State colleges to get P73-B budget this year

MANILA, Philippines — State universities and colleges (SUCs) will get a slightly heftier sum from this year’s P4.1 trillion 2020 national budget at more than P70 billion, to be shared among several SUCs across the country.

A check of the 2020 General Appropriations Act signed by President Rodrigo Duterte last week showed that SUCs were allocated P73,716,148,000 this year, up by 13.9 percent from the P64,711,239,000 in 2019.

The education sector — which includes SUCs, the Department of Education, the Commission on Higher Education and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority — collectively got the biggest chunk of this year’s budget at P692.6 billion.

Among SUCs, the University of the Philippines System, as the national university received the largest allocation at P18.6 billion, up by 9.9 percent from its previous allocation of P17 billion in 2019.

By region, SUCs in Central Luzon will get the biggest chunk at P6.8 billion, to be shared by 12 SUCs. This is higher than last year’s funding of P5.1 billion.

The SUCs in the National Capital Region will receive P5.2 billion, or 35 percent higher than the P3.8 funding in 2019.—Julie M. Aurelio