Senator Juan Miguel "Migz" Zubiri stated on Saturday, July 12, that the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) has already become a breeding ground for excellent and competitive young minds, and its revised charter could have helped them excel even further.

"I am disheartened to learn that our measure, the Revised Charter of the PUP, has been vetoed by Malacañang," he said in a statement.

"We have been fighting for a long time to have the PUP be upgraded and institutionalized as our National Polytechnic University, which would have granted them fiscal and academic autonomy and allowed them to provide a higher standard of tertiary education to the Filipino youth," he added.

Zubiri said that the bill had already been vetoed once before in the 17th Congress, so this time, the senators made sure to address and remove the objectionable provisions pointed out in the first veto.

"This, apparently, was not enough. I only wish that the objections to the new measure could have been worked out between us and the Commission on Higher Education before this unfortunate veto," he said.

With this measure, Zubiri said that they could have further democratized the SUC sector and created an avenue for more students to receive their college education from a national university.

While he regrets this "sad outcome" for the measure, he vowed that he would continue to champion the PUP in the Senate.

Palace Press Officer and Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro disclosed on Friday, July 11, that President Marcos vetoed the measure due to non-compliance with some requirements.

She, however, did not specify the qualifications that were not met by the 120-year-old university.