CHED readies charges vs defiant college head

If he persists in operating the school, Mandaue City College president Dr. Paulus Cañete will face criminal and administrative charges to be filed against him by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

Lily Freda Milla, CHED’s director for Local Universities and Colleges and State Universities and Colleges, warned of this action in a live video press conference yesterday.

Milla, speaking in Manila, told reporters in Cebu that CHED already issued notices to the public about MCC’s illegal status.

Dr. Patricia Licuanan, CHED chairperson, said MCC graduates of board courses or programs “shall not be allowed to take any licensure examination.”

Licuanan cited a CHED en banc resolution that stated that the college has no legal personality to operate and lacks government recognition.

The college, which has 1,200 undergraduates and 800 graduate school students, is offering higher education programs and holding educational activities illegally, she said.

“Dr. Paulus Cañete is continuously and illegally defying the closure order of the Commission dated Dec. 3, 2010, by establishing higher education institutions without legal basis,” Licuanan said.

She said the closure order includes the college’s campuses in barangays Tipolo and Jagobiao, Mandaue City and extension schools in the towns of Isabel, Merida and Villaba in Leyte province.

”The authority of CHED is only the higher education program but the physical closure lies with law enforcement units like DILG (Department of Interior Local Government), PNP (Philippine National Police) and the local government,” Milla said.

Milla said students enrolled in MCC can coordinate with the CHED in transferring to other legitimate schools or in the CHED accredited MCC under Dr. Susana Cabahug.

She said they repeatedly reminded the MCC students under Cañete to transfer to other schools.

“We gave Cañete the notice to submit compliance but he refused the notices sent to him and only the MCC under Cabahug was able to comply.

If Cañete doesn’t recognize the CHED, who will recognize him? He’s the only one recognizing himself,” Milla said.

She said a 2008 inspection in the campus showed that classes were held at the lobby of the Eversley Child Sanitarium and Hospital.

Cañete said he was ready for the charges.

“Go ahead, I will face them in court. Why an administrative case when I’m not a government employee?” Cañete said.

He questioned the Dec. 3 closure order saying it was made in the morning of Dec. 8 and implemented later in the same day. Reporter Jucell Marie P. Cuyos