CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- Students from one of the colleges here have expressed their gratitude to the officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) region 10 for including non-full scholar students to the list of eligible beneficiaries of the educational assistance.

“Finally, the DSWD includes us to avail educational assistance. I was so alive when I saw the news today,” said Jomar Caparoso, a third-year Business Administration student at one of the colleges in Barangay Carmen here.

Caparoso was one of students who had expressed their disappointment a few days back after the DSWD region 10 previously included students who are grantees in any type of scholarships, both from the government and private schools, to the list of non-eligible beneficiaries to the assistance.

He thanked the DSWD for hearing out their concerns and expressed hope that they would receive the confirmation text from the agency.

“However, it would be very sad if we did not receive the text confirmation. But at least now we already have a chance to get educational assistance,” Caparoso added.

Cherrymae Abalde, a first-year Criminology student who also has 50 percent scholarship, thanked the agency and the people who helped them to raise their concerns.

“I am so happy that finally the government heard our call and I am very grateful to the people who helped us students to raise our concerns,” Abalde said.

The DSWD region 10 had raised the issue to their central office due to the numerous concerns from college students in this city who failed to get the financial aid in the past distributions.

Raising the said concern was also the agency’s way to express their willingness to help every student in the Northern Mindanao region.

The first advisory from DSWD-10 was posted in their Facebook page on Wednesday, Sept. 7, informing the public that they can now accommodate those students who were unable to get the assistance due to concerns with regard to the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST).

UniFAST is an attached agency under the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) mandated to implement Republic Act No. 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.

It was learned that apart from non-full scholars, there were also several students from a state university who failed to receive educational assistance because of CHED-UniFAST tagging in their certificate of registration, according to Nica Abalos, a third-year Civil Engineering student from a state university here.

The DSWD-10 posted another advisory Thursday, Sept. 8, informing the public that they can also cater now those students who have non-full scholarships from a particular private school here.

In the advisory, the students who are receiving allowances on top of the free tuition are still not included to the eligible beneficiaries.

DSWD-10 Information Officer Roshiel Galia said the top officials in the regional office of DSWD Northern Mindanao wanted to help students, prompting them to make an effort to address the concern.

Galia urged students to secure the confirmation text from DSWD-10 before proceeding to the payout venue to maintain the orderly distribution.