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At present, the Office of UP President Alfredo Pascual is pushing for revisions of STFAP
(Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program). This has made STFAP a hot issue
again not just to organizations who stand against it since its implementation but to all
Iskolars ng Bayan, especially, during the recent UP Cebu Student Council Grand Elections.
Many are now confused whether to support the proposed revisions because of increased
benefits and enhanced STFAP or to scrap it. But for organizations like UP Cebu NKE
(Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante), we remain firm in our stand to scrap STFAP because,
ever since, it has been a smokescreen to TOFI (Tuition and other Fees Increases).
Yet, how does it become a smokescreen? Analyzing the history of STFAP and TOFI in UP will
give us answer to this question.
Hence, the problem of budget cuts to social services like education continued in concurrent
to the policies of IMF. Meanwhile, instead of asserting for greater budget, UP President Jose
Abueva proposed another tution increase. Because of this, students protested the tuition
increases and low state budget with an argument that the increase will cause "social
inequality in the University". To heed the call of the students, a Socialized Tuition Fee
Scheme (STFS) was introduced as a possible alternative to Abueva's proposal (1987).
There were 2 versions of STFS: one made by the University Student Council (USC) and one
made by UP Administration. The USC's version gave emphasis to scholarships and grant-inaids, and the students would be "subsidized accordingly, depending on their family's annual
income." The UP Admin, on the other hand, adopted Math professor Dr. Romero Manlapaz'
proposal that "students who can afford should pay at least full cost of education."
January 30, 1989. The BOR approved Manlapaz' proposal which is now the infamous
STFAP, also known as "Iskolar ng Bayan Program". The Scheme was numeric - Brackets 1-9,
with those in Bracket 1-5 having free tuition with stipends ranging from P4,500 to P8,250
per semester while those in Bracket 9 paying full tuition.
According to UP Admin's 1989 Primer, STFAP aims to: reduce the large state
subsidy and raise the total UP income from tuition and other fees.
The STFAP turned the supposed 'socialized scheme' into 'income generating scheme', said
former UP Student Regent Celdran. At the same time, the then P40/unit tuition hiked to
P300/unit tuition (in UP Cebu, P200/unit) - a dramatic 750% increase!
2006. Under new UP President Emerlinda Roman, an ad-hoc committee headed by
Emmanuel de Dios of College of Economics submitted its proposal to increase
tuition for incoming freshies and revision of the STFAP Bracketing scheme in order for it to
become "realistic".
Their main premise was that due to inflation rate between 1989 to 2005, Consumer Price
Index rose up that resulted to 328% increase in price levels and in levels of family income
as well. However, the de Dios study failed to point out other important points/variables
such as the price hikes, E-VAT, and low wages that does not compliment price hikes.
The committee also proposed to revise the Bracketing Scheme from 9-Numeric to 6Alphabetic brackets.
2007. The proposal to increase the tuition by 300% was submitted to and approved by the
BOR. The students were alarmed and accused the Roman administration to have been
'legitimizing state abandonment'. Nonetheless, Roman responded, "constantly asking the
state for bigger subsidies would be futile in light of recent government pronouncements
about taming the budget." She added (not in verbatim), 'Wag kayong mag-alala sa
300% TOFI. Anjan naman yung ST. FAP.'
April 2011. More requirements were asked for Bracket B Certification and the certification
was made mandatory. Failure to comply will change one's B Bracket to Bracket A.
However, in reality, it is the other way around. Before anything else, one's STFAP bracket is
Bracket A by default and to change that, one needs to either: (1) Apply for STFAP or (2) file
Bracket B Certification.
In other words, each of the Iskolar ng Bayan is assumed to be millionaire before he/she
start applying for STFAP where he/she can prove that he/she is poor enough to pay lower
tuition.
Moreover, it must be noted that with the new process, the base tuition of P600
(Bracket B) now becomes P1000 (Bracket A). Hence, there is a tuition increase by
merely manipulating the process of the current STFAP structure.
However, the Pascual Administration denied that there was re-bracketing and defended
that the adding of more requirements for Bracket B Certification is needed to force the
students to be honest in their application. The admin said that this is to ensure that those
who deserve to be in Bracket A should be placed under Bracket A -- in fairness to other
students and to the school, wherein, the school can gain more.
Scheme, especially, the new policy of the Pascual Administration, only 1 per 100 UP
students has availed free tuition.
Therefore, STFAP has not really served its core purpose. However, there is another
purpose that should be emphasized -- to generate income to address meager state
subsidy and STFAP has, indeed, fulfilled this purpose.
