DAP good for education, says CHEd chair

Commission on Higher Education Chair Patricia Licuanan: DAP good for education. PHOTO FROM CHED.GOV.PH

MANILA, Philippines–Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) Chair Patricia Licuanan is the latest government functionary to bear out the supposed goodness of Malacañang’s unconstitutional Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

According to Licuanan, P4.28 billion from the DAP boosted the capacity of state universities and colleges to give quality higher education.

Licuanan said that the “investments” from the DAP three years ago were used to enhance and modernize state colleges and universities (SUCs) which did not have enough in their 2011 and 2012 budgets to fund upgrading projects.

She said that in 2011, DAP improved “the capacity of SUCs to offer relevant and quality higher education,” particularly in the modernization of infrastructure and facilities, and support for research, development and extension (RDE) activities.

DAP also made it possible for the SUCs to strengthen their executive development program, making it possible for them to provide short-term training courses for their academic and administrative officials and financial grants for poor but deserving students.

Out of the P4.28 billion DAP fund, 99.6 percent went to the SUCs’ infrastructure and facilities upgrade. The University of the Philippines (UP) and the Mindanao State University (MSU) received a lion’s share of the fund, with UP getting P1.38 billion and MSU P1.04 billion.

Upgrading UP

Included in UP’s upgrading and modernization were: the construction of the National Science Complex at UP Diliman; the renovation of the Palma Hall pavilions and different residence halls; and the purchase of medical equipment, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computerized tomography (CT) scanners, for the UP Philippine General Hospital.

The MSU in Marawi, Lanao del Sur, undertook 14 “high-impact infrastructure projects” such as the construction of a Science and Technology Center and the College of Information and Technology Building.

Licuanan said that P482.11 million out of the DAP funds went to 40 relevant RDE projects of 21 SUCs which are “expected to produce research and development technologies to benefit more than 400 poor barangays.”

The RDE projects primarily involved climate change impact and mitigation; disaster science; biodiversity; agriculture; food security; health; alternative sources of energy; and education, she said.

Licuanan cited as an example the Bicol University’s nutritional and microbiological analysis of smoked fish, pinangat and pili— which have export potential—to increase their shelf life and come up with “green packaging.”

Income-boosting research

The Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University is researching the income-boosting possibilities of producing climate-resistant tropical fruits, particularly dragon fruit, while the Mindanao University of Science and Technology developed a remote early warning system for floods as well geomorphological risk alleviation measures for watersheds in Cagayan de Oro.

Licuanan said P165 million of the DAP funds went to the executive development program of the SUCs which provided training courses for 1,300 participants to enhance their competency in strategic planning, quality assurance, RDE management, performance-based budgeting, and asset development for resource generation.

She said P500 million went to the Student Grants-in-Aid for Poverty Alleviation (SGP-PA) project which helped more than 4,000 students by giving them full tuition support, a monthly living stipend and other allowances.

‘Generous scheme’

The SGP-PA “is the government’s innovative and generous scheme that intends to address poverty by increasing the number of college graduates among the poorest of the poor households,” Licuanan said.

She said aid grantees are identified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development from conditional cash transfer beneficiary-families. The grantees are encouraged to enroll in priority courses like science and technology, agriculture or fisheries and entrepreneurship.

“SGP-PA graduates are expected to acquire high-value jobs that will lift their families out of poverty and generate employment or entrepreneurship within their families and communities,” she said.

“CHEd hopes that with the continued increase of government support to our SUCs, they would be able to sustain the reforms and development efforts initiated from the 2011 DAP investment,” she said.