UP community indignant over lost billions

MANILA, Philippines–The University of the Philippines (UP) community on Tuesday joined demands that President Aquino account for his P142-billion pork barrel funds, blasting the little response to its plea for additional funding to raise standards.

“UP’s indignation has to do with the fact that through the years, we’ve been requesting for P18 billion as budget to achieve academic and operational excellence, which is the mantra of the current UP administration,” said professor Danilo Arao.

The UP Diliman University Council (UC), composed of around 1,300 professors, assistant and associate professors, issued a statement calling on the public “to remain vigilant and demand accountability from all those culpable” in the misuse of Malacañang’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

UP students, employees and workers also joined the call, citing tuition increase in state universities and lack of wage hike for government workers when billions in public funds were made available to lawmakers through pork barrel.

“In 2013, we were given only P8 billion. This year, there was a slight increase in capital outlay, so the estimated budget is P9.1 billion. The deficit of P9 billion is tiny compared to P142 billion in the DAP,” Arao said.

He said the DAP was more than enough to fund the education of the “iskolar ng bayan” with a population of 55,000 for all UP campuses and roughly P120,000 annual cost of studying in UP. Multiply that by four years and it’s P26.4 billion, he added.

Polytechnic University of the Philippines also has asked for about P2 billion, Arao said, but only half of it was allotted.

“We maintain that public funds should be used properly and democratically for basic social services like education,” Arao said, reading from the UC statement.

While UP may have been an “unwitting recipient” of presidential pork to fund infrastructure projects, Arao said the allotment should not be coursed through the DAP but charged in the UP budget for maintenance and operating expenses.

Professor Marivic Raquiza said it was imperative to push for a special audit of the DAP.