KASAMA sa UP (Katipunan ng mga Sanggunian ng Mag-aaral sa UP) reports, "As a result,
during the implementation of the Restructured STFAP following the 300% tuition increase
from 2007 to summer of 2009, the administration collected roughly P500 million from
the raised tuition, while spending a measly P25 million for STFAP beneficiaries. It
effectively generated almost P475 million profit for the University!"
cut their budget and eventually abandoning them. This is why there is an on-going
proposed revisions of STFAP in UP. From here, it is clear that with the State abandonment,
SUCs, including UP, are walking towards self-sufficiency or in simplest term
-- privatization.
Our Call
STFAP veers us away from the main problem: State abandonment manifested through
budget cuts and pushing SUCs to generate their own income. Its existence hypnotizes us to
readily accept proposals of increasing/implementing tuition and other fees and plans of
leasing our assets to private entities.
Our maximum goal is to scrap STFAP, and at the same time, rollback tuition to an
amount that is affordable to everyone, say P46.50 or lower. This will intensify our call for
greater state subsidy because the government will then have lesser reasons to abandon UP
since the absence of STFAP and the low tuition will make UP less self-suficient.
However, in practical terms, the fight to scrap STFAP and rollback tuition cannot actually be
achieved overnight. Hence, our short term goal is to push the UP Administration to
go back, in the meantime, to the Numeric Bracketing Scheme where the base
tuition is Php200/unit and the range of free tuition is wider. Of course, enhanced process
and increased benefits should also be pushed alongwith.
For the question that goes, "If we scrap STFAP, what will be the alternative?": certainly,
when tuition has been rollbacked to an amount affordable to everyone, there is no more
reason for STFAP and any alternative to exist.
As to when will we achieve our maximum goal, it largely depends on the persistence of the
student movement which must be linked to/with the greater people's movement. For
history shows that students, only by themselves, cannot effect significant changes in the
system.
On the other hand, we express our solidarity to our fellow Iskolars ng Bayan from
other SUCs in their opposition to the government's plan of implementing STFS/STFAP in
their schools. We must save these more-affordable schools such as PUP that has been
offering P12/unit tuition from the fate that UP has been suffering from because of STFAP.
Furthermore, we, Filipino students, youth, parents, teachers, workers, etc. must unite in
pushing for the passage of House Bill 1962 filed by the KABATAAN Partylist that will
repeal PD 1177 that automatically appropriates more than a third of our budget to debt
servicing and will institutionalize appropriation of at least 6% to education and other basic
social services. Though it will not solve the crisis of the Philippine educational system, it
will, somehow, solve the budgetary problem of our education.
Lastly, our mantra should be: our fundamental, inherent and constitutional
rights such as our right to quality and accessible education must be enjoyed by
everyone, regardles of his/her socio-economic status. If these rights are not given,
as history shows, then we must collectively and militantly fight for these rights.
-----------------------------------Main Reference:
Escandor, Alaysa Tagumpay. "Paying Scholar: The Motives Behind the New STFAP."
Philippine Collegian [Quezon] 14 Dec. 2006, 9-10 issue., sec. Lathalain: 8-9. Print.
Other References:
Aquino III, Benigno Simeon. "2011 Budget Message of President Aquino." Official Gazette of
the Republic of the Philippines. Office of the President of the Philippines, 24 Aug. 2010.
Web. 9 Mar. 2013. <www.gov.ph></www.gov.ph>.
Aquino, Corazon. "Restoring Democracy by the Ways of Democracy." Cory Aquino Website.
Ninoy & Cory Aquino Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2013. <http:>.</http:>
Gonzalo, Richard Philip. "Proposal to Revise the STFAP and Student Financial Assistance
Services of UP." University of the Philippines: 25 Jan. 2013.
Mariano, Keith Richard. "Number of UPD students with free tuition hit 6-year low." Philippine
Collegian [Quezon] 3 Oct. 2012, 15 ed., sec. News: n.
pag. http://www.philippinecollegian.org. Web. 9 Mar. 2013.
Palatino, Raymond. "HB 1962 - Repeal of the Automatic Appropriation for Debt Service."
Scribd. KABATAAN Partylist, n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2013. <http:>.</http:>
"STFAP: Mechanism for Systematic State Neglect." Facebook. KASAMA sa UP, 2 June 2011.
Web. 9 Mar. 2013. <https:>.</https:>
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kristian-jacob-casas-abad-lora/why-we-callto-scrap-stfap-a-mini-primer/10151377229129794/