Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday, Aug. 19 called out the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for supposedly dismissing the controversy surrounding its Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) program, which she said is gaslighting the students in their bid to receive what is due to them.
Hontiveros said there was no truth to CHED's claim that the cash assistance of the program's beneficiaries was already distributed.
This "is far from resolved," Hontiveros said, citing the more than 300 complaints her office received both from students and institutions.
According to the senator, there are students who have not received even a cent of their assistance, leaving them struggling for enrollment.
"The fact remains that CHED-UniFAST released billions of pesos entrusted to them, unmonitored, without checking or seeing the process through. Hindi pwedeng maghugas ng kamay ang CHED-UniFAST at ibaling sa mga paaralan ang sisi (CHED-UniFAST cannot just wash their hands of this issue and pin the blame on schools)," she said.
Hontiveros, who recently filed proposed Senate Resolution (SR) 128 to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation into the implementation of Uni-FAST programs, said she was glad her resolution has already been referred to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.
"We need to hear how and why for over four years they allowed their agency to proceed in this manner, so that we can come up with constructive solutions moving forward," she said.
"Hindi ito pwedeng balewalain lang dahil maraming estudyanteng indigent ang nahihirapan dahil dito (We cannot just neglect this because there many indigent students who struggle because of this). These are undeniably serious, even unjust delays," she added.