Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said that 159,000 new students will benefit from the increase in Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) beneficiaries from Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) households, which will receive financial assistance for education-related expenses.

Based on an analysis by the senator’s office of data from the Commission on Higher Education and the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST), only 21 percent of TES beneficiaries for the school year (SY) 2022-2023 were from low-income households, or those from both 4Ps and Listahanan.

The Listahanan is an information management system that identifies the country’s poor and their locations.

Seventy-nine percent of TES beneficiaries in the same school year were from places with no state and local universities and colleges (SUCs and LUCs). 

When TES started in 2018, 71 percent  of beneficiaries were from these low-income households.

Gatchalian flagged the decrease of TES beneficiaries from poor households in last year’s budget deliberations, saying that the trend is not consistent with the intention of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (Republic Act No. 10931) to prioritize the poorest students.

To reverse this trend, Gatchalian introduced a special provision in the Commission on Education (CHEd) 2024 budget, which mandated the UniFAST to prioritize students under Listahan 2.0 and those from low-income households when selecting TES beneficiaries. Gatchalian's special provision directed TES grants totaling Php 3.1 billion towards college students from the poorest households in the country.

Data from the CHEd and UniFAST now shows that there are 159,832 new grantees from 4Ps households. The share of beneficiaries from 4Ps households saw an increase of 27 percent in SY 2023-2024 from less than 1 percent in SY 2022-2023. For SY 2023-2024, the combined number of TES beneficiaries from 4Ps and Listahanan is 210,202.

“Nais nating siguruhin na mapupunta sa mga pinakamahirap nating constituents ang subsidiya at sila muna ang mabibigyan ng prayoridad. (We want to ensure that subsidies will go to our most disadvantaged constituents and that they will be given priority.) This is an intervention that we brought to life during last year’s budget deliberation. I thank the Commission and also the UNIFAST board for responding to our request,” Gatchalian said during the briefing on the proposed 2025 budget of CHEd and SUCs.

CHEd Chairperson Prospero De Vera III confirmed that the UniFAST board changed the policy on selecting TES beneficiaries because of Congress’ intervention.