A decade after the passage of Republic Act No. 10687—which established the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST)—most of its key responsibilities remain unfulfilled.

This was revealed during a recent review of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) charter conducted by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2).

RA 10687, passed in 2015, aimed to streamline and harmonize all government student financial assistance programs (StuFAPs) across agencies. It sought to address inefficiencies in aid delivery by creating a unified, coherent system under UniFAST.

However, according to EDCOM 2, critical mandates such as the National Student Loan Program, impact evaluations of StuFAPs, and harmonized scholarship guidelines have yet to be implemented.

“UniFAST was the government’s answer to what was observed to be a ‘fragmented and meager’, ‘untargeted’, and ‘unharmonious’ [system],” said EDCOM 2 Executive Director Dr. Karol Mark Yee.

“The main goal of UniFAST was to harmonize all existing student financial assistance programs of the government across different agencies to ensure improved efficiency and effectiveness,” Yee said. “However, ten years later, many of the law’s intentions remain unfulfilled,” he added.

UniFAST currently administers the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education (UAQTE) program—which includes the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) and the Tulong Dunong Program—but has yet to fulfill several key mandates under RA 10687.

These include a qualifying examination system for merit- and talent-based scholarships, regular impact evaluations to guide policy decisions on StuFAPs, a long-term, self-sustaining National Student Loan Program, and a centralized database and website listing all accredited higher education institutions.

EDCOM 2 noted that these core provisions of the UniFAST law “have been largely unimplemented.”

Meanwhile, former CHED Chairperson Dr. Patricia Licuanan noted that while UniFAST had a strong conceptual foundation, its focus shifted entirely to implementing free tuition under RA 10931 (Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act), sidelining other equally critical objectives.

“When we launched UniFAST, that was very groundbreaking, and it was used almost like a career development tool for students,” Licuanan said.

“But then free universal tuition came out, and everyone got focused on that… so the UniFAST board and Secretariat were not able to do the other stuff, which is also very important,” she added.

University of Makati President and EDCOM 2 Standing Committee Member on Higher Education Elyxzur Ramos observed that UniFAST funding has encouraged local universities to open programs that are easiest to get approved—often duplicating offerings of state universities and private colleges. He warned that this disincentivizes innovation and burdens national resources.

“I’ve always said that if you are a local politician, it makes sense to put up a school. You look good to your constituents, and you can easily pass on the cost to the national government through UniFAST—you just have to invest in putting up a building and come up with programs that are easiest to get COPC [Certificate of Program Compliance] approval,” Ramos said. “This is why we see a lot of LUCs duplicating courses that are also being offered by many SUCs and private HEIs,” he added.

EDCOM 2’s presentation echoed concerns from State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), pointing to their growing dependence on national subsidies and the strain caused by delayed UniFAST reimbursements.

UniFAST Executive Director Ryan Estevez admitted that the agency lost focus on RA 10687’s mandates after being tasked with implementing free higher education.

Estevez said that in 2023, UniFAST began organizing Technical Working Groups (TWGs) for the harmonization of StuFAPs, starting with a few agencies.

“A number of agencies have since joined, hoping to establish unified guidelines for student financial assistance systems,” Estevez said in a mix of English and Filipino. “But for most of them, there’s some hesitation—because it feels to them like we’re going to take over their scholarship programs… so there’s a bit of reluctance on that front,” he added.

However, Estevez noted that efforts are now underway to return to the law’s original goals, including the drafting of harmonized StuFAP guidelines that will be presented to various agencies within two weeks.

“But we made it clear that our goal was simply to establish harmonized guidelines for StuFAPs,” Estevez explained. “In fact, we’ve already prepared a draft, and in two weeks, we’ll be meeting with some of the agencies to present the draft guidelines for the harmonized StuFAPs—that’s what we’ll be focusing on in the coming weeks,” he continued.

Meanwhile, CHED Executive Director Cinderella Benitez-Jaro said CHED’s limited workforce has hindered full implementation.

She pointed to CHED’s stagnant manpower complement as a reason for UniFAST’s delays in implementing its responsibilities under the law. Despite additional mandates, Jaro noted that CHED has received only minimal increases in plantilla positions since 2018.

“What was added to us with the implementation of [the UniFAST law] were around 18 to 20 plantilla positions, and then under the Transnational Education Law, at least about five plantilla positions were created. But essentially, everything else remains the same,” Jaro said.

CHED Chairperson Shirley Agrupis, meanwhile, noted that much of CHED’s expanded budget—P32.7 billion in 2022—is already earmarked for tuition-free programs and TES, leaving little flexibility for other initiatives, particularly support for private institutions.

EDCOM 2 Co-Chair Representative Roman Romulo expressed frustration over the lack of progress on the National Student Loan Program.

He questioned why UniFAST has yet to coordinate with institutions like the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) or LandBank, which already have student loan schemes.

“Under the UniFAST law, you can ask DBP and LandBank for assistance—they already have their own scholarship programs and are offering ‘study now, pay later’ schemes,” Romulo said. “They’re government agencies too, so I don’t understand why you don’t want to coordinate with them,” he added.

In light of these delays, EDCOM 2 has ordered UniFAST to submit a timeline for fulfilling its nine unimplemented mandates under RA 10687 by August 3, 2025.