for PGH in the NEP. In 2021, P1.204B was granted, for the record,” Cayetano pointed out during the hearing.

“...We are dismayed, we are distraught that at a time like this, we are not supporting our higher education systems,” she added.

“We had hoped that this would be a good time to invest in higher education so that when COVID is over, we hope that there will be a new normal that we can go back to... the schools are ready. So these kinds of numbers are very disappointing,” she further said.

On top of this, Cayetano said CHED officials, and heads of other institutions are making it hard for the committee to understand their budget due to the lack of data they provide to senators.

“Ang hirap. Hindi ho kami magikero (It’s difficult. We are not magicians). We don’t have the ability to fill in the blanks,” Cayetano told the panel’s guests.

The senator, thus, appealed to CHED and SUCs to cooperate with senators and submit to the committee the necessary data needed to review their budgets.