The state of the Filipino youth under Aquino

THE Filipino youth is said to be hope of the nation. But did the administration led by President Benigno Aquino III able to provide them a promising future during the past five years of his presidency?

As Aquino delivers his sixth and last State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Monday, INQUIRER.net looks back at his promises to the Filipino youth.

During his past five speeches, Aquino only mentioned the word “youth” once.

“We are ensuring that rice farming remains a viable and attractive livelihood. After all, we know that our farmers are advancing in age, which is why it will help our pursuit of food security to encourage the youth to enter this kind of work,” Aquino said in his 2014 speech.

Other than that, Aquino has limited youth issues to providing basic, tertiary and technical and vocational education, curbing unemployment and addressing job mismatch.

K to 12

In 2010, he revealed his desire to implement the government’s most sweeping educational reform program yet, the K to 12 program, which seeks to add two additional years to present basic education curriculum.

“A ‘globally competitive basic education cycle’ expanded from 10 years to the global standard of 12 years,” the president promised in 2010.

The K to 12 was passed into law in 2013 as Republic Act 10533 and the first students under its implementation will graduate as Grade 12 students on March 2018.

In subsequent speeches, Aquino revealed that the pressing problems in the education sector—lack of classrooms, chairs, and books—have been eradicated completely.

“The inherited backlog in books, chairs, and classrooms: erased; while we are working to fulfill the new needs brought about by the implementation of K to 12,” Aquino said in his 2014 Sona.

The Department of Education, in its latest report to Congress, pegged the official classroom shortage at 95,000.

As part of the government’s preparation for the K to 12, Aquino pledged to increase the budget for social services, including the education sector.

“Let us increase…not less than 40 billion pesos in additional funds that go to education, health, social services, and many others because of the right and more efficient collection of taxes,” the president’s 2013 speech read.

In 2015, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has released P31.8 billion to rehabilitate classrooms for students under the K to 12 program.

However, politicians and critics have opposed the education reform program, saying that it is an additional burden for parents and students. Four petitions have been filed so far before the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the K to 12.

Another problem borne out of the implementation of the K to 12 is the displacement of more than 12,000 teachers due to the two-year gap where universities are expecting a drop in the enrolment as students will be entering Grades 11 and 12 in 2016 and 2017, respectively. DepEd said that it will aid the displaced teachers.

Job mismatch, unemployment

According to the latest figures from the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole), almost half of the unemployed population is composed of young people.

In its latest figures, DOLE said that 49.1 percent of the 2.4 unemployed persons aged 15 to 24. Independent think tank Ibon Foundation said that the number should be higher: seven out of 10 young people are unemployed.

“Let’s face it. While we see our youth as dynamic potential innovators and leaders in the present-day world of work, surprisingly, they still compose almost half, or 49.1 percent, of the country’s unemployed population of 2.4 million,” said Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz.

Baldoz said “skills gap” is the reason why many young people are unemployed.

“Skills gap, or the mismatch between labor demand and supply, is the culprit for the high youth unemployment in the country,” she added.

In his 2011 Sona speech, the president has recognized this flaw, ordering DOLE to partner with Commission on Higher Education (Ched), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and DepEd to find a solution to address the issue.

“According to the Philjobnet website, every month there are 50,000 jobs that are not filled because the knowledge and skills of job seekers do not match the needs of the companies […] DOLE, Ched, Tesda, and DepEd are working together to address this issue. Curricula will be reviewed and analyzed to better direct them to industries that are in need of workers, and students will be guided so that they may choose courses that will arm them with the skills apt for vacant jobs,” Aquino said.

In his speeches from 2012 to 2014, Aquino continued to hail the achievements of Tesda and its head, Secretary Joel Villanueva, by saying that thousands of its students were employed, thanks to the agency’s programs. He even credited the partly unconstitutional Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) as a factor in continuing Tesda’s programs.

“The Disbursement Acceleration Program contributed 1.6 billion pesos to TESDA’s Training for Work Scholarship Program. This amount enabled the graduation of 223,615 beneficiaries. 66 percent of these—or, 146,731 graduates—now have jobs. As for the remaining 34 percent, TESDA is helping them find employment,” Aquino said in his 2014 speech.

Higher education

Students have staged large protests during the early years of the Aquino presidency, all stemming from the alleged budget cuts incurred by state universities and colleges (SUCs).

In his 2012 speech, Aquino slammed contrarians by saying that they should attend their math classes to know that the government has increased the budget of SUCs.

From P23.8 billion in 2010, the budget for SUCs has ballooned to P43.8 billion in 2015.

“In 2010, our SUCs were allocated a budget of 21.03 billion pesos. Since then, we have annually raised this allocation; for next year, we have proposed to set aside 37.13 billion pesos of our budget for SUCs. Despite this, some militant groups are still cutting classes to protest what they claim is a cut in SUC budgets. It’s this simple: 292.7 is higher than 177, and 37.13 is higher than 21.03. Should anyone again claim that we cut the education budget, we’ll urge your schools to hold remedial math classes. Please, attend these classes,” Aquino said in his 2012 Sona.

The Aquino administration has poured billions for scholarships—funding P3.5 billion in scholarships for SUCs, P2.2 billion for Ched scholarships and P316 million for research.

‘Turn for the worse’

Militant groups said that the situation of the Filipino youth during the past five years under Aquino worsened.

“Education, employment, standard of living – all of these aspects took a turn for the worse under Aquino’s five-year rule. Tuition rates and the youth unemployment are at their highest, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, while wages remain stagnant if not decreasing. These are the facts that Aquino will undoubtedly omit in his last State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Monday,” Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon said.

Ridon said that tuition rates have rocketed under the Aquino presidency, increasing by an average of 108 percent at the national level, from P257 per unit to P574. About 1.5 million Filipino youth were also out of school, he added,

Meanwhile, National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) national president Sarah Elago said that “commercialization schemes” have intensified under Aquino.

“Education is a public good, but ironically under this regime, it has become a private good because of the commercialization schemes and policies of Aquino,” Elago said.

Filipinos could only hope that the country’s future won’t be forgotten by the president in his last Sona.