MANILA -- Malacañang declared Saturday it supported proposals for a cap on school tuition increases for the coming school year.

Press Secretary Ignacio R. Bunye said that if schools should increase tuition at all, the increase should be within "reasonable" limits.

Bunye did not say how much would constitute a reasonable increase but he recalled in a radio interview that the Arroyo administration has been trying to make life easy for the poor.

The latest pro-poor measures of President Macapagal-Arroyo's government include the cash cards for the poorest of the poor in the identified poorest regions and provinces; getting the Church to help sell National Food Authority rice to the poorest parishioners at P18.50, and requesting Meralco to buy electricity from power providers at cheaper, off-peak hours to help bring down the high electricity rates that the power firm has been collecting from consumers.

Schools and universities have been announcing tuition increases for the coming school year, alarming parents who are already saddled by the rising prices of rice and fuel.

In Metro Manila alone, around 60 private elementary schools out of some 1,000 private elementary and high schools have applied for tuition increases with the Department of Education (DepEd).

The DepEd allows schools to increase their tuition as long as they consult with the schools' stakeholders, with a caveat that the schools should use the additional tuition collected for the following purposes: upgrading of school equipment (70 percent), acquisition of textbooks (20 percent) and salary increases for teachers (10 percent).

The Commission on Higher Education, which oversees about 1,500 colleges and universities, expects only an average of 8-10 percent tuition increases among tertiary schools.