8,000 students to march to Mediola over education budget cuts

Students from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City stop traffic along Commonwealth Avenue as they march to Mendiola Friday, Sept. 23, 2011, to protest the impending budget cuts on state universities. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ /INQUIRER

MANILA, Philippines—About 8,000 students from different state universities and colleges are set to march to Mendiola Friday to demand for sufficient government subsidy for tertiary education.

The “march for education” was part of a series of protest at the University of the Philippines and member schools of the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges.

Malacañang has proposed a P5.54-billion budget for UP in 2012, higher than this year’s P1.39 billion but still far from the estimated P18 billion the UP system would need to properly run its campuses across the country, per estimates of student groups.

This is part of the total P26.1 billion proposed higher education budget for 2012, according to the Department of Budget and Management.  The amount represents an increase of 10.1 percent from the current P23.7 billion budget, with some P500 million to be infused into the development of state universities and colleges.

Student groups meanwhile said the budget “contains an overall cut of P569.8 million” for some 50 state schools. Some 220 SUCs will share the budget as enrollment increases in public tertiary schools amid rising tuition in private schools.

Students who joined this week’s protest came from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, UP Manila, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology, and Philippine Normal University.

Their activities included mass planking.